System migration from Horizon to Symphony at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

Abstract

Highlights difficulties and problems in library automation systems migration faced by libraries in the Middle East due to the lack of direct support from their ILS’s parent companies. Local vendors lack the required expertise and resources to provide the level of support enjoyed by North American and European user libraries of such systems. In this context, the article presents the experiences of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) Library in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in system migration from the SirsiDynix integrated library system, Horizon, to the same company’s newer system, Symphony, which readers may find somewhat different from those of western libraries in terms of planning, execution and time span of the project. A brief 30-year history of library automation at KFUPM is also provided.

Keywords

library automation integrated library systems systems migration SirsiDynix Horizon integrated library system Symphony integrated library system data conversion King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals Saudi Arabia

References

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Khurshid, Zahiruddin and Al-Baridi, Saleh A. ( 2009) Symphony: SirsiDynix’s flagship integrated library system: a Horizon user’s perspective. Computers in Libraries , Vol. 29, no. 7 (July/August 2009), 6-10.

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