I am not a teacher librarian, but am hoping to become one in the near future! Our school library only recently became online, but I don't know what system they are using. So far, the way it's set up is that you can scan in books or check them out, but we are not able to search online for anything. Bearing that in mind, I looked at Follett because the assignment description mentioned that many schools use Follett for their integrated library system.
Looking at their website, I noticed that it is very school friendly. It has a community for educators and an iPad / iPhone app for e-readers in which students can check out books on-line but read them without wifi access - which is pretty cool!
The automation article on Digital Shift mentioned that Follett is 3rd in amount of personnel but the number of libraries served isn't comparable between schools and academic and public libraries. It also mentions that it's popular in school and small libraries, and that it's older products still remain viable. It's newer products are growing in popularity and have been expanded. Follett seems very suitable for a school library - my impression is that it caters to school libraries.
The library management software also offers a mobile app for teachers and students to use to search the library's resources that also would probably be helpful as the library administrator. There are "add ons" that you can use to have students search by their reading level and "Title Peek" that might help students as well. There are parts to help with inventory and other library tasks. It looks like it covers the major fundamentals like acquisitions, cataloging, and statistic reports.
There are probably other systems that cater to schools as well that would be worth looking into when making the decision for your library. Follett does seem to be a solid choice for a school library that would effectively help you to manage the school library and its resources efficiently.
This looks like a really good option. I know we used Follett to find catalog information for some of my other classes. It might be a great program to use for copy cataloging as well as to keep track of your collection and check out items. I especially like that it has apps for teachers and students to use when they're away from school. Thanks for sharing about it!
ReplyDeleteI looked at Follett after reviewing your post. I had never used it before. It seems user friendly and I also really liked the add-ons feature. I am also very excited whenever a product has an app to accompany it. That makes things very nice.
ReplyDeleteI use Follett's Destiny software at DeSmet and I love it. I haven't written my post yet, but will try to include as much as possible about all it does and has to offer. I've only used it for a year, so still have more to learn but see on various library websites that lots of schools use it. Unfortunately, Destiny from DeSmet is not accessible to our students from home or outside of school to see search the collection, , etc...which I notice many other schools offer. I'm not sure whether this is a separate fee that is paid to allow this service or not, but do know that Follet offers lots of extra options at a cost.
DeleteThere are others, but Follett is a solid choice. There's lots of functionality, but you don't have to start using all the features at once -- you can start with the basics. As with any state contract, you do have to regularly look around and evaluate the competition and see what other options are out there. When you are given that rather daunting task, remember the annual article -- the automation marketplace article. That's what you're going to use to make the task manageable.
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