Past library management designs provide a range of applications to form the whole: some small, some large and some ridiculuously huge for the job that they do - the most notable being separate management and OPAC1 systems.

Pergamon Mu takes a very different approach - the front-end of the management system is the OPAC but with the generous licensing system in place clients are able to install the full system in all locations where separate and differently priced applications would have been previously installed. Not only is this sometimes a complicated calculation financially, but it is often a nightmare for ICT staff trying to administer common workstation terminals using imaging and automated distribution.

With Pergamon, it's one piece of software. One installation requirement. All governed by user accounts within the software itself.

The benefits of this design are immense, but the obvious one is that you do not need a central library or workstation from which to manage everything . An increasingly common situation in Primary schools is to have a range of books distributed in different classrooms around the school. With the flexibility of the combined OPAC design, every classroom can become its own library - both separately but also collectively for school-wide administrative purposes and reporting.


1 Open Public Access Catalogue - the public search facility.