I too am surprised at the brief summary of opinion given on selected library
management systems. As a current Olib user I would disagree with the
negative comments publicised. We undertook a thorough assessment of library
systems to replace Soutron, and implemented Olib 7 in 1998. It has proved
to be a reliable library system which can be tailored to our requirements,
with an easy to use Web opac. New releases of the software include
improvements requested by users and new features. We are now betatesting
enthusiastically Olib 7.1 due for release this year.
No library system is perfect and nothing ever runs smoothly all the time. I
would expect all library management system users would agree with this!
However technical problems may be the result of old hardware, older versions
of the software and lack of financial resources to enable library services
to implement new server upgrades and adopt new versions of software.
Three negative responses do not confirm that Olib is a poor product. Many
Olib users are probably too busy to respond to frequent requests for
information on library management systems which also appear in other lists
including the Workplace and Solo lists. However any prospective purchaser
would do well to get a full list of Olib customers and to contact a wide
selection of their choice for indepth comments on the product. The same
applies for other library systems.
Dwynwen Lloyd
Librarian
Countryside Council for Wales
|