Library Technology Guides

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Statistical Report for Voyager

Statistics according to type and size categories

The following table presents the 2015 results according to the type and size of the library.

2022 : gen: 5.35 company 6.15 loyalty 5.70 support 6.70

2021 : gen: 5.25 company 7.00 loyalty 6.87 support 7.39

2020 : gen: 5.81 company 6.77 loyalty 6.90 support 7.13

2019 : gen: 5.55 company 6.12 loyalty 6.86 support 6.63

2018 : gen: 5.27 company 6.29 loyalty 6.53 support 6.40

2017 : gen: 5.66 company 6.23 loyalty 6.57 support 6.23

2016 : gen: 5.58 company 5.98 loyalty 6.38 support 6.03

2015 : gen: 5.75 company 6.05 loyalty 6.27 support 6.08

2014 : gen: 5.78 company 5.93 loyalty 5.66 support 5.90

2013 : gen: 6.15 company 6.02 loyalty 6.21 support 5.86

2012 : gen: 5.75 company 5.76 loyalty 5.81 support 5.57

2011 : gen: 6.07 company 6.21 loyalty 6.10 support 6.16

2010 : gen: 6.01 company 5.90 loyalty 5.77 support 5.79

2009 : gen: 5.91 company 5.73 loyalty 5.51 support 5.72

2008 : gen: 6.01 company 5.59 loyalty 5.14 support 5.57

2007 : gen: 5.51 company 4.93 loyalty 4.15 support 4.88

Comments

Our university has grown significantly in size, and yet the staff of the library has not. The administration does not value the library and does not feel that it requires updated physical space or human resources to manage print or growing electronic collections. Although we need to implement discovery and repository systems and start the process to migrate to a next gen ILS, we simply do not have the human resources required to do any of those things currently. We also have long-term staff retiring and that has been a significant challenge. Although I have tried to use the systems we have in unorthodox ways to manage certain aspects (just make it work), not everyone is on board with this approach. It is very frustrating. (Type: Academic)

We are used to Voyager, and many of us are hesitant to give it up. We are used to its problems and limitations. The new LSP products don't seem mature enough yet. We want the new products to give us at least the same functionality we have now, as well as new features. We have not found a new LSP product that is mature enough to handle print collections. They are built for electronic collections, which is great, but the vendors largely have neglected print collections in their race to develop new products. We want a product that will handle print collections and electronic collections equally. (Type: Academic)

There is currently an open RFP for a new ILS for our consortium, [...] . A discovery layer is not required to submit a proposal. (Type: Academic)

Transitioning to Alma FY 17 (Type: Academic)

Increasingly not liking any of the traditional ILS vendors from a value proposition standpoint. (Type: Academic)

We weren't sure how to answer the question regarding Ex Libris' customer support during the last year. We are happy with their customer service, but it hasn't gotten better or worse during the last year. Since it has remained the same, we put it down as a 5. (Type: Academic)

We are looking for a low-cost system. Our library does not need all of the functions that large ILSs offer. (Type: Academic)

Ex libris is catering to the larger research libraries and is not meeting the needs of smaller libraries. We are looking for na integrated library system and discovery tool that will work well with other systems like google and not be so separate. I would love to purchase the Google ILS. (Type: Academic)

With Voyager eventually ending we need a new ILS. This will be in 2017 at the earliest, given 2016 budgets have been decided. A formal selection process has not been run yet. (Type: Academic)

We are still implementing Summon so no impressions of it yet. (Type: Academic)

We have decided that moving to OLE, under the community-source model will best support the needs of our library going forward. We were not entirely comfortable with the closed SaaS approach of Alma, and not confident that ExLibris could provide the flexibility and access to data that we need as a large, highly complex research library that tends to push the boundaries on how we use our systems. (Type: Academic)

Our consortium has discussed the possibility of changing our OPAC interface, but beyond that there is no good reason to change automation systems at this point. I do not have satisfactory data on how automation vendors are dealing with future changes--making more effective use of RDA, the possible demise of MARC, changes to authority creation, and future BIBFRAME implementation. I will consider migrating when questions regarding the future of our data have been satisfactorily answered. (Type: Academic)

The approximate number of items submitted above is the number of bib records, as not all of our item holdings are barcoded. We hope to migrate to a new ILS in 2018. (Type: Theology)

Voyager Customer Support really hasn't changed from last year--it's still very good. The company overall is very good, and we like its philosophy and direction. However, the cost is becoming prohibitive for us in this era of budget cuts, with new cuts every year. (Type: State)

Because [...] is a member of GALILEO, we will be moving to ALMA. My answers reflect using our current system--Voyager 9.0. (Type: Academic)

We have been with Voyager for 16 years. The system has evolved to do many of the things we have needed over the years but our needs are evolving and there is a sense that it is time to move to a more modern platform. We are at the very beginning of our evaluation process. (Type: Medical)

Strategically, we have decided not to consolidate all library workflows into on singel vendor/product, but rather take a modular approach to library systems. Though both straties (consolidation and modularity) has it's advantages, we decided on the modular approach since we think it will give us more flexibility, and better possibliities to actually work with and develop our workflows. Consolidation would, for us, mean gambling too much on one single tender. We decided on Koha due to it being a mature product with an active community. We will only use Koha for circulation. We would like to do more UX work with the administrative interfaces for Koha. We like open source, but will tender for e-management solutions because (as far as we have seen) there is no open data knowledgebase available. (Type: Academic)

We are potentially interested in both a discovery interface and an open source ILS but have not identified specific candidates. (Type: Independent Research)

The entire [..] has contracted to migrate to Alma, but this is a long migration with the "go live" for Alma projected to occur in May/June 2017. (Type: Academic)

We can't answer question about implementation satisfaction, no history OLE may be implemented at several state universities as a single system (Type: )

The maintenance costs for Voyager are very high, especially for smaller organizations. (Type: Independent Research)

Above number of 50,000 refers to print and media items. (Type: School)

Half of the state universities in Kentucky went with OCLC and the other half went with ExLibris. So far we are happy with our decision to migrate to Alma/Primo. The EBSCO will not let its data be indexed in Primo Central and that OCLC limits the use of it's API to subscribers of its discovery interface are the two biggest things that diminish the value of Primo for us. (Type: Academic)

Right now our digital security folks have disabled our ILS for an unspecified period of time, but I've been pretty satisfied with ExLibris' customer support and willingness to help me figure things out. As for Open Source--I'm sure that those types of programs would probably be considered a security risk. (Type: Medical)

Voyager requires a lot of knowledge of Access, SQL, etc., to run reports and change the public interface and functionality. Easier methods of doing these things should be built into a modern system. Summon is frustrating because of duplicate titles, confusing mapping set-up forms, and slow customer service for basic tasks like indexing or processing mapping requests. Voyager/Summon interfacing is clunky. We hope that the recent acquisition of Voyager by ProQuest will lead to better relations between the two product support teams. (Type: Academic)

We expect to migrate to ALMA/Primo in the 2016 calendar year. (Type: )

We are beginning to implement Alma. (Type: Academic)

As you know, big news this year with ProQuest acquisition of Ex Libris. What does this mean for Intota? We had hoped that Intota would provide good competition for Alma. At this point, ProQuest says they will keep on developing Intota, but we don't think they really know yet. They talk about merging products into best of breed for resource mgmt and discovery. Alma has been a clear front-runner in the academic market and has built in consortial functionality for their new customers, e.g. Orbis Cascade. We have been following this closely as, in Ontario, we are moving into a second phase of a serious examination of the possibility of up to 18 university libraries on some kind of shared LSP, and we are finding that the market continues to be difficult, in that Alma still appears to be the only "next-gen" system aside from OCLC which is seen to be limited; there could still be significant functionality gaps (?); and others (e.g. III, SirsiDynix) are cobbling together updated versions of their old systems together with knowledge bases and discovery layers (e.g. from EBSCO). So -- our perception is that it is very difficult for anyone looking to make a long-term change right now, unless you jump in with Alma and hope that the ProQuest/Ex Libris merger works out well (again, perception as a customer of both and from going to their user group meetings is that they both have lots of talent and we are hopeful of good results -- eventually). However, it has been very disappointing, the pace of development of Intota. We upgraded from Serials Solutions to Intota in summer 2014, and there has been very little functionality development, rather work on performance/back end, with the promise of rapid development that didn't happen -- it really was mostly a change in interface. So -- our perception of Intota is that it may not happen, and that ProQuest sees their KB and Summon to be better, so may graft them on to Alma (?) -- and all this will take time for ProQuest/Ex Libris to sort out. Thanks for doing this survey and all your other work -- it's invaluable for all of us who are investigating the market! New automation system? If yes, under consideration: Alma, Intota (if it develops into a full LSP; we have already implemented Intota ERM with Summon and 360 Link); we will look at OCLC WMS -- these seem to be the "next-gen" options. We will probably have to look at all the others too: e.g Sierra, SirsiDynix BlueCloud (Type: Academic)

We're still Voyager 8 (Type: Academic)

Voyager is now getting very long in the tooth. We are still receiving updates, but there isn't any real innovation going on in the product. Despite the problems with Voyager, we are still impressed with Ex Libris as a vendor. They are very polished, and are committed to continuous improvement of their products and services. (Type: Academic)

The [...] are switching to Alma next year. (Type: Academic)

This survey assumes we are one library, but, in fact, we are a consortial office which currently manages the library's ILS server. (Type: )

Our system is procured, implemented and managed by our consortium, [...] . Consequently some of my answers above reflect that structure. [...] is the one who works with Ex Libris customer service and the decisions regarding a new ILS (open source, implementation timeline, RFP, etc.) are made by [...] committees and central staff. (Type: Academic)

Our library is interested in open source ILS, but our consortium has ruled that out at this point. (Type: Theology)

We presently have good relations with both ExLibris and ProQuest /Serials Solutions. We would like to see how the field of Next Generation ILS' develop before making any move. (Type: Academic)

Our instance of ALMA is not installed at this time. We are working toward moving from Voyager to ALMA at this time. (Type: )

Traditional ILS functionality related to management of physical collections is a "solved problem"; management of electronic collections is getting there. Issues related to discovery and fulfillment, particularly those related to born-digital special collections, consortially managed print facilities and hosted article discovery platforms appear to be beyond the capabilities of current offerings be they open source or commercial. The pace of change and the speed with which Library automation vendors have kept up does not inspire confidence. (Type: Academic)

EDS works quite well with our electronic resources, but less effectively with our print collections. Some of our print holdings do not display in EDS, and because of the complex interaction between the consortium, EBSCO, and the ILS, we unfortunately have not been able to determine why. The process of updating our records is a bit of a mystery. Only one open source product is suitable for our consortium but much of it is still in development. Issues with local development capabilities (staffing) and with ability to influence development without being a development partner. (Type: Academic)

Ex Libris has 3 library systems (Voyager, Aleph and Alma) and although they continue to have a roadmap for Voyager the enhancements aren't very exciting or groundbreaking. The lack of a functional ERM is really holding us back; we are currently using an in-house system to track licensing and information for usage statistics. The investigation of a new system is being done at the consortia level. (Type: Academic)

The discovery interface implementation was scheduled to take 3 months it took almost two years, and still has not performed as expected. Key project managers on the of the vendor side resigned the company before project completion. A lot of the data entry configuration was carried out by library personnel. Did not accommodate a lot of of our subscription services such as EBSCO. (Type: Academic)

The number of items depends on how you count. We have over 13 million documents but they are (for the most part) described at the collection level in the ILS. We have about 200,000 bib records. (Type: Independent Research)

EL doesn't do much for us in regards to Voyager despite expensive software maintenance costs. We haven't done an upgrade since 2012; to version 8.2.0; as a result of RDA changes. We have held off upgrading until a decision was made on a possible replacement. This is now not likely to happen for a couple of years at least. We do all of the VuFind work in-house, albeit not much has been done in the past 2 years for the same reason as Voyager, in case we purchased a replacement. We now need to upgrade hardware as well as software to a later version as our code is based on the the very first version, with some tweaking, and is now becoming problematic. (Type: National)

We do not deal with the vendor directly. We are extremely pleased with the support services from our consortium. Our consortium is looking for a replacement for the current ILS system. (Type: Academic)

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