[ILL-L] Responses to Requests for Info on Hosted Sites

Mon Aug 18 16:26:08 EDT 2008

Several people have asked me for the answers that I've gotten from others
about being hosted by OCLC. Below is a compilation of those responses. This
information has really helped me, and I hope that it will be just the nudge
my director needs to get us hosted! Thanks again to everyone that responded.

Malynda Dalton
Ref/Access Services Librarian
Texas A&M International U.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hosting has worked well for us. 6200 FTE school. About 400,000 volume
library.

Jeff Heck

Reese Library

Augusta State University

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We are a medium size library and a hosted site and I can't imagine any cons.
We don't have a systems librarian so we would have no one to maintain our
own server and no one who would understand the technical lingo, or be able
to deal with the technical problems that, of course, would arise.  We do, of
course, have an IT department who we can consult but there's no way they
could be devoted to maintaining ILLIAD. For this reason, I really appreciate
the support and convenience of being hosted, particularly around upgrade
times., when everything is done from OCLC's end.

Ken Venet

Barry University

Miami Shores, FL

_________________________________________________________________________________________________
We are a hosted Illiad library and I have to say it is perfect for us. We
are a small/medium size institution serving undergrads, graduate students
(including several doctoral programs), and distance ed students.
We also have 3 libraries: main campus, law school, and law school satellite
location.
By being hosted, our support is provided by OCLC and they have been
wonderful. We just upgraded to 7.3 and they were patient and most helpful.
Unless you have a really good in-house systems librarian, hosted is the way
to go.
Regards,
Susan

Susan C. Tsiouris, MSLS
Head of Public Services
Reference/Instructional Librarian
Psychology Liaison
E-Reserves Administrator
Wolfgram Memorial Library
Widener University
One University Place
Chester, PA 19013

sctsiouris at widener.edu

610-499-4069
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pros-

   - We get reliable prompt service from OCLC's ILLiad HelpDesk.  If the IT
   we contract with were to take this over, we'd have to wait in the queue for
   help.
   - The OCLC's ILLiad HelpDesk are experts with the software.  It's such a
   specialized software that our IT are understandably clueless.
   - OCLC can also host the ILL-related e-mail which works around our
   firewall issues
   - OCLC can quickly fix solve some problems for us instead of giving us
   directions on how to solve it for ourselves
   - Upgrading (with the exception of 7.2) is very easy
   - They are patient and helpful to newbies.
   - They don't charge by the question as our contracted IT people do.  When
   we were first 'going live' I called at least once a day, sometimes more.

Cons (which have hidden Pros)

   - We have to wait until OCLC is ready to upgrade us to the next version
   instead of getting it when it's released.  This works out better for us
   because OCLC tests the upgrade for potential problems.  They also can
   intercede with us with our IT people if there are issues with our set-up;
   it's helpful to have people who speak the same IT language.
   - The extra cost.  But our Support Services Director says it's less
   expensive than the extra IT help we would require.

Does it work better for you to be hosted?

Yes, yes, a gazillion times yes!

 Did you ever have ILLiad on your own server and then switch to OCLC or vice
versa?
No, we've always been hosted.

Are you a large, medium or small-size library?

We like to think of ourselves as a large public library.  We have 21 units.
Last FY we processed 12059 Borrowing Requests and 23603 Lending Requests.

Anything that you would like to add would be greatly appreciated!

Being hosted has helped me do my job.  I came into ILL from Reference
services in December 2003 and begrudgingly received  the barest minimum of
training.  My predecessor's way of telling me about ILLiad was to wave her
hand at shelves of ILLiad manuals and saying: "Just read those.  They'll
tell you what you need to know."  We went live with Lending in April and
Borrowing in December of 2004.  When I had to go on medical leave, the Help
Desk assisted my brand-new supervisor and my staff with any problems that
arose while I was recuperating.  I'm very impressed with the Help Desk
staff.

Heather Campbell

Manager- Special Services (Interlibrary Loan and Books by Mail)

303 North Laura Street

Jacksonville, FL 32202-3505 ill at coj.net  (904) 630-2986

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We are a small academic library (@200,000 vols.)

We are hosted and went live this past Jan.
We never hosted our own ILLiad server.
Went thru an upgrade already which went fine.

PROS
No backups to worry able, nor updates to install (the only CON being you
have to schedule it to their convenience not yours), etc.

CON
You don't know when something is broken until your patrons complain. Our
email notifications were not being sent  for almost a
week (thank God it was summer and slow) and we didn't know it until a patron
complained. We had to contact OCLC support who
quickly knew the answer and started the email server on our hosted sites.
Neither of us were aware of the problem.  Now I know
what to check for so hopefully that won't happen again. But what other
services may stop, I don't know.
But that only happened once and we haven't had any other problems.

We thought there may be a response time problem, but that's not true.

Cost of course is another factor.

Security too. If you have a campus IT dept like we do, they may get nervous
about opening up ports for your hosted site. We had
no problem.

Hope that helps.

j0e

Joseph Umhauer
Assistant Library Director for Technical Services
Niagara University Library
(716)286-8015
jumhauer at niagara.edu

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/ill-l/attachments/20080818/dff720be/attachment.htm