It has been three years (my, how time flies!) since the first review of commercially available, inexpensive software to make organizing and cataloguing your church library easier. This time, we will be looking at some new software packages that some of you have requested information about, and of course, look at old favorites to see how they fare against the “newbies”.
As with the last review, I started out researching quite a few (seven) software packages, however, I've eliminated Athena because the cost quite frankly is prohibitive for most small church library budgets. I will include with this article, the handout given out at the Spring Conference identifying the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of the remaining six software packages.
Two packages of the remaining six, I have serious reservations about, not because they are “bad” software, but because they are quite limited in what they can do for your small church library. Library Master, while claiming to be ideal for your personally owned books, really is designed as a heavy duty citation organizer, and for someone bogged down in the minutae of a PhD thesis, this software would be perfect. The other package we looked at, a Canadian product called “ChurchWatch”, is a one-shot-does-everything software package for churches. It contains a hymn organizer, congregation list (cool options include: family or individual pictures, and special notations, for comments such as specific disabilities, and committees served upon), tax assistance software, and many other features. For our purposes, the strengths of the church library portion is just not up to what the other software can offer, so if organizing your library is your priority, then this software is limited.
Four software packages remain; Cross’ Library 1.7 (our top pick last review)(L), PC Card Catalog (PC), Resource Mate (RM), and Win Library (WL), a product from France that many of you have enquired about. Each of these packages retails for between $130 and $300 Canadian, and they have several characteristics in common. Library 1.7 and Win Library come with a built-in circulation component so you can check out and check in books, track overdues, and print gracious reminder notes to transgressors. Resource Mate and PC Card Catalog require you to purchase the “more complete” version in order to get the circulation module, but they offer reduced cost for “upgrading” your current version.
Overall, WL was very much the least friendly of the remaining four due largely, I think, to translation and language difficulties, particularly in their help files. Notably RM provides useful features such as a waiting lists for more popular items, and a recommendation list for individuals. Data can be hand-entered, imported from other files or, with RM, imported from the Library of Congress itself via the Internet. In all four packages, fields such as subject are editable, with L remaining the easiest (via scroll-down windows), and each program will prevent duplicate accession numbers automatically. Each of the four will print cards if you still use a card catalog, each offers preformatted card layout, while RM will allow you to alter or customize your layout. Three of the four (not PC) offer your church members the opportunity to use the computer as an OPAC, or online public access catalog.
While WL has rather poor search capabilities, both L and RM have good search interfaces. RM's report selection is very good, and although report names are confusing, you will always be asked if you wish to print a report after viewing one on the screen (very handy). L too has a very good selection of reports, and allows easy identification by highlighting any "sort" category with colour.
While Resource Mate seems to have the most customizable package available, excellent customer responsiveness, and interesting extras, the package I like best overall remains Library 1.7. I recommend Library 1.7 specifically because of the way it uses the windows environment – it has neatly integrated its windows capabilities into one main screen so that the user always knows where they are. The mouseover status bar identifies the components of the open window, and these components remain pleasingly consistent regardless of the window content.
Before doing this review, I contacted Cross to find out if they were planning to upgrade their Library software, and they informed me that they were not going to improve Library 1.7 but are redeveloping the entire program to take advantage of new programming and technology. What does this mean? If you already own Library 1.7, CROSS will still provide tech support, and as most software companies will do, they are likely to give you a significant discount for upgrading to the new product. If you are interested in Library 1.7, I would suggest you might wish to wait until the new generation of products arrives from this developer. Their decision to abandon “dated programming” speaks to their desire to provide the best application software to their customers. That being said, there is no specific date identified for roll-out of their new product, so timelines may be years and not months.
As stewards of your church library, choice of software products will depend largely on your congregation’s timeline, your budget and your expertise with the online or a print environment.
