Library Technology Guides

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Statistical Report for Destiny

2022 : gen: 7.20 company 6.99 loyalty 7.01 support 7.22

2021 : gen: 7.42 company 7.51 loyalty 7.57 support 7.74

2020 : gen: 7.50 company 7.70 loyalty 7.49 support 7.68

2019 : gen: 7.47 company 7.49 loyalty 7.13 support 7.61

2018 : gen: 7.46 company 7.56 loyalty 7.01 support 7.59

2017 : gen: 7.46 company 7.62 loyalty 7.30 support 7.64

2016 : gen: 7.54 company 7.62 loyalty 7.24 support 7.57

2015 : gen: 7.37 company 7.49 loyalty 7.10 support 7.50

2014 : gen: 7.22 company 7.43 loyalty 6.94 support 7.43

2013 : gen: 7.75 company 7.84 loyalty 7.73 support 7.80

2012 : gen: 7.17 company 7.67 loyalty 6.67 support 8.02

2011 : gen: 6.97 company 7.24 loyalty 6.46 support 7.24

2010 : gen: 6.65 company 6.35 loyalty 6.09 support 6.57

2009 : gen: 7.20 company 7.40 loyalty 6.93 support 7.53

2008 : gen: 7.13 company 8.25 loyalty 7.25 support 7.38

2007 : gen: 7.14 company 7.20 loyalty 7.00 support 7.10

Comments

[Provided updated contact and collection details.] (Type: Public)

We just migrated to Destiny over the summer of 2014 from Horizon, so we're still in the learning phase. (Type: School)

Destiny is a very good product. Follett is hosting this program for us. there are a few things that I am not happy with. Printing bar codes for books is not friendly and at this time you can not put book titles on them and the school name is too far above the bar code and gets cut off. Also this program is not as good as its predecessor circ+ in calculating fines. It is not flexible and I have lots of problems with it not calculating fines correctly. (Type: School)

would be nice to have a "n/a" option. Some of the questions were not applicable to our ils system. (Type: Public)

New Student Management system is not meshing with Destiny. Newest upgrade still causing some difficulties, and still does not have clear "Help" directions. "Help" searching and directions are too narrow or too broad. Does not provide distinct instructions for entire process. (Type: School)

We are very new to Destiny, but, so far we are very pleased with it's features. (Type: Public)

I am happy with my ILS software at this time. The decisions about what we use are handled by the district level Media and Instructional Technology Department. (Type: School)

Follett has open source products to search in their One Search and Universal search programs, I believe. (Type: School)

my problems are with our district as they supply most of the support. Destiny has been running so slow! It may be a server problem or not... (Type: School)

While taking this survey I needed to find the definition of Open Source. Based on what I read, I believe Open Source means that our catalog is available to all patrons in the district on site and off. If this is the actual definition then we do indeed have open source options through Destiny. (Type: School)

We have no electronic resources at this Elementary School Library. Decisions regarding upgrading, migrating, etc. are made at the High School Level. (Type: School)

While we are very satisfied with Follet and Destiny there are areas in which they could improve their product. I know they listen to their customers and use suggestions to upgrade the program but I also feel they could improve this process. (Type: School)

I find the reports in the Destiny system very limited. I also have issues trying to batch process patron and material records. This system was a replacement for InfoCentre. InfoCentre was much more user friendly. (Type: Public)

While one of the newest features of Destiny, Universal Search, allows libraries to create and integrate local content that is stored on our server(s) and accessed through Destiny. We have no plans to use Universal Search in the near future. Two years ago, the library team was reduced from thirteen to seven. With a retirement in June 2014, that position was lost to attrition. Support staff has also been reduced from a total of seven to three full-time and one 5.5 hour per day position. I am retiring in January 2015 due to the changes made in my position this fall when I was staffed slightly more than half time in an elementary library. There has been no public discussion about whether my position as library/technology specialist will be retained. I don't believe that it will. I will keep following your research as I continue to look for a position more in line with my professional skill set and my passion for the use of technology in education. (Type: School)

The most important consideration is cost -- we will adapt as needed to the product that can do what we need at the lowest cost. We will consider adding a discovery interface when we have the funds that will allow us to consider implementing such a tool. This sounds contradictory because we will not consider an open source product, which is essentially free. However, we have had some good and some less-than-stellar experience with open source software, so I'm being cautious about using it for such a critical piece of our operation. (Type: Public)

We like this system for print but its harder to add in digital resources that aren't purchased from Follett (Type: School)

Our District acts as the go-between with Destiny. As individual librarians, we do not really have control over the Big umbrella, either updates or installation. (Type: School)

Destiny is a product geared for school libraries, so it has functionality not relevant to our public library, while missing functionality we'd like to see. (Type: Public)

Follett is the 4th software I managed and the first to focus on K-12 schools. It is a pleasure working with a company that puts our needs first. (Type: School)

Have always had great results with Follett (Type: School)

The current ILS system was chosen based on cost and time restraints, but in my opinion it was a poor choice. It lacks certain features we want like being able to look up what people have read in the past, it was aimed at schools not public libraries, and it can be buggy sometimes. (Type: National)

We had the option to join our library system's [...] but chose to remain a stand alone system. We like the system we are on. It serves our needs at this time. (Type: Public)

We are not happy with ProQuest Summon. We found after purchase that we had to have a proxy server for the 360 Link Resolver to work. We are stuck in a three year contract. (Type: Academic)

Follett's Assets Manager is an inventory program for computers, ipads, equipment. Schools are purchasing this manager instead of Textbook manager based upon the 1-1 computer initiative. (Type: Consortium)

We just implemented the Destiny system, so the question about customer service being worse or better I can't really be sure of. The change from Horizon to Destiny has been pretty smooth. Am I the only one on your list? I am only one of 33 librarians in my district. (Type: School)

Overall generally satisfied with vendor and product. (Type: School)

Five campuses use Destiny but I answered the survey questions based only on our public community library use. (Type: Public)

We are a non-circulating research library that houses primarily special collections materials and rare books. It's difficult to find a proper ILS that doesn't have circulatory functions, and Open Source materials are looking like the superior option. However, finding an Open Source ILS system that doesn't require programming knowledge, SQL, or other interfacing experience is also a difficult task. I'm currently considering making a slapdash cataloging system out of Google documents, sheets, and forms and seeing how that runs alongside a temporary OCLC membership. Oh, yeah, none of the stuff in my library has ever been fully cataloged in 80 years aside from the materials in the reading room, which were done (mostly incorrectly) on Follett Destiny software, and given book labels for circulation that doesn't happen. (Type: Public)

Is this survey about open source? I have a strong opinion. As part of a consortium (the school and public library) our libraries used sagebrush. When sagebrush was sold to Follett, the Libraries migrated to Evergreen, an open source ILS. The open source ILS was terrible for the school library. It worked fine for the public library, with a staff of 9 to manage all the different elements of making the program run. At the school it's just me. The public library did not give me the support needed to make Evergreen work in the school. Because of this, the school library left the consortium. It wasn't easy. But I am much happier with Follett. Being the only staff in the library I needed an ILS that was going to be easier for myself and the students. I needed support (something not offered by Evergreen). Open source it not free. It ended up costing twice as much as Follett. With a limited budget it made sense to switch to something that would cost less and be more efficient. (Type: School)

This system was not chosen by current director, who would have done a lot of research before choosing. The circulation system is designed for schools and very few public libraries in Iowa use it. (Type: Public)

Just wish Follett Destiny was more public library oriented instead of school oriented. (Type: Public)

We recently migrated from 250+ individual servers on campuses to a union catalog using the Destiney ILS and Follett has gone above and beyond helping us with this radical transformaiton! (Type: School)

It will be appropriate for follett to get someone to do the installation or visit their clients to check if it's well done, especially those in Africa region. Follett has not made much in impact in Africa especially Ghana. AlMost all the institution who bought it has serious challengers. (Type: Academic)

Destiny is very friendly and easy to use on the patron side. However, on the librarian side, and especially the first year after the initial conversion, the back office does not offer utilities that easily clean up issues. The barcode and spine label printing process is still limited by the Adobe configuration settings (cannot change font, or alignment on barcodes). I am also finding it difficult to generate reports that contain only the information I need. (Type: School)

The number of items in our collection is district-wide - among 4 libraries. The biggest drawback of this ILS is the report feature. Getting the desired information is often very cumbersome and the end report is often not visually user-friendly. Also there is no way I know of to track the number of times an e-book is accessed through the ILS. Maybe there is a way to do this report, but since the report system is so cumbersome, the only way I could find out would be to call their tech. services. But the system is very reliable in terms of managing the print resources and equipment in our libraries so overall it functions well. (Type: School)

Follett in a great system for schools, but not very accommodating for small rural public libraries, especially with providing reports for the year end, very cumbersome, if they are going to sell the public libraries, they should create reports to support them. (Type: Public)

Will try to send # items in library's collection separately. Excellent working relationship with our core team at Follette (Type: School)

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