True Confessions

Melissa LefebvreBibliomation, Inc.mlefebvre@biblio.org

http://expatjane.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

Bibliomation

Bibliomation (in blue) is made up of 50 public libraries and 22 School libraries. Bibliomation is the largest consortium in CT. We are known as the geographically challenged network as we have libraries in all areas of the state.

On the horizon

Dynix logo: http://svn.codehaus.org/jetty/powered/images/dynix.jpg

Bibliomation migrated to Dynix in 2004 to later see Sirsi merge (ie buy out) with Dynix. Soon we were told that Horizon would no longer be supported.

We have no intention on migrating to Sirsi's Symphony product so we turned our attention to open source. We decided to migrate to Evergreen in 2011. But first we needed a proof of concept that open source wasn't scary or immature as some people thought. In enters our BibliOak Project.

BibliOak Project

In our plan, our BibliOak Project (in green) would be made up of small libraries who were willing to be beta testers of Evergreen. None of these libraries would normally have been able to afford our small library module pricing so our CEO, Mike Simonds, made them a deal they couldn't refuse. We got beta testers (guinea pigs) and they became part of our consortium.

The Original Development Partners

LibraryLegacy System# of Item RecordsGo Live Date

Beacon Falls LibraryFollett Circulation/Web Collection Plus 16,000March 3, 2010

Douglas Library, HebronSpectrum46,000March 8, 2010

Jonathan Trumbull LibraryAthena49,000May 18, 2010

Slater LibrarySLIMS ILS29,025TBA
July 1, 2010 ??

Windham Free LibraryNo ILS8,000TBA
July 1, 2010 ??

Juggling Act

SirsiDynix Horizon

Evergreen

Web services

Helpdesk

The terrible twos

Small Libraries

Horizon Informational Portal

Remote Patron Authentication

Email Backup

Logo Redesign

Display Design

PR Materials

Documentation

Project Management

Meetings

More Meetings

Still more meetings

Development partner meetings and timeline

First meeting: Implementation meeting

Web demos of Evergreen

Second meeting: Profiling meeting

Go live. Bibliomation staff at library day of go live

First Meeting: basic information gathering session, including number of workstations, barcode formats, total bibs/items/patrons. General overview of process that will happen. Discuss go live dates.

Web Demos: using a free online meeting tool called Mikogo www.mikogo.com

Second Meeting: profiling meeting lasts anywhere between 2-4 hours where we ask everything about collection, how it behaves, including blocks, fines, loan periods, etc

Go Live: 1-2 people from Bibliomation are at the library on go live date to support library and answer any problems/questions.

Managing Transitions

Bibliomation StaffDevelopment Partners

Vendor ILSStand alone systems

Windows to LinuxILS Migration

CommunicationCommunication

Fear of changeFear of change

Generation gap? Scary cutting edge

Not only did I have to manage transitions for Bibliomation staff, our development partners, but also for our member libraries who were feeling anxiety about the upcoming migration of our own.

As hard as one tries, emails aren't read, information is forgotten and fear takes over....only if you let it.

Managing Transitions Reading

Stages of Transitions

Early Stages

Shock and denial

Guilt

Anger

Negotiations

Later Stages

Acceptance

Moving forward

early stages include shock and denial (refusing to believe what has happened and instead believing everything will be all right), guilt (at not having done or said more or for not being the decedent), and anger (at the decedent or at God).Later, one passes through the stages of acceptance (acknowledging what has happened) and moving on.
Elisabeth Kbler-Rosshttp://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=257

Listservs, IRC chats, weekly meetings for staff, weekly and then bi-weekly calls with development partners after going live, web demos, blogs, Facebook pages were all of the means of communication we had open for our member libraries, staff, and development partners.

Comments anyone?

Staff Client

To ease the transition to the new system, we train the libraries about 1-2 weeks before they go live, leave hard copies of all manuals with them at that time, but we also post all documentation in the main entry page of the staff client along with phone numbers, email address, and forms that they will need in order to contact us. We also included instructional videos.

One thing we discovered in training was that originally under Documentation heading was just Circulation, Cataloging, etc subheadings that would bring them to that part of the site. However, we discovered that staff were clicking on Circulation thinking it would bring them to Check in and Check out. So we added the word Manual in hopes that would lessen the confusion.

Staff Client Training Videos

Copy NPSWF32.dll file into the program/plugins folder of Open Office.

Index.xhmtl

Documentation Instructional Videos Circulation Manual Cataloging Videos Cataloging Manual How to add volumes and items

When adding ahref tags to the index page, you must also include a class with color of blue in order for the page to show to the library staff that these things are hyperlinked. Without the span class added the hyperlinks will work but staff will only know when they hover their mouse over the word that it's a hyperlink.

And then there was 11

LibraryLegacy System# of Item RecordsGo Live Date

David M. Hunt LibraryNo ILS24,000TBA

Douglas Library, No. CanaanFollett Circ Plus19,000Oct 7, 2010

Lebanon Elementary SchoolFollett12,736Aug 30, 2010

Lebanon High SchoolFollett15,000Aug 25, 2010

Lebanon Middle SchoolFollett12,500Aug 25, 2010

Sprague LibraryAthena13,400June 10, 2010

What I've learned

E-mails = black holes

You will be asked to perform magic

There will be uncertainty and confusion

You will be blamed for everything

Take time off for yourself

Data vs. People

Magic imagehttp://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2008/10/livin-the-2040.php

Black hole image:http://lgo.mit.edu/blog/drewhill/files/blackhole.gif

Point finger image:http://www.weightymatters.ca/2009_10_01_archive.html

Question mark image:http://www.yead.dk/conference/

Change image:http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/original/change.jpg