Library Technology Guides

Statistical Report for ALEPH 500

2010 Survey Results	2009 Survey Results	2008 Survey Results	2007 Survey Results
Product: ALEPH 500 Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 105 1 1 7 3 12 18 39 20 4 7 6.41 7 Company Satisfaction 104 1 4 6 10 18 14 31 16 4 7 5.97 6 Support Satisfaction 104 2 7 5 7 14 21 20 25 3 8 5.96 6 Support Improvement 103 6 1 3 14 43 12 6 9 9 5 5.33 5 Company Loyalty 103 6 4 5 6 17 9 22 15 19 7 5.98 7 Open Source Interest 103 16 18 10 10 10 17 8 6 5 3 1 3.40 3 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 106 20 18.87% Considering new Interface 106 62 58.49% System Installed on time? 106 88 83.02% Average Collection size: 1854711	Product: ALEPH 500 Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 133 2 2 1 7 7 16 26 37 31 4 7 6.26 7 Company Satisfaction 131 4 1 5 4 11 20 20 35 25 6 7 6.00 7 Support Satisfaction 132 4 2 5 4 12 24 27 23 20 11 6 5.86 6 Support Improvement 123 3 1 2 3 14 43 19 16 11 11 5 5.67 5 Company Loyalty 132 11 5 5 6 7 11 13 26 31 17 8 5.89 7 Open Source Interest 131 30 10 11 12 12 15 16 15 3 7 0 3.66 4 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 135 16 11.85% Considering new Interface 135 61 45.19% System Installed on time? 135 105 77.78%	Product: ALEPH 500 Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 66 2 1 1 6 5 8 12 20 9 2 7 5.80 6 Company Satisfaction 66 2 2 7 5 7 7 16 10 7 3 6 5.20 6 Support Satisfaction 66 2 1 6 11 4 13 8 13 5 3 5 5.05 5 Support Improvement 0 not applicable Company Loyalty 66 6 3 3 7 7 9 8 8 8 7 5 5.06 5 Open Source Interest 66 9 6 8 3 6 14 5 9 1 5 5 4.11 5 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 66 8 12.12% Considering new Interface 66 37 56.06% System Installed on time? 66 52 78.79%	Product: ALEPH 500 Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 78 4 2 4 2 4 9 15 28 9 1 7 5.69 6 Company Satisfaction 87 5 2 7 5 10 14 12 22 8 2 7 5.16 6 Support Satisfaction 86 5 4 8 4 16 10 13 16 6 4 4 4.88 5 Support Improvement 0 not applicable Company Loyalty 85 11 6 3 6 8 20 6 11 6 8 5 4.65 5 Open Source Interest 87 17 8 11 4 13 13 4 9 3 5 0 3.62 4 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 88 8 9.09% Considering new Interface 88 34 38.64% System Installed on time? 88 1 1.14%

Comments

we are currently actively disseminating FOSS literacy amongst [...] libraries, and this subject is included as a special topic in our LIS school.

We already have a discovery interface separate from Aleph 500. We use Primo version 3

Our library is using many self-check machines (3M), and we need a ILS with SIP2 protocol support, that is why is not possible to change to systems without this protocol, absent in most of Open Source systems.

We have developed Aleph driver for vufind and we are beta testing vufind as Aleph OPAC replacement

Re: discovery interface : already use Primo

We currently are using WorldCat Local but are actively investigating other products as mentioned above.

We are currently working on the migration from Aleph 18.1 to Koha 3.2 and exepect ot have it completed by June, 2011

We regard Exlibris as a strategic partner and will normally consider their products before others in the field.

We found that Primo is a superior product for discovery interface. It allows for much higher customization and flexibility than any other we're considered. We are currently deciding on this product, and will most likely go with Primo.

I think you might need to include discovery systems like Encore and Primo, since they seem to be replacing the ILS as the public face of the online system.

We will have to launch a call for tenderfor a contract to be completed by the end of 2014. We are constained by the IT and secuirty rules of our Institution which limits our flexibility in choice of systems.

The commercial discovery products that look interesting (Summon, for example) are too expensive for us to consider.

There is growing opinion that the current model (SDLN/Aleph) is not sustainable due to the cost/staff resources. It is unknown what direction the network will take or if it will continue.

We are one small library in a statewide consortium of libraries. It is unlikely we would venture to go off on our own, so we are likely to do whatever the University does and currently all the State Universities belong to this consortium. Although it is appealing, I doubt that we can afford the programmers to do open source.

We can only consider acquiring a discovery interface or next-generation catalog if we are funded for this project. Currently we are not budgeted for this.

I think that Aleph is great product for academic libraries, but it is not suited to a library like ours which has very different workflows and circulation requirements.

We are part of the [...] consortium and it is hard to tell from ourpoint of view if problems and solutions come from ExLibris or the [...] office. We migrated over 5 years ago and the system is now business as usual and most of us would just as soon keep the system and never migrate again.

OCLC needs to vastly improve its communication and customer support for their WCL product, as well as the clunky interface. Ex LIbris has pockets of excellent customer service, but is not consistent throughout the company.

Will likely replace ILS within next 5 years.

We are considering migrating to a new ILS within the next three years, and have only begun talking about potential candidates to compare with Aleph. We are open to both proprietary and open source, but are not at a place yet where we can make a coherent list.

OPen Source is intersting. We are watching it but at this point its too early to judge how viable they would be. Ditto outsourcing

We're part of a consortium, so we didn't acquire our ILS from a company, and we don't have any choice in the matter about staying with the consortium support group in the future. The support group is thinking about moving us to Evergreen at some point in the distant future, but again, it won't be our library's individual choice as to whether we implement it or not.

Our ratings for customer support reflect Primo in addition to Aleph. We would rate customer support for Primo as a 1. We would have otherwise given Aleph a rating of 5 (down from last year partly due to what appears to be a company focus on URM).

1) The most surprising shortcoming of ALEPH 500 is that standard indexing, display, and sorting do not make systematic use of uniform titles. Work-arounds are described in a 2002 document available on the support site, but have not been incorporated into new versions and are not widely publicized. Shocking, really, for a system so widely used in complex research libraries. 2) Availability of SaS arrangement is vital to us as a very small staff, and has worked well, but we discovered something unexpected new customers should be aware of. Though Ex Libris support staff in effect act as our systems librarians, they were not as experienced in doing so as we expected, at least for initial setup and configuration. They told us that systems staff in those libraries that have them typically prefer to do things in their own way without the vendor's involvement, so the Ex Libris staff hadn't had much practice in that part of operations. That said, they are capable, professional, responsive, and flexible, and always find out how to get the job done. Some aspects of setup just took more time than we had anticipated, especially since as a special collections library we have some unusual requirements. The online customer support interface is well-constructed and very useful. 3) Failure to meet installation and production schedule was due to circumstances at the library, not any shortcoming on vendor's part.

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