Library Technology Guides

Statistical Report for Polaris

2012 Survey Results	2011 Survey Results	2010 Survey Results	2009 Survey Results	2008 Survey Results	2007 Survey Results
Product: Polaris Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 152 2 4 8 29 64 45 8 7.87 8 Company Satisfaction 151 2 2 1 6 9 17 60 54 8 7.83 8 Support Satisfaction 152 1 3 2 5 11 44 44 42 7 7.52 8 Support Improvement 144 2 3 8 50 19 17 16 29 5 6.37 6 Company Loyalty 152 1 1 2 14 3 21 24 86 9 7.97 9 Open Source Interest 149 50 19 23 22 12 10 8 3 1 1 0 2.11 2 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 161 2 1.24% Considering new Interface 161 6 3.73% System Installed on time? 161 149 92.55% Average Collection size: 411671	Product: Polaris Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 102 4 1 3 3 19 37 35 8 7.77 8 Company Satisfaction 100 1 2 3 2 4 15 36 37 9 7.80 8 Support Satisfaction 100 2 2 4 2 6 22 29 33 9 7.55 8 Support Improvement 97 3 1 2 2 6 23 10 12 18 20 5 6.37 7 Company Loyalty 100 1 2 2 2 2 2 9 28 52 9 7.95 9 Open Source Interest 99 46 12 20 8 2 6 3 1 1 0 1.48 1 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 106 2 1.89% Considering new Interface 106 8 7.55% System Installed on time? 106 101 95.28% Average Collection size: 541249	Product: Polaris Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 101 1 3 2 1 3 17 42 32 8 7.77 8 Company Satisfaction 100 2 2 6 3 14 32 41 9 7.83 8 Support Satisfaction 101 1 4 1 4 3 18 30 40 9 7.74 8 Support Improvement 100 1 1 2 3 17 11 6 33 26 8 7.11 8 Company Loyalty 100 1 1 1 2 4 6 8 25 52 9 7.92 9 Open Source Interest 100 41 13 17 6 6 5 5 4 1 2 0 1.98 1 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 104 6 5.77% Considering new Interface 104 10 9.62% System Installed on time? 104 99 95.19% Average Collection size: 356804	Product: Polaris Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 92 1 1 2 1 1 13 52 21 8 7.79 8 Company Satisfaction 92 1 1 1 4 4 6 48 27 8 7.80 8 Support Satisfaction 91 2 1 2 1 1 17 45 22 8 7.68 8 Support Improvement 87 3 1 1 3 13 12 8 29 17 8 6.83 8 Company Loyalty 91 3 1 1 1 5 2 5 37 36 8 7.68 8 Open Source Interest 90 27 21 13 2 6 10 4 3 3 1 0 2.28 1 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 92 6 6.52% Considering new Interface 92 6 6.52% System Installed on time? 92 85 92.39%	Product: Polaris Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 51 2 3 4 5 21 16 8 7.73 8 Company Satisfaction 51 4 3 2 5 15 22 9 7.76 8 Support Satisfaction 51 1 4 4 3 8 11 20 9 7.41 8 Support Improvement 0 not applicable Company Loyalty 52 3 1 1 2 1 2 3 14 25 9 7.33 8 Open Source Interest 51 15 13 6 3 2 7 1 1 3 0 2.29 1 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 53 5 9.43% Considering new Interface 53 3 5.66% System Installed on time? 53 48 90.57%	Product: Polaris Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 59 1 1 1 5 12 18 21 9 7.78 8 Company Satisfaction 64 1 1 3 2 11 20 26 9 7.89 8 Support Satisfaction 64 1 3 2 8 17 33 9 8.11 9 Support Improvement 0 not applicable Company Loyalty 63 2 2 2 3 5 7 18 24 9 7.49 8 Open Source Interest 62 20 11 11 3 5 4 2 3 1 2 0 2.27 2 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 64 1 1.56% Considering new Interface 64 2 3.13% System Installed on time? 64 1 1.56%

Comments

Over half of our collection is now ebooks. (Type: Academic)

Overall the customer support is good. We went through a period of time where our site manager was slow to respond, but that has improved significantly. I think Polaris tries hard, and mostly succeeds, in putting out a good product and making it flexible enough to suit large and small libraries. (Type: Public)

Good service from Polaris, but the newer products they are offering (Fusion, WebAPI, ebook services) are priced beyond our budget. (Type: Consortium)

Our library system has recently been reorganized so that we are now only a City library system instead of a City/County library system. (Type: Public)

The lack of barcode validation would have been a deal-breaker had we known. We have had numerous problems because of it. The remote desktop interface drives me nuts with windows jumping around the screen, sometimes partly off the screen. With three servers and no way to tell which one you are connected to it makes troubleshooting very difficult. The bulk changes feature is my favorite feature. The overall lack of attention to detail is appalling. For instance, in bulk item creation, you have to tell the system how many barcodes you are scanning in, even though it should know because they scanned them in. (Type: Public)

Decisions are made at the system level (Type: Public)

we will not migrate to Polaris until Spring 2013. we currently use III, Millenium ILS. (Type: Public)

Polaris is more focused on public libraries, not academic libraries. They are working to improve their academic focus. (Type: Academic)

Have had Polaris since July 2012. (Type: Public)

Price of Polaris is difficult to sustain in these economic times. (Type: Public)

There are some features we would liked to have changed about our system but did not have the option to do this (such as larger screen shots). I'm not sure if there was a lack of flexibilty or if it was a pricing issue with our consortium. (Type: Public)

Polaris is great to work with! Can't say enough about all the Polaris staff I deal with; all fantastic. (Type: Public)

- (Type: Consortium)

Currently in transition from SIRSI to Polaris. Go live date in Polaris will be [later in ] 2012. (Type: Public)

Using BiblioCommons as a discovery interface to Polaris (Type: Public)

several subsystems in use in the library have their own Discovery interfaces (i.e., MediaBank dvd dispenser, OverDrive, 3M Cloud) (Type: Public)

[...] Also we are a hosted Polaris site and so are ILS is in the Cloud not onsite. (Type: Academic)

Still not happy how Koha handles records for search access (Type: Public)

Not yet using this system still using Horizon (Type: Public)

From look-see to contract to implementation, vendor support has been exceptional! We made a great choice (Type: Public)

Polaris is all about customer service. I appreciate their personal touch. (Type: Special)

If or when the [...] open source catalog is as robust and offers as many features as Polaris, and would be cheaper to maintain, I would consider switching. I also am a fan of OCLC's Worldshare, however, it is way to expensive. (Type: Public)

Polaris support has not been responsive. We don't feel a close relationship/partnership with the vendor and what we had hoped would be a state of the art ILS is somewhat stagnant because of the in-house effort it takes to implement changes and improvements. We felt more support from our previous ILS vendor, SIRSI-DYNIX. (Type: Public)

Approximate number of items was last updated (in our records) around March of 2012. It's most likely closer to 250,000 today - but there is currently no hard data to back up this claim. (Type: Public)

Because of cost, the days of maintaining our own server and support staff onsite may be numbered. Polaris is not as expensive as other ILS vendors, and they support us well, but we may be forced to join a consortium to better utilize our diminishing resources. (Type: Public)

Polaris support has always been excellent. The past year they have experienced quite a bit of staff turnover. Currently we are not getting the same response we did in the past--longer time in receiving a reply from our Site Manager, upgrade date pushed back because it wasn't properly scheduled, etc. (Type: Public)

We have only been on Polaris for one year, so I cannot answer whether or not customer support has gotten better or worse. Overall, we are happy with the move to Polaris, off of Horizon. (Type: Public)

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Library Technology Guides is a service provided by Marshall Breeding, independent consultant, author, and speaker.