As you some of you may know we are evaluating ILS for our library. Currently we have a card catalog and we are a small/medium size medical hospital that is a part of a larger hospital system. Yesterday we (along with a few other librarians in our hospital system) got to see a web demo of CyberTools. I have to admit I was impressed. I will briefly explain some of the features that impressed me and a few things I think might be improved upon. Please remember that this is just my first impression and opinion of the product based on their web demo. We don’t have the product so the information I have is gleaned from my memory and notes.

ASP Hosted Service: It seems this becoming more and more popular these days. Instead of buying a server, loading software, and performing maintenance, some libraries are now “leasing” space on the server from the vendor. It depends upon your library but it can definitely have some benefits. The library no longer has to worry about upgrading software, hardware, maintenance, data backup, and security.

Price: CyberTools is affordable. A one-time set up fee $499 and it is $150/lib. staff user, per month. That price includes: Web OPAC, Cataloging with Authority Control, Authority Management, Circulation, Serials Management, Z39.50 retrieval of records, and Reports.
Acquisitions and Z39.50 server is extra. (The Z39.50 server feature allows others to search your catalog and import your records into their catalog.)
CyberTools also offers a Union catalog (for a consortia) for no additional fee, and they offer discounts on the one time set up fee and training based on the amount of library staff user purchased.
CyberTools also works with librarians who must work at two separate hospitals in the system. For example: Good Health Hospital and Great Health Hospital are a part of Superior Medicine Hospital System. Lilly Librarian is the librarian for Good Health Hospital Library Mondays and Tuesdays. On Wednesday and Thursday Lilly is the librarian at Great Health Hospital Library. CyberTools works with the librarian so that Good and Great Health share the cost of only one library staff user license. They don’t need to buy one library staff user license per hospital library in this case.

Cataloging:
You can easily download your MARC records and import them into your catalog. CyberTools brings the annual NLM MeSH changes to you, complete with scope notes, "X", and "See Related" changes. At the same time, all the bibliographic records are also updated, resulting in your current MeSH Authority being synchronized with your bibs.

Serials:
Their serials component is integrated with your system, which is a really nice feature for medical libraries. It is extremely robust and flexible with serials check-in and routing, claiming, bindery management, reporting.

OpenURL Link Resolver:
If you are using other databases such as Ovid you can have your holdings tagged within Ovid so that your user can click on the icon next to the citation and determine whether your library has access to that particular journal. I was very impressed with this. However, I have had previous experience with some OpenURL resolving products and I can be very picky as to how “easy and well they work.” Since I do not own CyberTools, I can only say that they have this option and it looks to be interesting. Since they have an OpenURL resolving product, I think it would also be nice if CyberTools worked with Google Scholar to tag our collections within Google as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog about Serials Solutions linking libraries in Google. It is something to think about and play with.

There are a lot of things I really liked about CyberTools…price was just one part of the piece. It seems they have a nice flexible systems for librarians.

No vendor’s system is perfect, these are the things that I think could be improved.

Circulation: I would love to have an easy patron initiated check out system. I am not around my library 24/7 (thank God), but my library is always open to hospital employees. I would like something that is quick and easy for our patrons to use to check out books.
Not only should it be quick and easy for patrons (already in the database) to check out books, but it should also allow patrons who are not in the database to add themselves so they can check out a book.
Bottom line, I want something that patrons can easily use when I am not here nights and weekends, because if it isn’t easy, my books are going to walk.

Look and Feel:
This is very subjective and I admit picky on my part. (This is where EOS really seems to outshine CyberTools.)

The library staff module is VERY windows driven. The window is also fairly small. I think it would be better if the staff work window displays full screen size. I think it would be best if CyberTools made their library staff module look and feel more web driven. While you are in staff mode it seems you must bounce back and forth between windows. It would be nice if you had one web screen that you were working in. If you wanted to move from cataloging to serials, you could easily click on a menu button on the side (or top) of the page. There should also be a nice toggle button to switch back and forth between library staff view and patron view. Currently if you want to see how something displays in the catalog to patrons, you must open up a separate window.
Icing on the cake would be to allow the web catalog (patron side) to also serve as a mini library web site. The librarian could add buttons or hot links to various library resources, such as Ovid, PubMed, MDConsult, FullText Resources. The library could also have FAQ’s, Library Hours, etc. I realize that the web catalog is outside of the library’s intranet so certain paid subscription things like Ovid would not work unless the person was within the hospital’s IP range, but to have all of the resources on site like the catalog web page is invaluable.


As I said we just saw a demo, we do not own CyberTools. It would be interesting if others in the library world who use CyberTools could add their comments to this blog. I think it would be very helpful to me and others considering an ILS.