Library Technology Guides

Statistical Report for OPALS

2013 Survey Results	2012 Survey Results	2011 Survey Results	2010 Survey Results	2009 Survey Results	2008 Survey Results	2007 Survey Results
Product: OPALS Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 213 1 4 11 26 171 9 8.70 9 ILS Functionality 213 3 4 14 38 154 9 8.58 9 Print Functionality 213 4 7 28 174 9 8.75 9 Electronic Functionality 176 3 3 7 12 59 92 9 8.26 9 Company Satisfaction 212 1 2 5 20 184 9 8.81 9 Support Satisfaction 212 4 2 3 17 186 9 8.79 9 Support Improvement 196 1 12 2 6 44 131 9 8.41 9 Company Loyalty 208 1 1 3 5 16 182 9 8.75 9 Open Source Interest 196 13 1 2 2 4 8 166 9 8.19 9 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 215 1 0.47% Considering new Interface 215 0 0.00% System Installed on time? 215 204 94.88% Average Collection size: 22577 Type Count Public 2 Academic 5 School 173 Consortia 0 Special 9 Size Category Count [1] Under 10,000 74 [2] 10,001-100,000 102 [3] 100,001-250,000 1 [4] 250,001-1,000,000 2 [5] 1,000,001-10,000,000 0 [6] over 10,000,001 0	Product: OPALS Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 186 1 1 1 1 9 30 143 9 8.63 9 ILS Functionality 186 3 3 13 45 122 9 8.51 9 Print Functionality 0 0 8.51 Electronic Functionality 0 0 8.51 Company Satisfaction 186 1 1 1 3 25 155 9 8.76 9 Support Satisfaction 184 1 2 1 5 23 152 9 8.70 9 Support Improvement 168 1 1 16 5 5 36 104 9 8.18 9 Company Loyalty 177 1 1 1 2 4 16 152 9 8.72 9 Open Source Interest 170 6 2 3 3 1 2 13 140 9 8.32 9 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 187 2 1.07% Considering new Interface 187 0 0.00% System Installed on time? 187 184 98.40% Average Collection size: 62626 Type Count Public 4 Academic 4 School 136 Consortia 0 Special 12 Size Category Count [1] Under 10,000 78 [2] 10,001-100,000 85 [3] 100,001-250,000 2 [4] 250,001-1,000,000 6 [5] 1,000,001-10,000,000 2 [6] over 10,000,001 0	Product: OPALS Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 79 1 3 2 7 26 40 9 8.20 9 ILS Functionality 79 1 2 5 19 17 35 9 7.95 8 Print Functionality 0 0 7.95 Electronic Functionality 0 0 7.95 Company Satisfaction 80 1 1 7 23 48 9 8.45 9 Support Satisfaction 80 1 1 3 6 19 50 9 8.35 9 Support Improvement 75 1 9 4 5 28 28 8 7.79 8 Company Loyalty 78 2 1 4 2 12 57 9 8.46 9 Open Source Interest 52 6 1 1 2 2 1 1 38 9 7.31 9 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 81 1 1.23% Considering new Interface 81 0 0.00% System Installed on time? 81 78 96.30% Average Collection size: 89790 Type Count Public 0 Academic 1 School 57 Consortia 0 Special 4 Size Category Count [1] Under 10,000 33 [2] 10,001-100,000 33 [3] 100,001-250,000 2 [4] 250,001-1,000,000 4 [5] 1,000,001-10,000,000 1 [6] over 10,000,001 0	Product: OPALS Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 100 2 1 13 20 64 9 8.43 9 ILS Functionality 0 0 8.43 Print Functionality 0 0 8.43 Electronic Functionality 0 0 8.43 Company Satisfaction 100 3 7 14 76 9 8.63 9 Support Satisfaction 99 1 5 11 82 9 8.76 9 Support Improvement 96 1 9 2 3 17 64 9 8.27 9 Company Loyalty 99 1 1 1 3 8 85 9 8.71 9 Open Source Interest 98 5 1 2 2 2 86 9 8.32 9 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 106 2 1.89% Considering new Interface 106 2 1.89% System Installed on time? 106 97 91.51% Average Collection size: 49191 Type Count Public 0 Academic 1 School 90 Consortia 0 Special 4 Size Category Count [1] Under 10,000 35 [2] 10,001-100,000 53 [3] 100,001-250,000 0 [4] 250,001-1,000,000 3 [5] 1,000,001-10,000,000 1 [6] over 10,000,001 0	Product: OPALS Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 42 1 1 1 1 12 8 18 9 7.67 8 ILS Functionality 0 0 7.67 Print Functionality 0 0 7.67 Electronic Functionality 0 0 7.67 Company Satisfaction 42 1 1 1 1 5 11 22 9 7.93 9 Support Satisfaction 42 1 1 1 1 3 10 25 9 8.12 9 Support Improvement 42 2 9 2 5 7 17 9 7.17 8 Company Loyalty 42 2 1 1 1 10 27 9 8.00 9 Open Source Interest 34 4 1 2 4 23 9 6.88 9 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 42 0 0.00% Considering new Interface 42 0 0.00% System Installed on time? 42 37 88.10%	Product: OPALS Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 5 1 4 9 8.80 9 ILS Functionality 0 0 8.80 Print Functionality 0 0 8.80 Electronic Functionality 0 0 8.80 Company Satisfaction 5 1 4 9 8.80 9 Support Satisfaction 5 5 9 9.00 9 Support Improvement 0 not applicable Company Loyalty 5 5 9 9.00 9 Open Source Interest 3 3 9 9.00 9 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 5 0 0.00% Considering new Interface 5 0 0.00% System Installed on time? 5 4 80.00%	Product: OPALS Response Distribution Statistics Category Responses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mode Mean Median ILS Satisfaction 3 1 1 1 7 8.00 8 ILS Functionality 0 0 8.00 Print Functionality 0 0 8.00 Electronic Functionality 0 0 8.00 Company Satisfaction 3 1 2 9 8.67 9 Support Satisfaction 3 3 9 9.00 9 Support Improvement 0 not applicable Company Loyalty 3 1 2 9 8.33 9 Open Source Interest 2 2 9 9.00 9 Category Total Yes percent Considering new ILS 3 0 0.00% Considering new Interface 3 0 0.00% System Installed on time? 3 1 33.33%

Comments

Mediaflex provides the support for our OPALS catalog and they do a wonderful job. They are receptive to feedback and continue to develop new and useful features for OPALS. (Type: School)

We love OPALS. (Type: School)

OPALS has been terrific, very helpful and responsive. For a small library with limited funds you can't beat it. (Type: Synagogue)

MediaFlex is a customer oriented company. They continually strive to improve their product and listen to their customer needs. (Type: School)

Opals ILS is quite good, though still not as robust as Follett Destiny. However, they are extremely responsive to customer requests. (Type: School)

OPALS is a wonderful company to work with and I am very pleased with their support and the product itself. (Type: Public)

We are a non-profit community organization working in family literacy. We maintain our colletion of children's literature in two locations for the use of our volunteers who work with the families referred to our program. We've been using the OPALS system for 5 years now and it is very user friendly. Customer support from Bibliofiche is immediate, attentive and highly competent. Wouldn't change for the world! (Type: Special)

- (Type: Church)

LOVE the flexibility of the Home Page editor, which allows each library to selectively highlight various modules important to their community and determine the size of each: Showcase(s) of library materials, Pathfinders, RSS feeds, News, Websites, etc. (Type: Church)

We LOVE OPALS! (Type: School)

Our ILS provider, Biblio Fiche, has given us wonderful service and frequent updates based on customer concerns. Since a third of our collection is Hebrew language based, it was always a problem to access that part of the collection. Once OPALS was implemented, we can catalog, search, and read in the Hebrew language. OPALS has other features which allow us to manage our collection, including reports and statistics, overdue notices and fines and Z39.5 cataloging. More features are constantly being added to make this program really useful. The cost is also manageable. We pay a hosting fee (not required if you have your own server) and a maintenance fee which is comparable to any ILS company's hosting fee, but the initial cost of the program and migrating our old catalog to the new platform was cost free. (Type: School)

OPALS is the most supportive, ethical company we've ever worked with. We requested additional functionality that we thought would also help other academic libraries. The CEO and the head programmer paid us a visit to see how we worked and what we needed. Within a month, they had a working model they asked us to beta-test before rolling it out for all their libraries. They continue to impress, if not astound, with their helpfulness. (Type: Academic)

Can't compare service with previous years. This is our first year using OPALS (Type: School)

This is our first year using OPALS. Can't compare service with previous years. (Type: School)

Great customer support from OPALS (Type: School)

We have had our OPALS catalog from MediaFlex for several years and I have not had any problems with this system. Communicating with tech support is easy and the OPALS staff is very responsive. This is a cost effective system with a reliable and attractive interface supported by good sales reps and technicians. (Type: School)

The approx. number of items in the library's collection reflects only those items entered into OPALS. Most of our library's nonfiction texts have yet to be added. I left the question of customer support getting better or worse blank because this is my first year of using OPALS. (Type: School)

Already with OPALS through Bibliofile. Love the software and the company (Type: School)

Our library has implemented and integrated OPALS single login / authentication database access. We have also integrated eBook access from various vendors. January 2014, we will initiate OPALS' ePub bookshelf that enables us to actually upload eBooks that we can purchase, that we can now publish within our district, and that allows us to apply and manage DRM where necessary. (Type: School)

- (Type: Special)

I am EXTREMELY grateful for the new function in OPALS that allows librarians to upload cover thumbnails on non-ISBN books. Thank you! It has been a great pleasure to work with OPALS and the fine support team! (Type: Special)

We administer our own product (vs. having BOCES do it). We love the OPALS product and its responsive service. I would recommend this to anyone interested in a dynamic and user-friendly automation system. (Type: School)

Already use open source ILS. (Type: School)

I have been very satisfied with our open source ILS, OPALS. (Type: School)

The recent migration to OPALS has been relatively smooth. The user interface is so much better than InfoCentre. There are a few database queries that we would like to be able to perform; otherwise, it is simple and efficient for collection management. (Type: School)

We have a new Technology Director and the Library currently is focusing on cultivating a reading culture. Next generation technology will follow within two years. Many thanks for the support and a rockin' system to bring the library collection and other great information sources to our school. (Type: School)

While some of the functionality is lacking in OPALS, the company is very willing to explore options to improve. This is a our first experience with open source and we find it very cost effective and effective despite some limitation. (Type: School)

What would make OPALS better is integration of the circulation and inter-library loan modules...currently it's 2 separate processes in 2 separate databases. (Type: School)

System seems slow(er) than past system with regard to the actual daily circulation of books. In addition, many records that were supposed to have been imported over the summer seem to have been missing and we have had to reenter the record manually. (Type: School)

We just migrated this year to an open source ILS. There are still many features the old vendor (Follett) provided that are not features in OPALS, but we are making accomodations. Customer service is very helpful, but OPALS does not have print guides for accessing features. (Type: School)

There are aspects of this ILS like bibliography creation that are extremely helpful. Any other option would have been cost prohibitive. (Type: Special)

This is my first year as the librarian at this school. So far, I am very satisfied with OPALS and with the customer support. My one issue is when service is scheduled during the school day. If the site is down during a class, I cannot circulate books to the students. (Type: School)

My only concern is the timing of system maintenance. When the site is down during the school day, it keeps me from circulating books to students. Other than that, I am very satisfied with OPALS and the customer service. (Type: School)

Have been very pleased with the migration to the OPALS automation system. I find it transparent in the main and easy to use - implementing many features that help me disseminate our information and re-purpose materials in meaningful ways, while saving ME precious work time. (Type: School)

We just migrated to Open Source ILS this year! So far it is great! A bit of a learning curve but not a difficult one. (Type: School)

Media Flex donated OPALS [...] . The ILS was a very appropriate and user friendly option for the library and has served the patrons and staff well. (Type: Special)

Library is specialized in Buddhism and Spiritual practice. Currently has about 3000 collection in English, 7000 in Chinese with material of print books, DVDs, CDs, Audiobooks. The collection was divided into Reference, Regular Loan, Young Adult, Children, Graphic Novel, Special Collection, Periodical, and Multimedia sections. Only 1/5 of the collection is online now. (Type: Theology)

Do not have digital resources to manage yet. (Type: School)

This represents all[...] collections print and electronic. (Type: School)

Starting a small school library from scratch. Chose OPALS and though the interface/user friendliness needs some upgrading and modernization the functionality is superb and I can see only good things for this ILS in the future. Their support is amazing, very personalized and quick to solve problems. (Type: School)

We do not yet have any digital resources to manage. This is our first year using an automation system. We cannot compare service with previous years. (Type: School)

Tthis is year one for us, cannot compare previous year We took a year to evaluate systems and decided that this open source system is ideal for [...] (Type: Academic)

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