Mandarin 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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On this page

Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
User Reviews

Overview

Mandarin

4.7

(60)

Pricing

Starting at $500.00 per year

About Mandarin

Mandarin is a web-based catalog management solution designed specifically for library departments in schools and universities. Mandarin empowers librarians and administrators to maintain the digital library catalog, create custom library reports, view item circulations, and managed physical item inventory.

With Mandarin's catalog module, administrators and librarians are able to create a customizable digital library system, tailor-made for their students. Catalog managers can create and modify item records with simple/advanced catalog editors and customizable templates. For existing library records, Mandarin is able to centralize library records or provide additional reporting capabilities with MARC import and export functionality. For front-end capabilities, students are able to find the right library resource using word search, advanced filters, recommended item widget or a digital catalog gallery.

For every item in the catalog, librarians can view booking status, student ownership history, and check-in and check-out times. Within the catalog system, librarians can apply and process late charge and fees while also sending email notifications for items overdue. All of th...

Mandarin Screenshots

Mandarin Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $500.00 per year

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

$500.00

per year

No plan information available

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Mandarin Features

Popular features found in Catalog Management
Catalog Management
Content Library
Cross Selling Functionality
Database Publishing
Data Synchronization
Document Management
eCommerce Management
Inventory Management
Pricing Management
Product Comparison
Product Data Management
More features of Mandarin
Alerts/Notifications
Barcode/Ticket Scanning
Barcoding/RFID
Church Libraries
Circulation Management
Customizable Branding
Customizable Reports
Customizable Templates
Customization
Data Import/Export
Equipment Tracking
Fee Collection
Full Text Search
Historical Reporting
Multi-Language
Online Catalog
OPAC
Order Management
Patron Management
Periodicals Management
Private Libraries
Public Libraries
Records Management
Reporting & Statistics
Reserve Shelf Management
School Libraries
Search/Filter
Self Check-In/Check-Out
Self Service Portal
Serials Management
Templates
Third-Party Integrations
User Management

Mandarin User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.7

Ratings Breakdown

72%

25%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.4

Value for money

4.8

Customer support

4.9

Functionality

4.2

Verified

Reviewer

Education Management

51-200 employees

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed May 2019

Mandarin is a great library software!

Overall Mandarin has been wonderful for managing our library needs. Reports, email to patrons, entering books, etc. all go fairly smoothly. When we do have a problem or question Mandarin support is quick to respond and great to work with.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Love that it is easy to learn and has fantastic customer support! Much easier to use than larger library software systems I've used in the past. The conversion from the old system to this one was very smooth. Very affordable.

Cons:

Having to switch between the Equipment, Textbook and General Library databases is sometimes confusing. One often forgets on the first search for an item and has to go back and re-search.

Mary P.

Primary/ Secondary Education

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed January 2019

School Library Complete Solutions - Amazing Ability to Meet Your Students/Staff Needs

Mandarin Library creates a public face for our school that expands the resources that we can house on campus. It is a great marketing tool of academic resources that we can easily put within student/parent reach. I love the customized look I can give to my home page. Mandarin Library is a fun and intuitive program that meet budgetary constaints while allowing me to expand in new ways. I was nervous about learning a new system and found the changes made everything easier in library management. Again, Technical Support is a phone call away and they are the most patient, kind staff of experts that speaks volumes about this company.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

We are a Classical School Pre-K thru 12 - This software has made my job easier and saves me time. The transition from our old system to Mandarin was amazing. I was happy with the ease of implementing the new system and tech support patiently guided any questions. I can't say enough good things about tech support - I love the speed & ease of inputting new records and barcodes for classroom sets of books in minutes. Physical barcodes are easily printed - a budgetary savings. I love the visual search - parents and students can link to ebooks, public library resources, college prep, homework helps, audio books, whatever I want to create a link for assisting research and resources - the world is at our disposal. Parents can easily email and send book requests. An economical high quality services for private schools with small library budgets. Technical support is amazing 24/7 and they are great teachers. Training library help is very easy. There is no need to purchase MARC record as the record fetch has most titles and it is very easy to create your own record. I highly recommend this software for ease of use and ability to expand circulation options. We separate textbooks and general library but it is all in the same catalog. Teachers easily check out their classroom textbooks. I am re-cataloguing sets of elementary books and tech support makes global call number changes saving the time of bringing up each title to change the record.

Cons:

What is there not to like? I love this software!!!

Stella M.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

201-500 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed April 2019

Review of Mandarin

Okay. Tech support is amazing, though.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Can be accessed on any computer Great technical support

Cons:

The transfer of data from our old system to this one was mediocre at best (Came on board when the transfer had already occurred). I have to visit EVERY book and re-enter spine info. Also quite a few books were lumped in as bib-holdings for totally different books. I understand the imported data may have been in very bad shape as well. However the ability to change multiple records in Mandarin is time consuming and extremely cumbersome. I would have liked to see rows of books in spreadsheet format and be able to edit that way. As it is TOO many screens to scroll to before you can make the edits.

Vendor Response

Hi Stella, We will have a technical support representative contact you ASAP. It looks like we have been able to assist you based on your email below. We are glad we were able to assist you. Alex, I just spoke with you and you were able to show me a MUCH faster way to edit these bib-holdings. THANK YOU. Best regards, Stella Marquez PE Teacher FACTS SIS Administrator M5 Library Administrator Blessed Sacrament School, Sandy UT

Replied April 2019

Laurie J.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2023

Mandarin Fan!

Learning a new system, as a new librarian, with hundreds of patrons, was a daunting position. However, I am consistently pleased with their support through the years.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Mandarin is so easy to learn and use. And on those ocassions when I don't find the answer, their customer service responds with efficiency.

Cons:

Nothing to report. Apparently I need more characters in this reponse to make if valid. Still, nothing to report.

Reasons for switching to Mandarin

Autolibrarian did not work well with our growing needs.

Chad S.

Verified reviewer

Libraries

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed March 2022

I Love Mandarin

The switch to Mandarin from RenWeb library was a breeze. They handled all of it on their end. After a small learning curve I was up and running, with SO many more tools at my disposal than I ever had before... things I didn't even know I needed but now couldn't imagine going without. We used RenWeb because it was built-in to the SIS we already paying for. It was EXTREMELY bare bones, but it was free. Mandarin was an enormous step up at a great price. I wish I had switched sooner.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Easy to use. Value for the money. Quick response to customer service inquiries. Records (new enrollments) automatically update from SIS (FACTS/RenWeb). Record Fetch is great!

Cons:

OPAC not customizable enough. Financials do not integrate with SIS (FACTS/RenWeb).

Reasons for choosing Mandarin

Full list of features at a great price.

Reasons for switching to Mandarin

RenWeb Library was retired from service.

Michelle K.

Verified reviewer

Libraries

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2019

Mandarin Snapshot

Mandarin provides an affordable and easy-to-implement integrated library package (cataloging, circulation, public access interface). It continues to offer more features and the IT support department has been very helpful when a bit of tweaking is needed.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Versatile library automation with room to accommodate new features. Good software support - very available. Great price for small libraries.

Cons:

This company's products are geared for elementary and high schools. The OPAC features reading-level categories which are not necessary for specialized libraries and those serving adults. However these features can be removed by Mandarin support. There are some problems in the cataloging software when adding subsequent subdivisions (involving punctuation). But these can be worked around. It would be great to have more options for the public visual search interface (like font style, colors, etc.) and general layout.

Reasons for choosing Mandarin

Versatility, great price and easy to implement.

Reasons for switching to Mandarin

The library needed a robust integrated library system that supported cirucation, cataloging, and a public interface modules. The public interface included a visual layout.

Ana E.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2023

Mandarin M5 review

overall I am very satisfied with the product

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Great customer service, ease of use, sufficient customization

Cons:

Call Number Labels are hard to customize to size and we have to use M3 for that. We also use older Report Tool (from M3) to pull overdue and loan reports

Reasons for choosing Mandarin

Destiny would offer similar features, but we would have lost our historical data

Reasons for switching to Mandarin

Web-based platform

Linda R.

Verified reviewer

Libraries

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2023

Mandarin

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The ease of getting the library data entered. The Tech crew is wonderful to work with. The time they will spend to help you understand and implement what you need done.

Cons:

I would prefer that they update the picture for my patrons. It is a real pain to get the information from the other source.

Julie C.

Verified reviewer

Libraries

51-200 employees

Used weekly for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed May 2019

Great System

My overall experience with Mandarin has been wonderful. My questions are always quick to be answered. I would definitely recommend Mandarin to anyone who is looking for a new system for their library cataloging.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

We came from using RenWeb for our Library Catalog and Patron Services. There's been a bit of learning curve, but Mandarin is so much easier to use than our previous system. Inputting new items into the catalog is so much easier than the previous system. It takes me a fraction of the time that I used to spend.

Cons:

I don't like that I can't print library cards with our student's pictures on them. But, I can still print them in RenWeb with a barcode, so that's really nice. I also wish that the pictures were easier to update. School pictures don't come in until Mid to Late October and I don't have access to them. So new students don't have their pictures updated and continuing students don't have their new ones shown. This just makes our students a bit sad. I also wish that I could search the system by barcode. It would also be nice if I am signed in as an administrator and I look up a particular book, that it would show the name of the student who has checked it out. Yes, I do know there's another way to do that. But, it would be nice if it was just in one step and I didn't have to go to another place to look that up. The only other little problem, which I know is just my library assistants being a bit to quick, is that there's a significant time lag between scanning a book as returned and it coming up on the screen as returned. I know that this is more on my side than on the side of Mandarin.

Verified

Reviewer

Libraries

51-200 employees

Used monthly for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed October 2018

Mandarin

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I used Mandarin briefly to catalog some book, and was able to get the hang of it pretty easily with minimal guidance. It's a great program, considering that you can get it for free.

Cons:

When finished the cataloging process and submitted the data I wrote on the template, the final result was not visible no matter what I did, among other bugs. I'm not sure if it was due to Mandarin being an earlier version or if the problems were related to the campus IT.

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