SirsiDynix Symphony

What do you like best?

The main menu is very intuitive and clear, which is great. I like the option to change the colour scheme and fonts as it is quite windows 95 looking otherwise. The option to change between tabs on a user's account is very useful, as their personal data does not come first, which is good for GDPR. History of Checkouts is useful because we can confirm exactly the time when someone claimes they returned a book. Same goes for the current Checkouts; sometimes users think they did not borrow a book which is on their account, and we can check if they borrowed any other books at the same time. Being able to override pretty much anything is extremely helpful, however it does require some policies in place. The automatic emails we can send to users, such as checkout receipts, return receipts, notifications of reservations available, even fines are very useful. I would advise revising wording for teams and testing out the layout first, as we have had several instances when monthy summaries cause confusion.

What do you dislike?

This could be specific for our institution, but I wish the menu names could be changed. So, for example, it would be called reservations in workflows for staff, as well as in the student-facing part instead of holds. The Receipt printer and font/theme settings are a little hidden, as well.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

We have switched to this Library Management system for a different one, as we were adding a lot of new services, such as automatic renewals, reservations, etc. With the help of automatic emails, we have been able to almost completely stop using paper receipts. This helps our sustainability goals and it makes for our users easier to keep a record in their emails.