RFI FAQs

Response to Vendor Questions received as of 8/18/2011

Illinois Heartland Library System – Integrated Library System Request for Information

Response to Vendor Questions received as of 8/26/2011

1. Section 3.4.3, “Other,” in the ILS RFI requires costs for on-site training (for train-the-trainer). Could you please provide the number of staff to be trained?

IHLS Response:

IHLS requests that the vendor propose a training solution for the number of libraries outlined in the RFI.

2. Can you please specify the number and location of desired training sites?

IHLS Response:

IHLS requests that the vendor propose a training solution for the number of libraries outlined in the RFI.

3. Is it possible to get a Word version of the RFI?

IHLS Response:

Please email Pat Boze, pboze@illinoisheartland.org, for a Word version of the RFI document.

Response to Vendor Questions received as of 8/18/2011

1. What database does your current ILS use? (Sybase, MS SQL, Oracle, etc.)

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Proprietary - Innovative Interfaces

LINC - Champaign Sybase - SirsiDynix Horizon 7.5a

RPLS - Decatur Sybase - SirsiDynix Horizon 7.5a

Silnet - Carterville Proprietary - SirsiDynix Classic

2. How many unique location codes do you have in your current ILS?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville 108 agencies, with 990 unique location codes

LINC - Champaign 131

RPLS - Decatur 173

Silnet - Carterville 109

3. Where is the item barcode stored in your current ILS? (Bibliographic record, holding record, other)?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Holding record

LINC - Champaign Holding record

RPLS - Decatur Holding record

Silnet - Carterville Holding record

4. What format are you able to extract patron records from your ILS (columnar, XML, other)?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Columnar

LINC - Champaign Columnar, xml

RPLS - Decatur Columnar, xml

Silnet - Carterville Columnar, xml

5. When extracting bibliographic records, do you have the option of including item information in the record?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Yes

LINC - Champaign Yes

RPLS - Decatur Yes

Silnet - Carterville Yes

6. Are your serial items barcoded?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Yes

LINC - Champaign Yes

RPLS - Decatur Yes

Silnet - Carterville Some

7. Do your current and/or back issues of serials circulate?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Yes

LINC - Champaign Yes

RPLS - Decatur Yes

Silnet - Carterville Some

8. Do you have MARC Holdings records (MFHD) in your ILS?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Yes

LINC - Champaign No

RPLS - Decatur No

Silnet - Carterville No

9. Are they only used for serials?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville No

LINC - Champaign n/a

RPLS - Decatur n/a

Silnet - Carterville n/a

10. Is your ILS capable of extracting holdings in MFHD format (MARC Format for Holdings Data)? If yes, can you include the OCLC number?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Yes. Yes, it can include OCLC number.

LINC - Champaign No

RPLS - Decatur No

Silnet - Carterville No

11. Does your ILS use Item Types? If yes, do you use Item Types to set circulation policy?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Yes Circulation Policy? Yes

LINC - Champaign Yes Circulation Policy? Yes

RPLS - Decatur Yes Circulation Policy? Yes

Silnet - Carterville Yes Circulation Policy? Yes

12. Do you plan on migrating circulation data? If yes, Migrate items checked out? Migrate Bills/ Fines? Migrate Holds?

IHLS Response:

Gatenet - Edwardsville Yes to all

LINC - Champaign Yes to all

RPLS - Decatur Yes to all

Silnet - Carterville Yes to all

Response to Vendor Questions received as of 8/15/2011

1. Pg 2/3: “…We do expect to add additional libraries in the future”, and “…With the creation of the ILHS, we must consider how an ILS will be able to scale in the future (within the next 1-3 years) to accommodate a much larger consortium.”

a. Can you give the vendors an idea of how many libraries and/or buildings may be added per year over the 3 years? We assume this is above and beyond the initial 302 agencies and 451 buildings.

IHLS Response:

We anticipate that new libraries would only be added once a group has migrated to the new system. A guesstimate would be a total of 5-10 new libraries per year once the migration is completed for each group.

2. Pg 3. The four automation systems will eventually merge into one system. Please provide an outline of which systems would migrate first and in what order? An approximate timeline of when the desired implementations would occur (for go-live dates) would be helpful from a resource planning perspective.

IHLS Response:

One migration scenario we are considering is

SILNET (Carterville) and LINC (Champaign) would migrate together first - 2012

Gatenet (Edwardsville) would migrate second - 2013

RPLS LLSAP (Decatur) would migrate third - 2014

3. What concerns (if any), might IHLS have with regards to a vendor run cloud-based or SaaS implementation? Would network or performance testing be required?

IHLS Response:

We have several concerns: performance must equal or exceed an in-house server installation so there would need to be extensive performance testing to guarantee this; ongoing cost of cloud-based or SAAS should be supportable in the current financial environment; access to run scripts, develop customized programming or applications should be supportable; and access to all data through database query language should be supportable.

4. Does GateNet have enough licensed disk space to export their data in larger sets? For example, can the entire bib database be exported in one pass or in multiple chunks? Transactions? The reason for this question is in relation to the conversion services effort required.

IHLS Response:

Yes, Gatenet can export its entire database in a single pass and does not anticipate transactions export will be a problem.

5. Pg 6, 1.5 How can the ILS Vendor Help the Library System?

a. It would be helpful to know when each LLSAP’s annual ILS maintenance renewal is due as an implementation plan may reflect a go-live to minimize or eliminate another year of maintenance on the old ILS system(s).

IHLS Response:

LINC (Champaign) maintenance renewal occurs on January 1

SILNET (Carterville) maintenance renewal occurs on July 1

Gatenet (Edwardsville) maintenance renewal occurs on July 1

RPLS LLSAP (Decatur) maintenance renewal occurs on May 1

6. Pg 6, 1.6 Length of Commitment and Contract Term

a. Would this be the case for a Saas or cloud-based solution as well?

IHLS Response:

Yes, if the vendor offers both scenarios (IHLS hosts servers or vendor hosts) then we'd like the information for both

7. Pg 6, SILNET – the number of staff workstations was raised from 250 from the initial RFQ (January 3rd, 2011) to 444 in this version of the RFI. Can you explain the difference?

IHLS Response:

444 is the correct number.

8. Pg 8, Listed for # of patrons is 9,600,000. Should this number be 960,000?

IHLS Response:

That is an error and has since been corrected in the online RFI - the patron number should be 960,000

9. How many staff workstations does LINC have now that Champaign and Urbana are moving this year to their own Polaris system?

IHLS Response:

LINC still anticipates needing 500 staff workstations

10. Does SILNET have any authority records? If so, how many?

IHLS Response:

Yes

478,213 Author

88,785 Series

448,930 Subject

You are here

RFI FAQs

Response to Vendor Questions received as of 8/18/2011