For the Love of Destiny

Welcome back to my blog!!  This week, the riveting subject is "My Love of Destiny."

     I was going to interview myself (ha!) but I decided to chat with a colleague of mine who uses Destiny as well.  Her name is Roberta Barricelli and she has been a librarian for several years, in a middle school, an elementary school and a teen librarian in the public library.  She is well versed in Destiny, but has also used Winnebago/Sagebrush before they were sold to Follett.  If I remember correctly, we both used the OPAC Winnebago system in our first year as elementary library media specialists.  I honestly can’t recall anything about it.  It was all new to me then, so I thought it was great that the card catalog system was automated in all our schools that year.  I am a proponent of Destiny, having used it for the last seventeen years, but I don’t have much to compare it to.  The public library uses the Evergreen OPAC, and it is easy enough to search for a book using it.  I don’t have any in-depth “librarian” experience with it. 

     The pros of Destiny, in no particular order:

• Destiny is part of the Follett Corporation, which includes integrations with Titlewave Bookstore, TitleWise for collection analysis, X2,  Aspen (Student Information System) and WebPath Express (for a larger fee,) making it a convenient all inclusive system.

• TitleWave ordering is easy and saves booklists until you are ready to order.

• Can set up parameters for class lists for overdue reports and saves them to be used quickly throughout the year.

• Catalog is online, usable everywhere.

• Books that are processed from Follett look neat and professional.

• Easy to navigate while creating patron reports, patron updates, call number changes, patron barcodes, etc.

• Destiny Quest shows images in catalog search, which is easier for younger students to search.

• Ease of using patron checkout history, to find books for other students (Can I have the book that Casey had last month?)

• TitlePeek is a fantastic visual advantage for searching for books.

• Easy to upload new books from Follett or any company.

     The cons of Destiny:

• Cost is more expensive than other OPAC systems.

• Once the younger students get used to Destiny Quest, they don’t want to use the regular catalog search page.  (See next “con”.)

• Destiny catalog search has to have exact spelling, which can be quite frustrating for students.

     Overall we are both quite pleased with Destiny, and any shortcomings of Destiny may actually contribute to user error.  I use destiny for hours a day, but I use it for the same tasks.  Anything that I think Destiny can’t do is something I probably haven’t learned yet… ;)