We transitioned from LARS to ABLE about 2 years ago.

ABLE is nice and has some great features, like being able to transmit
your order online with one click, but it doesn't always WORK.

For example, when we installed a new firewall on our campus server this
fall, the link to the site stopped working. It took several months and
our local IT person to figure out how to put an exception into the
security program to allow the ABLE site through. At this point, I had to
either skip some bindery shipments during our busiest time of the year
or do all of the work in an old version of LARS. It was a mess to deal
with -- especially since the day before the bindery shipment went out,
ABLE was working -- so I had to put everything into ABLE. Not a fun
prospect when you're dealing with over a hundred pieces.

Also, we have a bindery shipment due this Friday and ABLE has been down
for the last 3 business days and our bindery doesn't know when it will
be accessible again.

We had LARS for quite a while, but it ALWAYS worked. The 5 years that I
worked with it, we never had any technical difficulties at all.

That said, ABLE looks very similar to LARS, and there are nice pull down
lists for every option when you're creating a title. The reports are
also "cleaner" looking if you have to use those.

However, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't. I realize that the
LARS update is now several years past due -- but if you have a computer
that can run it, I don't see many advantages to changing to ABLE.

Deb Ham
Library Specialist -- Serials
Reinert-Alumni Memorial Library
Creighton University
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE 68178