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Read why Grace Lutheran School switched to Simple Little Library System to manage their school library
“Simplicity of the system sold it for me- the catalog doesn’t have a vast number of fields we will never use. The system is easy and the support and conversion teams are fantastic.”
“I can process books from my couch at home. When a new student joins the school, the teacher texts me, and I can usually get the student added for them within an hour.”
We had an expired client version of a big-name system that our teachers were not using because it was too complicated and could only be used on the desktop in the library. Teachers avoided taking students to the library because of all the barriers to checking books in and out. We have an extensive collection of over 7000 titles being dramatically under-utilized.
I’m a professional librarian in another field, but was asked to see what I could do for our church’s school library. I explored tools online that would be cost-effective and simple for our teachers to use on their own, since a librarian will not be onsite to help during the day. I admit the name caught my attention – a simple, little library system was exactly what we needed! After reading through the website, emailing some “up-front” questions and getting quick and helpful answers, school leadership was open to a free trial.
During our free trial, I created a sample collection of about 25 books and user ids for teachers and students. I also experimented by adding a few web resources to the catalog that would be of interest to the teachers. Once I understood checkin-checkout processes, the teachers and I had a session where they checked books out to the test students, did renewals and checked books back in, all from their own laptops. We talked through ideas for using the library, like having the students check the catalog themselves from their tablets, check-in / check-out from anywhere and new options for resources tailored to class projects. They loved it!
My questions were answered completely, they were quite flexible working across our very different time zones, and everything was indeed simple. I also had the opportunity to talk to a current SLLS school customer to ask questions and get suggestions about implementation.
The data conversion team was amazing! There are natural fears with converting a collection of 7000+ books, but a couple emails and online meetings and the plan was in place. I wanted to create some new locations for my early readers and once we identified criteria for the location, all the books were converted directly to their new “home”, saving me months of work. We worked together to make sure everything went smoothly, and all my questions were answered as we went along.
Support team was great! I needed to limit the Borrowing menu options to make it even easier for my teachers. An email and online meeting later, we had the revisions and a process in place. As I’ve moved on to the cleanup of the physical collection, support has been invaluable when I had questions about deletion processing.
I’m the volunteer librarian for a small church school. I have a full-time day job. SLLS allows our teachers to process loans a) from anywhere and b) without me around. I can process books from my couch at home. When a new student joins the school, the teacher texts me, and I can usually get the student added for them within an hour. Our library is being used again now that the library system is an asset and not a hindrance for our teachers, students, and librarian.
Schoolchildren do not need barriers to using the library these days. If your library system is a barrier, remove it and give SLLS a try. The system is easy and the support and conversion teams are fantastic.
