Lisa

Library Media Center  Anna Reynolds Elementary School   Newington, CT    April 28, 2014 Dear Dr. Collins and the Newington School Board:

Thank you for the opportunity to submit my recommendation to you regarding the board’s proposal to switch our library automation program from Follett Destiny to COMPanion Corporation’s Alexandria. In my research, I considered basic library functions, integrated purchasing and collection analysis, searching interfaces, customer service, and cost.

Destiny and Alexandria both perform basic library functions well. Both systems reliably handle the circulation of materials and the management of student and item records. Both are web-based and accessible remotely. Both Destiny and Alexandria do an excellent job with cataloging. They pull together many sources to create bibliographic records, which are easily imported to the catalog. Several librarians I know think Alexandria’s interface for these clerical tasks is more interconnected and intuitive than Destiny’s, which may save time in the long run.

In terms of integrated purchasing, Destiny’s Titlewave feature merges the Destiny automation system with Follett purchasing services. I have found it easy to use and seamless. However, Alexandria coordinates its services with many companies, including Baker and Taylor. Newington High School already purchases most items from Baker and Taylor. Our library department chair, Maureen Plourd, is happy with Baker and Taylor for both purchases and processing, so I don’t foresee any difficulties in this area. Like Destiny’s TitleWise service, Baker and Taylor will also perform collection analysis.

With the advent of the Common Core and 21st century technology, research has become key to lifelong success. Searching for materials in the catalog needs to be easy and appealing. In this area, Destiny and Alexandria each have their own advantages. The default search screen of Alexandria is more visually appealing to students. Destiny’s default screen is unattractive, but Destiny does have an alternate search option for students, Destiny Quest. Many students gravitate toward Destiny Quest because they can create their own profiles and keep track of their reading. However, if it’s truly important for students to interact with reading sites in this way, we can always let them create profiles on BiblioNasium or another website. Both systems provide “sounds like” or “did you mean” alternates for searching, and can show Lexiles, grade level equivalents, and connections to different reading programs.

Customer service and tech help are important to the smooth running of our Media Centers. Destiny’s hours are more limited—they take phone calls from 6 A.M.-6 P.M. CST, Monday-Fridays. Alexandria ‘s technical support is available 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. Those of us who bring work home will appreciate the weekend help if we switch to Alexandria.

Since the majority of features above are equivalent, the central issue here is price. At present, our Follett Destiny system costs us $2,800 per site, per year (for a total of $19,600). Over the next five years, our total payments (for our seven schools) to Follett would be approximately $98,000.

If we switch to Alexandria, our start up cost would be approximately $2,700. Alexandria does not charge for updates, but the annual maintenance cost for our seven sites would be approximately $7,000 per year total. Over a five year time period, then, costs for the school system for Alexandria would amount to $37,700. This amounts to a five year savings of $60,300. If we switch to Alexandria, another component cost-wise could be training. Training options include free webinars all the way up to an onsite one day training session for approximately $2,700. However, even with this fee, our savings with a switch to Alexandria is enormous.

In summary, although Destiny has some features that I would miss (especially Title Wave, Title Wise, and Destiny Quest), these features aren’t crucial enough to justify the difference in price. Our Library Media budgets have been declining every year, and as Dr. Collins mentioned, our yearly savings could provide a boost to our annual materials budgets.

Therefore, I agree with the board’s proposal to switch to the Alexandria automation system.

Attached to this letter is a summary chart comparing features of the two systems.

Thank you for your time.

Lisa Rosenman


 * || ** Destiny ** || ** Alexandria ** ||
 * Percentage of K-12 market || More than half of school market--59,845 libraries || 13,488 libraries ||
 * Customer service hours || 6 AM-6 PM CT M-F || 24/7 ||
 * Interactive components for students || DestinyQuest || None ||
 * Cataloging || Many sources for cataloging || Locates MARC records from 100s of sources ||
 * Report/statistics generation || Customizable, but some librarians are frustrated by limited options || Customizable ||
 * Ease of purchase connections || Titlewave || Partners with Baker and Taylor, as well as Capstone ||
 * Collection analysis || TitleWise || Can be done through Baker and Taylor (and others) ||
 * Mobile apps || Mobile app: check out, check in, patron status, item status || Mobile Bluetooth barcode reader to check out books ||
 * Ease of searching || Possible to add a misspelled word function, through district administrator; option for a visual search || Colorful, attractive default searching screen; “sounds like”searching option; option for a visual search ||
 * Ease of interface for LMS || More clicking around, and sometimes common tasks aren’t connected together; may freeze if a patron has a message || Seems to be more intuitive with less clicking around ||
 * Cost averages || Approximately $2,800 per year per site || Set up: about $2,000; annual fee of roughly $1,000 per site ||