Hi, Joyce,
This is our second year to use Alexandria. We have continued to use our Palm Scanners from our old Spectrum program. Those librarians who have had scanner problems have tried using a wireless laptop with their regular checkout scanners for inventory. They love using the laptops and say they will never go back to using the old Palms. As I'm sure you know, Alexandria no longer supports or sells a Palm-type scanner. I just purchased 3 of their new wireless bluetooth scanners. I haven't tried to inventory with one yet. They do seem to require the librarian to do a lot of extra scans to upload data. There is a series of barcodes that you must scan each time you upload. You will have to keep either a 'cheat sheet" nearby when uploading inventory data, or keep the manual handy. The jury is still out on how much they will be used.
I have Follett Destiny and we have a Follett Panther - it scans the barcodes into a text file - the one thing I'm unsure of is whether the formatting of that .txt file can be understood by Alexandria on upload but it's the only info I can give you at the moment - hope it helps.
Replies
This is our second year to use Alexandria. We have continued to use our Palm Scanners from our old Spectrum program. Those librarians who have had scanner problems have tried using a wireless laptop with their regular checkout scanners for inventory. They love using the laptops and say they will never go back to using the old Palms. As I'm sure you know, Alexandria no longer supports or sells a Palm-type scanner. I just purchased 3 of their new wireless bluetooth scanners. I haven't tried to inventory with one yet. They do seem to require the librarian to do a lot of extra scans to upload data. There is a series of barcodes that you must scan each time you upload. You will have to keep either a 'cheat sheet" nearby when uploading inventory data, or keep the manual handy. The jury is still out on how much they will be used.
Jan McGee