SirsiDynix: Solutions: Customer Spotlight

Tamara George, Director of Cobb County Public Library on SirsiDynix SaaS Hosting

Cobb County Public Library hosts 16 branches and a main library, all of which share a single collection, housed in different branches. The library is funded mainly by one source - the Cobb County government, with a small amount of additional funding by the state government of Georgia. Cobb County Public Library circulates approximately 3.8 million volumes annually to a population of 691,905 residents, making the Atlanta metropolitan area library the third largest public library system in the state.

"We are different than some other library systems of our size because of our single large collection shared among branches and because we have a central source of funding in our county government," said Tamara George, Director of Cobb County Public Library. "However, we share the common concern of other large libraries of how to smoothly and seamlessly manage a collection of our size."

Cobb County has utilized some form of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) since its partnership with DRA began in 1999. According to George, the library's information services department did not have the staffing or the expertise to manage an ILS. After working with a consultant, the library opted to totally outsource the technological management functions of the system, including network, server and systems maintenance.

Gail Rogers, Director of Cobb County Public Library from 1999 until 2007, was another driving force in the move from local servers to a hosted solution. The decision to outsource all of the administrative duties to DRA ultimately proved a wise one, earning Cobb County Public Library the Urban Library Council's first Award of Excellence in Public Library Management in 1999.

"Both the public and our library staff have benefitted greatly from this partnership. We have been able to create a much stronger support structure for our automated services by outsourcing them than we would have been able to do with our own resources," George said. "At the time of implementation in 1999, we found the overall cost of outsourcing equivalent to having an in-house staff, but the effectiveness has been much greater."

George recalls a smooth transition from DRA to SirsiDynix managed client services in 2001. Cobb County retained a similar contract with SirsiDynix that had been established with DRA, enabling the library to enjoy decreased costs of owning and maintaining hardware (server and peripherals), hiring personnel to manage the hardware in-house, and acquiring software licenses needed to run the server mount up quickly.

Cobb County Library's SaaS contract also includes an onsite system manager from SirsiDynix to manage the day to day operations and all maintenance of all components of the library's ILS. Most of the costs the library saves by hosting their server with SirsiDynix are spent in turn for onsite support. However, George maintains that "the costs have been more predictable, as they have been defined by contracts."

"The relationship we in managed client services have with Cobb County Public Library is a unique one, and has been very successful," said Brett Hall, SirsiDynix managed client services manager. "In managed client services, we take this SaaS offering one step further to understand what our customers' needs are by establishing a relationship from the beginning. Cobb County has an even more in-depth relationship with our staff thanks to their onsite SirsiDynix systems manager."

"It's wonderful having a representative from client services onsite with us on a daily basis. We don't have to worry about updating our server or fixing problems with our network," George said. "Instead, we get a call from our service provider or their on site representative to lets us know that something has happened, but it has already been handled."

"Seeing in the ILS market from the vendor and customer perspective at the same time has given me the best of both worlds," said Mike Bramlett, Systems Manager at Cobb County Public Library since 2003, and SirsiDynix employee. "It is a unique experience that has been further enhanced by my involvement with Brett and his expert staff due to our proximity to the SaaS collocation site. The most rewarding aspect of the job is the relationships that I have built at Cobb County Public. The people here are more than customers-they are family."

Because the Cobb County Public Library elected to invest in SirsiDynix SaaS and additional managed client services, library staff is able to focus on the library's mission of promoting interest in reading and providing materials and services in support of research, knowledge and cultural enrichment for all people rather than losing people hours managing an integrated library system.

Karen Oster of Reed Smith, LLP Law Library on SirsiDynix SaaS Hosting

Reed Smith library director Ronda Fisch has assembled a world-class resource library that has relied upon SirsiDynix Unicorn and iLink products as core components for data organization since 1994. According to Oster, Fisch championed Unicorn as the integrated library system (ILS) solution for Reed Smith in the 1990s because she foresaw a growth spurt in the firm's acquisitions and catalogues and wanted to plan ahead for those coming needs.

Fisch's predictions for Reed Smith were accurate. In 2007, the library catered to more than 1,500 attorneys worldwide, responded to 29,286 research requests, and managed 1,600 routed periodicals.

While Reed Smith library administrators were satisfied with their ILS and OPAC, they began feeling the stress of sharing IT resources with other departments within the firm. By 2003 the Reed Smith law library had grown tired of sharing a server with an accounting department that had to reboot every hour. Reed Smith selected SirsiDynix SaaS, becoming one of the first SirsiDynix SaaS customers.

"It was a matter of taking our ball and going elsewhere for more continuous hosting that would provide the stability we needed in a library server," said Oster.

According to Oster, Reed Smith was looking for three components in their RFP for hosting services: reliability, security, and cost effectiveness -- all three factors being equally important.

"SirsiDynix's SaaS offering was our best option," Oster said. "We went with SaaS not as a cost-saving measure, but as an overall strategic initiative to provide the best possible customer service at the best price."

Oster cites the decreased total cost of ownership of SaaS as another determining factor in Reed Smith's decision. The costs of owning and maintaining hardware (server and peripherals), hiring personnel to manage the hardware in-house, and acquiring software licenses needed to run the server mount up quickly.

"I am by no means saying that SaaS is inexpensive," Oster said. "Even though you save on the total cost of ownership, there are the necessary hosting fees. However, we performed a cost/benefit analysis for our organization and came to the conclusion that hosting with SirsiDynix was our best possible outcome. We have had a really good partnership ever since."

The security that comes with hosting via SirsiDynix SaaS is one of the reasons Oster is continually happy with her service.

"Burt, Brett and Loren on the SaaS team really `get' my needs. Brett was a straight shooter with me when we needed several files restored, keeping me in the loop on the progress of restoring the corrupted files. They got my files back faster than I could have by walking across campus and resetting if I were operating a self-hosted server," Oster said.

"As a team, we take this offering one step further and really try to understand what our customers' needs are by establishing a relationship from the beginning," said Brett Hall, SirsiDynix managed client services manager. "We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Karen and take pride in the fact we have established this same type of relationship with all of our hosted customers. Communication is extremely important to us and I feel our customers believe we listen to them and that we really have their best interests in mind."

Oster recommends SaaS hosting for smaller colleges and libraries that may not be able to afford to keep an ILS system administrator. Larger libraries have the funds to hire a system administrator for $70-80,000 per year, plus benefits. Libraries that cannot afford the premium placed on licensed administrators should consider SaaS hosting as a viable alternative, said Oster.

"Reed Smith is highly satisfied with SaaS," she said. "The service is well suited to a corporate environment where headcount is important and in-house technology options can be limited.

"As a former admin and DBA I am comfortable having SirsiDynix hosting our Unicorn installation. I sleep a lot better not having to be the one to worry about hardware failure. Who better to have running your OS and Oracle instance than the company that wrote the software?

"I could not be in this job if our server were not hosted," Oster concluded.