SirsiDynix

SirsiDynix
Private
Industry Software
Headquarters Lehi, Utah, United States
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
  • Bill Davison, (CEO)
  • John Martin, (CFO)
Products Integrated library systems
Parent ICV Partners
Website www.sirsidynix.com

SirsiDynix is a United States company which produces software and associated services for libraries.[1]

History

SirsiDynix Corporation

SirsiDynix was formed by the merger of the Dynix Corporation and the Sirsi Corporation in June 2005. The company is based in Lehi, Utah, and employs approximately 400 in offices worldwide.[2] It was bought out by Vista Equity Partners in December 2006, a private equity firm based in San Francisco, CA.[3] Bill Davison was named SirsiDynix CEO in October 2011. In January 2015 ICV Partners announced their acquisition of SirsiDynix from Vista Equity Partners.[4]

Sirsi Corporation

The Sirsi Corporation was founded in Huntsville, Alabama in 1979 by Mike Murdock, Jacky Young, and Jim Young.[5] The Unicorn library automation system they developed was first installed at Georgia Tech. Sirsi acquired Data Research Associates (DRA) for $51.5 million in 2001.[6][7] The main product inherited from Sirsi is the Unicorn integrated library system (ILS).

Dynix Corporation

The Dynix Corporation was founded in 1983. Their major product was the Dynix Automated Library System.

In January 1992, Dynix Systems was acquired by Ameritech.[8] Dynix and NOTIS Systems (maker of NOTIS), which Ameritech purchased in October 1991, were consolidated into Ameritech Library Services (ALS) in 1994.[8]

In November 1999, Ameritech sold Ameritech Library Systems to a pair of investment companies, the 21st Century Group and Green Leaf Ridge Company, which rebranded ALS as epixtech.[8] In 2003, epixtech reverted to using the Dynix name.[9]

Core products (ILS)

The ILS serves libraries in various functions: cataloging, circulation, acquisitions, reserves, outreach, etc. SirsiDynix currently supports the SirsiDynix Symphony ILS and the Horizon ILS.

Other products

BLUEcloud LSP

SirsiDynix announced the BLUEcloud LSP (BCS) library services platform at their annual COSUGI users' group conference. It is a browser-based system that will integrate SirsiDynix's "administration, discovery, acquisition, and collection management applications." It can be accessed from a desktop, laptop, tablet or smart phone. BCS can integrate with both SaaS and locally hosted Horizon and Symphony systems. The BLUEcloud LSP is made up of three major components: BLUEcloud Staff, BLUEcloud Marketplace, and BLUEcloud Discovery. The first features are expected to be released by summer 2013.[10]

SirsiDynix will offer BCS to their customer base without forcing a data migration. The initial release will require the latest version of the ILS, but customers will then be allowed to lag behind by a version. The goal of this project was to streamline the user experience rather than changing administration interfaces for each product. This approach will stop the duplication of data and will integrate all searches across products. The majority of the new features of BCS will be included in the annual maintenance fee.[11]

Others

Other products include Director's Station and Web Reporter[12][13]

Previous products include Unicorn, Dialcat and SchoolRooms.[14][15]

Technological advances

SirsiDynix and Stanford university libraries worked together for over a year to upgrade Stanford's library environment to support Asian and other multi-byte character sets.[16] SirsiDynix has also partnered with 3M to provide radio-frequency identification systems for libraries.[17]

Controversy

On October 29, 2009, the WikiLeaks Project obtained a document [18] from SirsiDynix taking a negative view of open source projects as compared to proprietary products, including risks of instability and insecurity. The document, which its author, Stephen Abram, claimed was not intended to be secret, set off a debate on open source within the library technology community.[19]

In May 2010, the company performed an upgrade of its systems at the Ottawa Public Library, involving a scheduled two-day closure of all library branches, accompanied by an 11-day shutdown of online systems. However, the actual upgrade required closure of the library system for an additional two days. Jan Harder, chair of Ottawa's library board, stated an intention to seek compensation from SirsiDynix for the unexpected additional upgrade work.[20]

References

  1. ↑ "Vista Equity". Retrieved 2011-03-27.
  2. ↑ Barack, Lauren (2008-12-01). "INFOhio, SirsiDynix launch singular portal statewide". School Library Journal. Plain City, Ohio: Media Source. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  3. ↑ Marshal Breeding (2007-02-01). "Vista Equity Partners acquires SirsiDynix". Smart Libraries Newsletter. Retrieved 2011-03-27.
  4. ↑ "ICV Partners Announces Acquisition of SirsiDynix" (Press release). Lehi, Utah: ICV Partners. PRN Newswire. 7 January 2015. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
  5. ↑ "SirsiDynix: Company Overview". Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  6. ↑ Rogers, Michael (15 June 2001). "Sirsi buys data research assocs.". Library Journal. 126 (11). Retrieved 30 August 2015 – via Proquest. (subscription required (help)).
  7. ↑ "SIRSI Completes DRA Acquisition". InformationToday. October 2001. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  8. 1 2 3 Breeding, Marshall (January 2000). "Epixtech: A New Beginning for ALS". Information Today. 17 (1). Retrieved 30 August 2015.
  9. ↑ Rogers, Michael (1 March 2003). "Dynix investing in future growth". Library Journal. 128 (4). Retrieved 30 August 2015 – via Proquest. (subscription required (help)).
  10. ↑ Breeding, Marshall. "BLUEcloud Suite". Product announcements. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
  11. ↑ Kelley, Michael. "At COSUGI, SirsiDynix Touts New Cloud-Based System". Library Journal. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
  12. ↑ Hadro, Josh (2008-10-15). "Director's Station for Usage Stats". Library Journal. Plain City, Ohio: Media Source. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  13. ↑ Hadro, Josh (2008-11-01). "Updates Emerge from SirsiDynix". Library Journal. Plain City, Ohio: Media Source. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  14. ↑ "DialCat Offers Library Research by Telephone" (PDF). Houston Public Library. 1991-11-01.Retrieved 2011-4-9
  15. ↑ Kenney, Brian (December 2005). "A Web Portal Just for Kids" (PDF). School Library Journal. Plain City, Ohio: Media Source. pp. 22–23. Archived from the original on 2005-12-22. Retrieved 2010-06-06.
  16. ↑ "Stanford University Libraries and SirsiDynix Partner for State-of-the-Art, Original Script Access". Biblio Tech Review. 2008-10-31. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  17. ↑ "High-tech checkout is OK'd for Provo library". Deseret News. 2007-01-08. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  18. ↑ "SirsiDynix Corp restricted lobby paper against Open Source technologies, Sep 2009". WikiLeaks. 2009-10-29. Retrieved 2015-01-12.
  19. ↑ Fitzpatrick, Sean (11 November 2009). "Open Source Advocates Reject SirsiDynix's Warning". American Libraries. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  20. ↑ "Late, but libraries finally back online". Ottawa Citizen. 2010-05-07. Archived from the original on May 26, 2010.
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