Polaris ILS Reviews & Product Details

Polaris is the ILS I have the most experience with and can say that the search options are varied and powerful, but not always intuitive. The functionality from a cataloger prospective and from front line workers are great. The reports feature does a wonderful job of keeping my organized and able to make batch changes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's sometimes just not functional. It can not always make sense. Some of the things that it likes is odd. Additionally, it needs integration with realia reservations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Polaris was simple to learn when I was just starting in the Circulation Department at the library. It's interface is fairly user-friendly while still having a lot of functions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

When you make a mistake in Polaris, correcting it can sometimes be difficult. Often that is not a big deal, but sometimes you can make a mistake in a patron's account and cause problems.

Also, there is are a few parts of Polaris that we do not use, so maybe an option to hide certain fields so as not to mistakenly fill them, or hide buttons so as not to mistakenly press them - we know what they do, but do not want to use their features. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

My favorite feature about Polaris is that it lets you search by various identifiers. For example, you can search a book by author, barcode, or title. You can also search people by both their first and last names. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish it contained a spell check or some way to catch phrases that are similiar. For example, if I was looking for a book called "I Am a Champion" but it's actually called "I Am a Winner" I wish that it would come up in the search terms. Sometimes I don't know the exact title of the book I'm looking for, and this makes it difficult. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It’s very user friendly for librarians. I find it easier than most ILS programs. Specific reasons why I would suggest it is because they are running LEAP through POLARIS which allows the system to be browser based. This gives librarians an opportunity to be able to take this with them when doing outreach. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sometimes there are glitches — it’s by far not a perfect ILS. Sometimes searching for what you want can be a hassle. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I liked how specific you could be with your search. You can limit by branch, collection, whether the item is in the library or not. When you do a keyword search you can limit it a lot, by all results featuring this word or omitting a certain word. Very helpful in that way. When results show up it is very clear whether the item is available and where it is located. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Having all these search options meant that there was too many ways to do one thing. You could try to do the same thing five different ways and come up with different search results each time. Some ways were inefficient as well. Also if you leave an "s" off of a word for example, searching for books about airplanes vs. airplane will yield very different results. I disliked the public side of the catalog. I found it hard to use and customers often would be unable to find what they were looking for. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love how easy it is to jump into or teach new hires how to use it Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish there was another level of personaliztion that could be tailored to each branches needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Easy to put multiple holds on.

Easy to utilize the patron record information. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

How particular the search terms need to be Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Once you learn how to use the program, some things, such as cataloging and creating new records, is pretty simple. Also, the bulk mode for checking items in is pretty useful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Even after having used Polaris for 3 1/2 years, I still sometimes have a difficult time finding information or figuring out how to do or search things. It's not a very intuitive program. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Quick key functions to pull up most used features and ability to quickly switch through them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Polaris would at times crash or boot me out of the system without logging me off. It would also allow my user credentials to be enter into 2 separate terminals that led to some discrepancies on my end of night count out. The 3 step log out was a little bogged down. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.