Mike Simonds, Bibliomation's CEO, and I have begun our Grand Odyssey to all of Bibliomation's libraries. We plan to visit each one so that we can bring our members up to speed with our open source exploration and our selection of the Evergreen system as our next generation ILS, with a migration in 2011. This is also a perfect opportunity for our libraries to ask us questions about Evergreen and open source software in general.
The first two libraries we visited were the Middlebury Public Library and the Southbury Public Library. The Middlebury staff are eager to move to Evergreen and would like us to move sooner rather than later in 2011. This is dependent on the software development success in 2010; both Acquisitions and Serials will need to be tested to make sure that they will meet our needs. The Southbury staff expressed their happiness over our decision to move to a standard set of loan periods for our public libraries - 7 days for DVDs and videos, 14 days for new materials, and 21 days for most everything else. This will make it easier for the patrons, they thought. These new loan periods will be in place by July 1, 2010.
We will take a brief hiatus from our odyssey in December so that we can interview candidates for our open Applications Support Specialist position, but will resume in January 2010. We plan to target those libraries that haven't made it to our regional meetings and may still be a bit in the dark concerning our open source plans.
Let the Grand Odyssey begin!
Amy
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Amy Terlaga
Assistant Director, User Services
terlagaATbiblioDOTorg
5 comments:
I'm concerned about a 7 day period for DVD circulation. To have a new DVD or a Video Circuit DVD treated the same as an older one does not seem to be feasible. Please think about creating another category.
I don't think this will work at Ridgefield without the new category requested by Sue - and who will pick up the tab for the extra packaging?
I know standardization makes sense in many instances, but I am at a loss as to how to explain to our patrons in Ridgefield the reduction from a 28 to 21 day loan period for most items. Faster turnaround on new items is a plus (and we do these at 14 days already) but people like having the extra time to read and return other material. I can anticipate a sharp increase in renewals (good for circ numbers, but a pain for the patron to have to go this extra step).
We will be reviewing with the Bibliomation Board the 7, 14, 21 day loan periods. This will need to go to our Circulation Standards Committee sometime in January, as a number of libraries have suggested we add another, shorter (like 2 or 3 days) loan period for DVDs and videos.
Phew! Just set up to join in the fray.
At dbneck we haven't gotten near breaking the news to our patrons about reducing the standard loan period from 28 to 21 days as Mary says.
It's simply because we're having "issues" with our Board buying into the idea.
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