Borough, district get discount on new digital library system

MAT-SU -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District plan to bring in a new automated library system into borough and district libraries this upcoming school year. Plans to implement the Unicorn System, a digital library software created by Sirsi Corporation, are scheduled for December's winter break.

"We're really excited, its good for the schools, good for the public libraries and especially good for the patrons," said Margaret Cosmah, an automated library systems technician for the borough. "We are going to save the taxpayers a lot of money."

The borough was able to get a 30 percent discount on the new system, saving the borough around $71,000, because the system is already being used statewide in the University of Alaska school system and the state library system. Right now the total estimated cost of the placement of the system is $182,186, with the borough providing around $100,000 and the district providing $97,243. In following years the maintenance cost on the system will be around $43,000 a year.

"Right now, both the school district and the borough maintain two systems, and we are on the exact same system," Cosmah said. Right now each entity pays around $28,000 in maintenance costs, and is working with 'end-of-life' equipment, meaning in order for the district and borough to continue using the old digital library system, called Dynix, they would have to purchase new equipment and totally upgrade the system. The decision to combine the two library systems during the upgrade made since, and the borough and district decided to also look at the possibility of changing to a completely new system.

"We had them (the companies) come up and demonstrate the systems for us," Cosmah said. "We had a chart set up with everything we felt was mandatory for our libraries. We had an evaluation committee, and decided on Sirsi."

Cosmah says one of the biggest reasons they chose Unicorn is the fact that the rest of the state is set up with the system. The price of the new system and the price of upgrading the Dynix system were 'neck-in-neck,' so it was really what the system provided that helped make the final decision. The Unicorn system's web-based program, named iBISTRO, will allow patrons to fill out request forms online, read the table of contents and the first chapter of many of the books in the system, search both the individual library collection, the district and borough collection and have access to the state and UA library collection.

The school district had hoped to drop the maintenance contract with Dynix during the change over to Unicorn to cut costs, but the district is required to maintain the contract due to licensing. The district's cost to maintain Dynix during the next seven months will be around $11,000.

The borough plans to vote on the Sirsi contract during the July 15 borough meeting. If approved, the contract could be signed as early as July 18. Normally implementing a new library system takes anywhere from three to six months, Cosmah said.