Katie+A-K

Katie A-K

To: Principal & Budget Managers From: Katie Archey Kerwood, Librarian Re: Alexandria Renewal 2014-15 and proposal to switch to “Alexandria in the Cloud”

The Middle and High School Libraries have subscribed to Alexandria since 2000. Alexandria has been a wonderful product.

The Librarians and the IT Department would like to propose switching from in-house hosting of Alexandria to “Alexandria in the Cloud.”

From an IT perspective, switching to “the cloud” will provide the following:
 * Minimal “down time”
 * Automatic upgrades
 * Automatic updates
 * Tech Support – 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – by phone or email
 * No need to replace aging servers
 * No need to maintain servers
 * Fewer librarian “errors”
 * Frees the IT department to concentrate on other projects

From the Librarian’s perspective, switching to “the cloud” will provide the following (in addition to above items):
 * Frees the librarian to work with patrons
 * Automatic back-ups and archiving vs. daily manual back-ups
 * Additional time for Librarian to work on other projects

Adding Alexandria in the Cloud will increase the yearly cost from $799 to $999, but the savings in librarian and IT staff time is exponential!

Please find below some of the excellent features available to assist Librarians in Alexandria:
 * Statistics (customizable)
 * Alexandria’s Tip of the week e-mails
 * Alex-Net listserv
 * e-newsletter archives
 * MARC records – uploading from vendors and Z39.50 libraries (free)
 * Optional add-on for NoveList and Textbook Tracker
 * Online training videos and documentation
 * Librarian’s Corner Support Page: http://www.goalexandria.com/support/lib_corner/index.html
 * Excellent customer support – 24/7/365

Library patrons, both students and teachers are able to take advantage of the following features within Alexandria:
 * English – French – Spanish interfaces
 * Simple v. Advanced Searching
 * Boolean Searching
 * Access to Personal Accounts – save searches
 * Partnership with OverDrive – e-books and audio books
 * netTrekker – access to reputable websites
 * App available for iOS

The high school and middle school librarians would like to continue with Alexandria as our catalog for the middle and high schools, while adding “Alexandria in the Cloud” to better serve the students and employees within the district.