Succeeding with a Shared System
Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD) comprises seven campuses serving over 35,000 full-time equivalent students. With population expected to grow to 80,000 credit and 100,000 continuing education (non-credit) students in the District each year, reliable systems and the service to back them up are crucial to the success of the libraries.
In 1998, DCCCD libraries needed a reliable system that would facilitate resource sharing among its member campuses and was convenient for students to use. The libraries also had a mandate from the DCCCD to install a flexible solution that would serve the needs of each individual library and also work as a coherent whole. After a smooth transition to the Innovative system, the libraries were awarded the District’s Innovation of the Year Award.
The support the District receives extends from the front-line staff to the systems administrator. “We are happy customers of Innovative,” says Paul Dumont, Director of Educational Resources Support Services. “The system works! And service has always been an important aspect of our relationship. We can count on Innovative in a crisis.”
Marquita Thomas, Network Systems Specialist at DCCCD says, “Millennium is fairly simple to handle. The support we get is ‘A+’ each time I call. There’s always been someone there who knows what they are doing and can help me.”
Resource sharing has been particularly effective for DCCCD libraries. Students and faculty have access to over a half million items from a union catalog offering database scoping, allowing users to search their home library’s collection or all campuses simultaneously. “Resource sharing has always been important to us,” says Dumont. “With online requesting we can offer turnaround in about 24 hours.” Centralization has also been a cost-effective solution that allows single-site ordering, cataloging, and support of online databases.
DCCCD was one of the first academic libraries in Texas to select Innovative and has been an impetus for others in the state. “People are always visiting us from other libraries, and when they do we give lots of advice on implementation of Millennium and we recommend it highly,” says Dumont. With DCCCD’s largest college, Richland College, having been the first community college to be awarded the prestigious 2005 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, libraries of similar-sized institutions can be even more confident in the recommendation.
