What do your patrons enjoy about Web Safari, the on-line catalog?

When patrons use Surpass Web Safari the response is always the same: they can’t believe how attractive and easy it is. More and more people are asking for their passwords and wanting to reserve materials on-line.

What was your experience learning Surpass?

It was fun and interesting. I’d never used all the modules of an automation system before, so I learned in Surpass. Surpass Support is very helpful.

Do you use many of the features Surpass offers?

We are using a lot of features. Besides the Visual Navigator [Explore], we post bestsellers, new books, and recommendations. You can access them right from the Welcome screen of Safari. I love using Safari Selections, which shows book jackets. We use Surpass Copycat to catalog, and we also use custom reporting.

Tell me about your experience creating custom reports.

I like the versatility of the reports that you can custom-design in Surpass. In a library you can’t always anticipate what information you’ll want some day. With Surpass, when you need it you can get it with a custom report.

For example, our collection includes some old and rare historic books, some more than 150 years old. I wondered “What is the oldest book in the library?” We designed a report to list all the books with a copyright before 1880. I will use the report to feature some of these rare items in our library publicity to our congregation.