Broken Record

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but we had "Symphony" training yesterday. This basically involved just transferring our preferences from Unicorn to Symphony. Everything else is about the same. BUT, I learned that Web Reporter, which previously was just for the Cool Kids who used Horizon, is now available for Symphony (Unicorn), too. Other than that, I didn't see a lot of Horizon in the key enhancements.

We were asked to play with Symphony, pretending to do our jobs as if we were using Unicorn Java Workflows. So I did. Was there anything at all that was different? Nope. All steps, prompts, and menus were pretty much the same. I believe it will even still ask me if the "diskette is ready" when I go to import something.

oh! Symphony!

I can't believe I almost forgot to mention this: we're "moving" to Symphony over Christmas. I'd like to revisit what SD calls Symphony:
"SirsiDynix Symphony, blending the best of the Unicorn GL3 and Horizon 8/Corinthian systems, offers libraries and consortia the stability, quality, and performance they need to operate productively and efficiently, while equipping them to serve people and entire communities." (from here)
It is a "blending." Blending which parts of Horizon, you may ask? Good question! I have no idea, because here's how much of a big deal our move to Symphony is:

Our Unicorn administrator said this about the move:
"The Unicorn test system will be down for much of next week. During this time we will be performing an upgrade to the latest version of Unicorn software -- 3.2.1 “Symphony.”"

This cracks me up. He doesn't even pretend like it's different. I could swear that he's also said to us in person that it's "you know, pretty much exactly the same as Java Workflows."

Now, what also happened today (and which triggered this little quotation fest) was that someone posted on the Unicorn listserv that they are moving from Horizon to Symphony and would appreciate any input from anyone else who made the move. The Unicorn listserv is a closed list, so I guess the Unicorn list is now the Symphony list. Oh, Sirsi. Perhaps I was right after all.

oh, SirsiDynix

You strike again, SD. Our serials cataloger pointed out that when working in Sirsi's Java Workflows, you cannot always get the html links in a marc record to take you to a browser. The link simply will not work. They are speculating that this has to do with links that include special characters, like an ampersand.

Our IT guy says, and I quote: "This is a bug at our current Unicorn patch level. it will be cleared after we upgrade to a new version in the coming Christmas holidays."

Point of order, IT guy! When links are broken that are supposed to work, and links are presenting themselves as being in working order when they are not, is NOT A BUG. It's a functionality failure.

Now, do I think that our IT guy is the one who called it a "bug"? No, I do not. I'm absolutely positive that SirsiDynix is calling it a bug, because they would often do the same thing when we had "bugs" in Horizon. I put "bugs" in quotes because those problems were really basic functionality failures. This isn't something like "oh, when I hit this and this and do this thing and then I try to enter a 520 field in the MARC editor, it freezes!" No. This is "our links don't work, but they're still made to look like they work." That is basic functionality, and it is broken. We shouldn't have to wait for the next upgrade for this to be fixed. It's madness.

Although I did escape most of the SirsiDynix craziness when I left my former job, at least I can rest assured that the craziness continues without me, and that it has not miraculously gone away now that Symphony is in full developmental swing.

More Talk about Unicorn

I hadn't been hearing much from the SirsiDynix world lately, but today, I heard a whole lot. My boss is on a committee to investigate new search portals to lay over top of our existing GL 3.1 (Unicorn) ILS, and just attended the Sirsi SuperConference. Here's what I learned today:

From my boss: Aquabrowser and Primo and even Encore are much better developed than Sirsi's search portal (which is called EPS, I believe). Although my boss thought that Sirsi doesn't have federated searching, from looking at their website I think that they do, it's just not bundled in with their portal. Which I think is really stupid. Although, in an effort to keep their customers from running to open source or other options, I think that people at SD are trying to scare their customers--my boss has it in their head that open source software usually has no support attached to it. When actually, lots of third-party vendors are starting to support open source. Seems like a scare tactic to me.

The other interesting thing is that we talked a lot about how SD is going to stop supporting the C client version of Unicorn at the end of 2009, and that means everyone needs to either get onto Unicorn Java client, or face the fact that they are going to be left without support. Makes sense. C client SUCKS.

And while listening to all this, my boss also said "They're changing the name of Unicorn to Symphony. But it's just a name change."
Finally, real confirmation that Symphony is not the "blended model" that SD claimed it was to the Horizon users. I'm sure this is no surprise to any Horizon user anymore, but I do think it's interesting that Sirsi customers are getting all this comforting talk about how it's not changing at all, and Horizon customers were getting all this comforting talk about how Symphony is going to be great for them and how it ISN'T Unicorn (when many Horizon customers didn't get Unicorn for very specific reasons).

So anyway, thought I'd put all this information out into the interwebs. Fly free, little information!

There Ain't No School Like the Old School

So I've started using old-school Unicorn (ie, Workflows). I mentioned before that it feels outdated. It's really easy to use, once someone has explained how to use it and what the words mean. It's kind of Windows-based...it reminds me of databases that we used in junior high, which makes sense, since Unicorn is a pretty old system. I'm currently learning how they copy catalog here, so the work is not terribly challenging (although it does give me a good chance to relearn my leader/directory/008 fields). Their system here is so streamlined...the vendor has a relationship with OCLC, so the copy catalogers' job is really to just check the cataloging that's already in the Sirsi system--there's no uploading by our library, unless OCLC has a poor record or no record to use at all.
So I've been spending time today using a light wand (I know!), and using the "public access" part of Unicorn, which is laughably old. The face that actual users today see is fine--it looks like any regular ILS front end. But the public access module in Workflows that the librarians use has those picture buttons, like an Athena system or something. The "reserve desk" has a picture of an apple, "search catalog" has a picture of a girl in 1993-era clothing studiously looking at books in a library. "Browsing" has a pair of binoculars floating free above the Earth (I assume that these are some kind of super spy satellite binoculars). For some reason, the "subject" search has a picture of the Space Shuttle launching. Don't ask, because I don't know. I could go on, but you get the idea.
Workflows is fairly customizable, even though I would never have imagined that to be the case when I first saw it. You can put in whatever menus you want. I also learned today that if you want to do an import, though, Workflows go really, really 1993 on you. The first step is to tell it you want to import a certain file, and then you have to schedule the upload. I imagine that back in the day this was necessary so you could upload everything at 3am when no one was using the system. Of course now it's just silly, and makes the catalogers sigh.
I'm looking forward to using Java Workflows a little more...just to see what kind of changes they made to the system. It has to be better than old Workflows, if even just in the feel of it.

Workflows v. Horizon

Are you ready for this? I now have the old Unicorn version and the "new" Unicorn version on my desktop, simultaneously. The old one....I don't even know how to explain it. It's like a dinosaur version of an ILS. It has little radio buttons, but no mouse-over captions to help you understand what the little buttons do. It's one of those systems where, if you don't know what you're doing, you're not going to know what you're doing.
Ok, so fast forward to the "new" Unicorn. I put new in quotes because it's not really new; apparently this java-based platform has been around for a couple of years. But this institution just picked it up.
As a former Horizon user, I want to say, it's like Horizon's little brother or something. It just looks so much like Horizon's platform! Some differences, of course. No pretty picture when you open Unicorn, but it has drop down folders for each module, and while Unicorn (apparently) doesn't have hotkeys (although it might; I haven't been trained yet), there are "wizards" for each module that give you the shortcuts to actions for each module. It also calls Horizon's "bibs", "titles." Minor stuff, really. I am positive, of course, that the backend acts totally differently from Horizon, but it's interesting that they really ended up in similar places in terms of look and feel for the staff-end.
I think that Horizon users (like myself) would feel incredibly constrained by Unicorn, though. No SQL queries? No way to change the look and feel of each and every view? LAAMMME. But some of the views that Unicorn does provide are really neat. Like when you search in Workflows, you can get a little list of what you searched for, and you get a full view of each highlighted record underneath that list. You don't have to open a new window just to see the full record!
It's the little things, isn't it? More to come!

The Crossroads of Unicorn and Horizon

I've crossed over to the dark side, you know. The Unicorn side of SirsiDynix. I am going to have so much to tell you all about the differences between old Unicorn (WorkFlows) and new Unicorn (the Java based version) and how different it is from Horizon... yep. Tomorrow I'm learning WorkFlows a little (old Unicorn look and feel), and after that I'm going to learn the Java platform of Unicorn (new look and feel). I've already talked to the Unicorn person a little, and she's from a III site in her last job, and she tells me that Unicorn is incapable of creating custom queries like III and Horizon can. I feel as if I'm at a nexus of ILSes, and sometime soon it's all going to become clear and the library universe will be laid out at my feet.

Or something.

Client Care for SirsiDynix

I haven't talked about this, mostly because I hadn't visited the site yet, but the old Dynix "customer care" website is in the process of switching over to the Client Care Portal. This is a joint client care website for both Unicorn and Horizon. I assume it's in place to get ready for Symphony. But it has this great added benefit to any Horizon customer (and Unicorn customer, too, I imagine), which is that you get to see how Unicorn works (and thus how Horizon works). Unicorn uses "patch clusters" instead of what we just called "updates" in Horizon, and I can get overviews of various Unicorn modules and such. I can see known issues with Unicorn, read white papers about the modules, etc.
I mean, granted, its all basically marketing nonsense, or things that I could find out very easily if I solicited some brochures and whatnot, but since traditionally, Horizon and Unicorn users weren't allowed to connect at all through the company, its very nice to see the other side. I know, I know: I'm saying something nice about SirsiDynix! It feels weird to me, too.

A short history of Horizon, part II

Turns out, by "tomorrow" I meant Monday. Psych!
At any rate, back to Horizon. So the stage was set for Horizon to die off, all the libraries to go stomping off in anger to open source systems or the other big library companies. The people who bought SirsiDynix obviously hadn't thought about this eventuality. A lot of librarians like to make the investors out to be complete jerks, who think that librarians are all lambs to the slaughter. I don't think that's exactly right. I think they just underestimated the market. Lots of libraries had been with Horizon for many, many years (since it was called Dynix Classic; we're talking pre-1995, at least). And library systems are a lot like cars--if you've had the same 1995 Corolla for the past 12 years, you're at least open to the idea of trading it in. And once the transmission goes out, you're definitely in the market. You might buy the new Corolla, but then again, Nissan just came out with the new Altima and it's pretty hot-looking.
This is how libraries reacted, initially. Horizon was dying, they started looking at Symphony, but then--to stretch the analogy a little further--the Toyota salesperson turned out to be really insincere and kind of pushy. The SD people also turned out to be insincere, to many people. There was obviously a backlash from the people whose contracts were nullified, and what did SD do? They issued a press release (you should really read it) where they basically said that everyone who didn't like the new system should just learn to live with it, because that's how things are.
Of course, almost everyone jumped up and said "I'm buying an Altima!" (or a Ford Fusion, or maybe even a VW Jetta). Once it became clear the libraries would just take their toys and go home, SD did an almost exact 180. Fast forward a year, and we're at the conference of users of Horizon (this wrapped over the weekend). Now the tune is completely different.
Upgrading to Symphony has become just that--an upgrade. Not a migration costing almost $100K, but an upgrade, which costs nothing, and a 40% discount on support if you sign a three-year contract. I do believe that someone has changed their minds about librarians. Of course, even with that kind of financial incentive, my library is still thinking of going to open source software. The tide has officially turned, and I don't think that SD was really the cause. Just a push in a more egalitarian direction.

A short history of Horizon, part 1

As the Technical Services librarian, my job entails not only cataloging, but also database administration. We use a system called Horizon, that is supported by a company called SirsiDynix. I haven't talked much about Horizon on this blog, but it's dying. A brief history:
Sirsi and Dynix were two separate entities, and decided to merge in 2005, I believe, or 2006. They brought their two systems into the relationship: Sirsi had Unicorn, and Dynix had Horizon. Most people agree that Horizon is the more modern system, with more bells and whistles and such.
In 2007 at some point, SD was bought by a company called Vista, who immediately decided that having two Integrated Library Systems (ILS) was a really bad idea for business, and it would be so much more cost-effective if everyone just used one system. This is sound business practice, actually, but the whole thing was a public relations nightmare. Horizon was about to be updated to Horizon 8.0, which was to be this totally new system, a rebuild. Customers had already signed contacts with SD to go to Horizon 8. But....Vista decided to pull the plug on Horizon, and instead of informing the customers who already had contracts privately, just put out a big press release about it so they could find out along with everyone else.
Vista also decided to scrap Horizon entirely, and to tout a "new" system called Symphony. Thing is, apparently it looks just like Unicorn, but with some minor cosmetics. It's generally agreed all over the library community that Unicorn is old. Old old old. Like, its core system was created in 1985 and has never been changed kind of old. Who wants a system like that? No one. Plus it's a turnkey system, which usually means that you have little to no control over how your system looks. Horizon, on the other hand, is one of the most customizable databases I've ever seen, and you don't have to call customer support in order to customize it. You can do it within the system if you want to. You can also create custom SQL queries, from any of the tables. It's really pretty awesome when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it.
But I digress. The other thing that we all found out when we were told about the death of Horizon was that going to Symphony would be a migration, not an upgrade. The difference? You have to pay for a migration, and don't pay for an upgrade. Um, what? we all said. We have to pay to go to the system that you're making us go to if we want to stay with your company? (Keep in mind that Horizon, 10 years ago, had an upfront cost of $75K.)
This pushed a lot of people to rethink their systems. The explosion of open source, of course, just happened to coincide with this announcement, and the other library vendors in the business started salivating when thinking of how SD was about to go under and that left 20,000 libraries looking for new systems. Jackpot.

(continued tomorrow)