Had a migration meeting on Friday and learned that the timeline has been bumped up by two months! Over Memorial Day Weekend, all holds between our NExpress libraries and the rest of the consortium will be shut off. Questions were brought up about "orphaned" holds and what kind of message a patron will get if/when they try to put a hold on some newly forbidden fruit-like item.
I tried not to hyperventilate, but it was hard. This will be quite the public relations challenge, to put a positive spin on it. I want to do some quick and dirty number crunching to find out if the hold wait time will go up, down, or stay the same. We will be removing 388,176 non-NExpress patrons from the waiting lists, leaving just the 22,656 of us to fight over the best sellers and new releases. I guess the sooner we can break from Sirsi, the sooner we can take full advantage of the wonders of Koha... and the sooner the 10 libraries waiting in the wings can join NExpress. To help take some of the sting out of this transition period, a majority of the NExpress libraries have agreed to open up their ENTIRE collections (DVDs and best sellers included). We will also be pushing the State Library's patron-initiated interlibrary loan system. I'll be turning on whatever switch it takes to allow my patrons to automatically have their requests filled. It will be like Christmas in the ILL department when the books start coming in. The great minds at NEKLS want to use Amazon.com to purchase materials that our patrons want, but are not available from either ILL or the NExpress libraries.
Hopefully, the combination of open collections, patron-initiated ILL and this purchase-on-demand program will keep folks happy. We will have chocolate available at all times, just in case. Tonganoxie needs it right now - I'm leaving to go to the NEKLS office to help with the migration as the new Technology Consultant in early June. Some very lucky soul will be given the opportunity to lead this library through the migration and much more.
Sharon Moreland
Director, Tonganoxie Public Library
Technorati Tags: ILS Koha migrate migration NEKLS open source Koha migrate migration open source ILS NEKLS MaintainIT TechSoup
send chocolate to Tonganoxie, KS!
nice post, sharon. i'd like to kick off the official "send chocolates to tonganoxie public library" campaign. readers: send sweets to sharon's staff at:
Migration Migraine chocolate fund
Tonganoxie Public Library
303 S. Bury
Tonganoxie, KS 66086
:)
beyond needing chocolates, you bring up some good points, sharon. migration is a huge task, and all sorts of considerations lurk beneath the surface. your experiences will help others circumvent potential issues. thanks for sharing your experiences!