Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs/Staff training/testing
Grand Rapids Public Library made all of it's training materials available via the Michigan Evergreen wiki when we went live: http://mlc.lib.mi.us/wiki/index.php/Grand_Rapids_Public_Library_Training_Documents These are actually more a users manual that we used as written support for formal training classes. There's much more in them than can be covered in the training time we had, but they serve as a reference and, for those able to train themselves by reading the manual, more in-depth training docs. If you're interested in what classes we held and what we actually covered in those classes, look at http://mlc.lib.mi.us/wiki/index.php/Class_Contents Staff were required to attend certain classes depending on their responsibilities and we spent roughly 6 weeks in training to get everyone through the classes they needed, holding 35 classes total for roughly 400 (no, our staff isn't that large, they just had to take multiple classes). This was our third migration to a new system in just the years I had been with GRPL and we knew how important formal training that tapped all the various learning styles would be to the success of our project, especially with the (mis)perception of greater riskiness to the migration, given Evergreen's open source nature and all. As indicated on the index for them, these docs relied heavily on those created before them (the Evergreen community to the rescue once again!) and on our specific situation. I'm afraid they haven't been updated since we went live 2 years ago, though we have a set internal to us that gets updated regularly as we learn more and upgrade the system. This internal manual also includes exercises at the end of most sections, something that didn't get carried over into the MCLS set. Last I knew, the training barcodes still worked, if you have access to the Michigan Evergreen test server . . . Marla open-ils-general-requ...@list.georgialibraries.org wrote: Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs/Staff training/testing From: Jonathan Rochkind jonat...@dnil.net Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:56:15 -0400 To: Evergreen Discussion Group open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org To: Evergreen Discussion Group open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org If any of you all wanted to 'open source' your training curriculums, I bet that would be incredibly valuable. (It's not code, so it wouldnt' be 'open source', it would be more like "creative commons", but you know what i mean). On Jun 15, 2010, at 12:14 PM, Dan Scott wrote: On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 11:50 -0400, Cynthia Williamson wrote: Couldn't agree more re staff testing - our one "do-over" would be changes to the way we did staff testing/training. In a past migration project at another library, when our vendor did the training months before we went live (we had no choice about timing), I knew staff wouldn't retain what they'd learned. I created exercises for them to do on a weekly basis, they had to work together in pairs and they had to hand in their "homework". In going a more casual, open source, learn-yourself way, my big under-estimation was staff engagement. They just weren't as excited about EG as Robert and I were. We're lucky to be an academic library with a slower summer time so it all worked out for us. And our circ desk is not crazy busy as some public libraries circ desks can be so that made the "learn while live" situation doable. It all really means that, in spite of some universal truths, you have to make your plan according to your own situation. Its not a one size fits all situation, many things can be done differently depending on how much time money you have and depending on the skill levels and engagement of your staff. Cynthia To add one more voice to the mix; during the months leading up to our go-live date, our cataloguers had weekly training / exercise sessions where each week we went over the previous week's tasks and then introduced some new tasks with practice exercises. When we went live, they were in a relatively happy state. Kudos to Ron Slater, who put together the training schedule, and the cataloguers for tackling it with good spirits and humour. In contrast, our circulation desk is very short-staffed, so the staff had very little time to commit to formal training sessions of this nature. It was also a little bit harder coming up with good representative samples of p
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs
Stop Sent via BlackBerry by ATT -Original Message- From: Cynthia Williamson crwbookg...@gmail.com Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 09:23:48 To: Evergreen Discussion Groupopen-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs Hi Georgette - Like Deanna said, cost is different for everyone. We spent @ $7500CAD on our server, 2 full-time people worked on getting things up and going for the better part of a year - that allowed us to keep up other parts of our jobs. We went live well before our support contract with our former ILS vendor expired - that allowed us to do a very soft launch and do lots of troubleshooting/tweaking and some more staff training. We did contract with Equinox for some programming (booking module @ $8000USD) but did not spend any money on training or migration. The EG community has been a big help, I can't really say that we did it on our own. I've attached a list that I've shared with some other folks that gives some details of our process, please use it/share it as needed. Cheers, Cynthia Mohawk College, Hamilton, ON On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Georgette Rogers grog...@libertylakewa.gov wrote: Thank you so much for the reply. I am not authorized to send out an RFP, but I will pass the information to my director and she will take it from there. I really appreciate all the information that has been coming to me from the list serve. I will probably have more questons. Thanks again Georgette *Georgette Rogers* *Circulation Supervisor* *Liberty Lake Municipal Library* *23123 E Mission Ave* *Liberty Lake, WA 99019* *509-435-0778* *1-866-729-8507* -- *From:* open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org [ open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Deanna Frazee [dfra...@ci.killeen.tx.us] *Sent:* Monday, June 14, 2010 7:07 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] ***SPAM*** RE: Costs There really isn't a set cost. We bought a server, paid Alpha-G for migration services and have self-trained. But it has not been a simple process. There have been numerous delays as I dealt with issues that left us too short-staffed to cope with a migration at times and as we have worked with Alpha-G to get things right so that we can go live with as few interruptions to service for our patrons as possible on the go-live day (next Monday). There has been some training out there for Evergreen, but much of what you will need to do is look at the manuals that other libraries have created in-house. From there, you may have to just experiment with it to see how it works. Since this is not an out-of-the-box solution, the price will be unique to your situation. Your best bet is to send out an RFP with the details you mentioned below as well as infornation on your current ILS. Evergreen offers a lot of flexibility, but it is for those intrepid enough to take on an ILS without formal documentation and without the sort of full-time training staff that you often get with an established proprietary system. These things will come with time, but they aren't here now. Deanna Frazee Killeen City Library System Killeen, TX dfra...@ci.killeen.tx.us -- *From:* open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org on behalf of Georgette Rogers *Sent:* Mon 6/14/2010 5:39 PM *To:* open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org *Subject:* [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs Could anyone tell me the cost for implementation, self hosting, maitence and training for the Evergreen system. We are a 9,000 square foot library, we have 28,000 items and about 5,000 patrons. Thank you Georgette *Georgette Rogers* *Circulation Supervisor* *Liberty Lake Municipal Library* *23123 E Mission Ave* *Liberty Lake, WA 99019* *509-435-0778* *1-866-729-8507* -- “Many a man stumbles across the truth, then picks himself up and hurries on as though nothing had happened.” Winston Churchill
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs/Staff training/testing
Couldn't agree more re staff testing - our one do-over would be changes to the way we did staff testing/training. In a past migration project at another library, when our vendor did the training months before we went live (we had no choice about timing), I knew staff wouldn't retain what they'd learned. I created exercises for them to do on a weekly basis, they had to work together in pairs and they had to hand in their homework. In going a more casual, open source, learn-yourself way, my big under-estimation was staff engagement. They just weren't as excited about EG as Robert and I were. We're lucky to be an academic library with a slower summer time so it all worked out for us. And our circ desk is not crazy busy as some public libraries circ desks can be so that made the learn while live situation doable. It all really means that, in spite of some universal truths, you have to make your plan according to your own situation. Its not a one size fits all situation, many things can be done differently depending on how much time money you have and depending on the skill levels and engagement of your staff. Cynthia On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Joe Atzberger jatzber...@esilibrary.comwrote: Not making time to get trained on a new system also correlates to the predictable moments of freak-out like Where's the XYZ button?! WHY ISN'T THIS EXACTLY LIKE THE OLD SYSTEM!? Sometimes I think half the value of an on-site trainer is just to get people to do what they otherwise were supposed to do anyway without a trainer. Having provisioned test servers for staff use before go-live, I've noticed that they sometimes go virtually unused by staff who are supposed to be playing around to isolate and configuration, data conversion, workflow or actual logic problems (in addition to training themselves)! I imagine that that activity is always assigned a lower priority than their real work, right up until they make the jump. So the only way I see to avoid that is to make elements of testing a higher priority, or to get test-experiences into a dialog so that there are more concrete expectations earlier in the process. I think NEKLS did a good job of that by posting regularly to a migration blog when they were moving to Koha. My 2 cents... --Joe On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 9:37 AM, Deanna Frazee dfra...@ci.killeen.tx.uswrote: The document Cynthia attached contained a universal truth in the very first bullet point. Staff may intend to test the system, but they will not get around to it. In spite of ample time to test, our staff has been terrible about getting on there and learning how to use it. Most seem to think that they will “just pick up on it” when we go live. We have really had to stay on top of them and watch while they have trained to keep them from wandering off or just doing a 5-10 minute training and claim that they are prepared. Deanna *From:* open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org [mailto: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] *On Behalf Of *Cynthia Williamson *Sent:* Tuesday, June 15, 2010 8:24 AM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs Hi Georgette - Like Deanna said, cost is different for everyone. We spent @ $7500CAD on our server, 2 full-time people worked on getting things up and going for the better part of a year - that allowed us to keep up other parts of our jobs. We went live well before our support contract with our former ILS vendor expired - that allowed us to do a very soft launch and do lots of troubleshooting/tweaking and some more staff training. We did contract with Equinox for some programming (booking module @ $8000USD) but did not spend any money on training or migration. The EG community has been a big help, I can't really say that we did it on our own. I've attached a list that I've shared with some other folks that gives some details of our process, please use it/share it as needed. Cheers, Cynthia Mohawk College, Hamilton, ON On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Georgette Rogers grog...@libertylakewa.gov wrote: Thank you so much for the reply. I am not authorized to send out an RFP, but I will pass the information to my director and she will take it from there. I really appreciate all the information that has been coming to me from the list serve. I will probably have more questons. Thanks again Georgette *Georgette Rogers* *Circulation Supervisor* *Liberty Lake Municipal Library* *23123 E Mission Ave* *Liberty Lake, WA 99019* *509-435-0778* *1-866-729-8507* -- *From:* open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org [ open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Deanna Frazee [dfra...@ci.killeen.tx.us] *Sent:* Monday, June 14, 2010 7:07 PM *To:* Evergreen Discussion Group *Subject:* [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] ***SPAM*** RE: Costs There really isn't a set cost
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs/Staff training/testing
On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 11:50 -0400, Cynthia Williamson wrote: Couldn't agree more re staff testing - our one do-over would be changes to the way we did staff testing/training. In a past migration project at another library, when our vendor did the training months before we went live (we had no choice about timing), I knew staff wouldn't retain what they'd learned. I created exercises for them to do on a weekly basis, they had to work together in pairs and they had to hand in their homework. In going a more casual, open source, learn-yourself way, my big under-estimation was staff engagement. They just weren't as excited about EG as Robert and I were. We're lucky to be an academic library with a slower summer time so it all worked out for us. And our circ desk is not crazy busy as some public libraries circ desks can be so that made the learn while live situation doable. It all really means that, in spite of some universal truths, you have to make your plan according to your own situation. Its not a one size fits all situation, many things can be done differently depending on how much time money you have and depending on the skill levels and engagement of your staff. Cynthia To add one more voice to the mix; during the months leading up to our go-live date, our cataloguers had weekly training / exercise sessions where each week we went over the previous week's tasks and then introduced some new tasks with practice exercises. When we went live, they were in a relatively happy state. Kudos to Ron Slater, who put together the training schedule, and the cataloguers for tackling it with good spirits and humour. In contrast, our circulation desk is very short-staffed, so the staff had very little time to commit to formal training sessions of this nature. It was also a little bit harder coming up with good representative samples of problems they would encounter; setting up the system with dummy data was a lot of work (this would be a good part of a test training package, if someone wants to develop that!). When we went live, they were very unhappy because they were trying to learn how to solve problems on the fly - and that is not a fun thing to do in front of users. I think we would all like a do-over on that one.
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs/Staff training/testing
Hi, Regarding the discussion about training, there are companies, in addition to my employer, Equinox, that provide training on the Evergreen ILS. Lyrasis and Alpha-G come to mind, as well as Dan Scott of Laurentian University, although I’m sure there are others that also offer training. I joined Equinox Software in December 2009 as the Educational Services Manager. In addition to its System Administration and Migration training, ESI also offers comprehensive training on all modules of the ILS for a variety of audiences, from those who are testing Evergreen to long time users who need refresher training. ESI is currently redesigning our training website to include more information about our training programs and drop-in classes. For some of these classes, interested clients will be able to register and pay for classes online. I’ll be posting an announcement on the list soon that will direct you to that site and the training information that will be available there. If you have questions about training, you can contact us at train...@esilibrary.com. mailto:train...@esilibrary.com We are happy to customize a plan for any library! Thanks, Sally Dan Scott wrote: On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 11:50 -0400, Cynthia Williamson wrote: Couldn't agree more re staff testing - our one do-over would be changes to the way we did staff testing/training. In a past migration project at another library, when our vendor did the training months before we went live (we had no choice about timing), I knew staff wouldn't retain what they'd learned. I created exercises for them to do on a weekly basis, they had to work together in pairs and they had to hand in their homework. In going a more casual, open source, learn-yourself way, my big under-estimation was staff engagement. They just weren't as excited about EG as Robert and I were. We're lucky to be an academic library with a slower summer time so it all worked out for us. And our circ desk is not crazy busy as some public libraries circ desks can be so that made the learn while live situation doable. It all really means that, in spite of some universal truths, you have to make your plan according to your own situation. Its not a one size fits all situation, many things can be done differently depending on how much time money you have and depending on the skill levels and engagement of your staff. Cynthia To add one more voice to the mix; during the months leading up to our go-live date, our cataloguers had weekly training / exercise sessions where each week we went over the previous week's tasks and then introduced some new tasks with practice exercises. When we went live, they were in a relatively happy state. Kudos to Ron Slater, who put together the training schedule, and the cataloguers for tackling it with good spirits and humour. In contrast, our circulation desk is very short-staffed, so the staff had very little time to commit to formal training sessions of this nature. It was also a little bit harder coming up with good representative samples of problems they would encounter; setting up the system with dummy data was a lot of work (this would be a good part of a test training package, if someone wants to develop that!). When we went live, they were very unhappy because they were trying to learn how to solve problems on the fly - and that is not a fun thing to do in front of users. I think we would all like a do-over on that one. -- Sally Fortin Educational Services Manager Equinox Software Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source Tel:770-709-5572 Email: sfor...@esilibrary.com Fax:1-866-497-6390 Please come by and visit the Equinox team and learn more about Evergreen, Koha, and open source options ALA Annual meeting in Washington, DC June 24-28, 2010 booth # 1303
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs/Staff training/testing
If any of you all wanted to 'open source' your training curriculums, I bet that would be incredibly valuable. (It's not code, so it wouldnt' be 'open source', it would be more like creative commons, but you know what i mean). On Jun 15, 2010, at 12:14 PM, Dan Scott wrote: On Tue, 2010-06-15 at 11:50 -0400, Cynthia Williamson wrote: Couldn't agree more re staff testing - our one do-over would be changes to the way we did staff testing/training. In a past migration project at another library, when our vendor did the training months before we went live (we had no choice about timing), I knew staff wouldn't retain what they'd learned. I created exercises for them to do on a weekly basis, they had to work together in pairs and they had to hand in their homework. In going a more casual, open source, learn-yourself way, my big under-estimation was staff engagement. They just weren't as excited about EG as Robert and I were. We're lucky to be an academic library with a slower summer time so it all worked out for us. And our circ desk is not crazy busy as some public libraries circ desks can be so that made the learn while live situation doable. It all really means that, in spite of some universal truths, you have to make your plan according to your own situation. Its not a one size fits all situation, many things can be done differently depending on how much time money you have and depending on the skill levels and engagement of your staff. Cynthia To add one more voice to the mix; during the months leading up to our go-live date, our cataloguers had weekly training / exercise sessions where each week we went over the previous week's tasks and then introduced some new tasks with practice exercises. When we went live, they were in a relatively happy state. Kudos to Ron Slater, who put together the training schedule, and the cataloguers for tackling it with good spirits and humour. In contrast, our circulation desk is very short-staffed, so the staff had very little time to commit to formal training sessions of this nature. It was also a little bit harder coming up with good representative samples of problems they would encounter; setting up the system with dummy data was a lot of work (this would be a good part of a test training package, if someone wants to develop that!). When we went live, they were very unhappy because they were trying to learn how to solve problems on the fly - and that is not a fun thing to do in front of users. I think we would all like a do-over on that one.
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs/Staff training/testing
Dan said: To add one more voice to the mix; during the months leading up to our go-live date, our cataloguers had weekly training / exercise sessions where each week we went over the previous week's tasks and then introduced some new tasks with practice exercises. When we went live, they were in a relatively happy state. Kudos to Ron Slater, who put together the training schedule, and the cataloguers for tackling it with good spirits and humour. When I did training with SITKA, we learned from the first few sites that giving library staff access to a training server and telling them to play around didn't result in staff spending time practising using the system. We then developed worksheets where staff would have to do various tasks like: register a patron, check out 3 books, mark one lost, observe the change in bills, etc. We found that structured exercises worked better for most library staff than just telling them to play. (I'm not sure what, if anything, this says about the kind of folks who work in libraries, or how people in libraries learn how to use software, but...) Perhaps if the SITKA folks are still using these types of exercises they might be willing to share them? I've also found this to be a useful way to teach other types of software, like Zotero, and Excel. Cheers, Tara
Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs/Staff training/testing
One of the things we've been discussing is the need for a training server with known data so that it is easier to do exercises in which the students must accomplish something rather than just play around. That way we could share our exercises and you could trust that they would work (cuz the right data is there.) Does that have appeal to others? Sent from my iPhone On Jun 15, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Tara Robertson information.detect...@gmail.com wrote: Dan said: To add one more voice to the mix; during the months leading up to our go-live date, our cataloguers had weekly training / exercise sessions where each week we went over the previous week's tasks and then introduced some new tasks with practice exercises. When we went live, they were in a relatively happy state. Kudos to Ron Slater, who put together the training schedule, and the cataloguers for tackling it with good spirits and humour. When I did training with SITKA, we learned from the first few sites that giving library staff access to a training server and telling them to play around didn't result in staff spending time practising using the system. We then developed worksheets where staff would have to do various tasks like: register a patron, check out 3 books, mark one lost, observe the change in bills, etc. We found that structured exercises worked better for most library staff than just telling them to play. (I'm not sure what, if anything, this says about the kind of folks who work in libraries, or how people in libraries learn how to use software, but...) Perhaps if the SITKA folks are still using these types of exercises they might be willing to share them? I've also found this to be a useful way to teach other types of software, like Zotero, and Excel. Cheers, Tara
[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Costs
Could anyone tell me the cost for implementation, self hosting, maitence and training for the Evergreen system. We are a 9,000 square foot library, we have 28,000 items and about 5,000 patrons. Thank you Georgette Georgette Rogers Circulation Supervisor Liberty Lake Municipal Library 23123 E Mission Ave Liberty Lake, WA 99019 509-435-0778 1-866-729-8507
