Five New Indiana Public Library Systems Go Live With Evergreen
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Norcross, GA – October 15, 2008
The public libraries of Colfax-Perry Township, Jackson County, Lebanon, Mooresville, and Plainfield-Guilford Township have gone live with Evergreen, the consortial-quality open-source library automation software. The successful migration of these libraries is part of a process that will see a total of 15 new libraries running Evergreen by the end of 2008 as part of Indiana Evergreen, a shared-catalog project administered by the Indiana State Library. Hussey-Mayfield, Adams, and Union Public Libraries have already made the transition and are live with the software. Equinox Software, Inc., the support and development company for Evergreen, provided bumper to bumper support for the migrations.
"We're pleased to see the Evergreen Indiana project growing so quickly and yet so smoothly," said Brad LaJeunesse, Equinox company president. "From its start in the hundreds of libraries in Georgia PINES, Evergreen has proven to be an industrial-strength ILS capable of supporting the indexing, transaction, de-duping, and other core functions only found in the best consortial-quality library software. Indiana’s libraries are about to join our open source success story."
Colfax-Perry Township Public Library is the smallest of the five libraries with just over 500 patrons and 22,200 bibliographic items. Jackson County has the highest patron count with 24,000 library members and Plainfield-Guilford has the largest collection with 127,250 bibliographic items. The new online catalog for all the Indiana Evergreen Libraries can be viewed at http://evergreen.lib.in.us .

About Evergreen
Evergreen is consortial-quality, open-source library software initially developed to support Georgia PINES, a resource-sharing consortium with over 270 public libraries. Evergreen was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of very large, high-transaction, multi-site consortia, yet its robust, fault-tolerant architecture elegantly scales down to the smallest sites. Evergreen is also adaptive software that due to its service-oriented, standards-compliant design can nimbly evolve to meet changing library needs and user expectations.
From its debut in September 2006, Evergreen has consistently outperformed expectations and resulted in acclaim and praise from users worldwide. Evergreen has received significant attention, including a Technology Collaboration Award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Additional Evergreen implementations include the Michigan Library Consortium, British Columbia SITKA, and several smaller implementations, such as Kent County Public Library in Maryland and Marshall Public Library in Missouri. For more information about Evergreen, visit http://evergreen-ils.org

About Equinox Software, Inc.

Founded by the original Evergreen designers and developers, Equinox Software is a growing team of skilled developers and other professionals who provide comprehensive support for Evergreen, the consortial-quality, open source Integrated Library System (ILS). Equinox develops, supports, trains, migrates, integrates, and consults on Evergreen, and engages with the rapidly expanding Evergreen community. Instead of one-size-fits-all support, Equinox works closely with libraries to ensure Evergreen is implemented in the manner that best fits their individual needs.
In addition to support, custom development and integration services, Equinox offers complete Evergreen hosting packages for libraries wishing to outsource their ILS infrastructure. Equinox also provides consulting services for libraries seeking more insight into the value proposition of open source software.
Press contact: Corinne Hall, corinne@esilibrary.com, 678-269-6113
For more information on Equinox Software, please visit http://www.esilibrary.com.

Evergreen is open source software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL. Evergreen and the Evergreen
Logo are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of the Georgia Public Library Service.

Athens, OH and Columbus, OH--October 15, 2008-- LibLime, the leader in open-source solutions for libraries, and OPLIN (Ohio Public Library Information Network) announced today that their Ohio Web Library search has gone live. Ohio Web Library is a collection of online resources and databases (proprietary and open content) accessible to all Ohioans. The Ohio Web Library search provides a fast, user-friendly search interface to the entire collection.

The Ohio Web Library search (http://ohioweblibrary.org) was developed in-house by OPLIN using Pazpar2, an open-source middleware technology created by LibLime's partner, Index Data. Access to subscription content is provided by OpenTranslators, a new web service offered by LibLime that offers a simple gateway interface to over 9,000 subscription databases.

"For public libraries, the lack of a good federated search interface results in low use of the databases and therefore a high cost per search," says OPLIN Executive Director Stephen Hedges. Stephen continues, "public library users are uncomfortable with being forced to select which database to search, and then to repeat their search in each individual database search interface. Confronted with this task, they simply turn to Google or some other web search engine to find online information and never get access to the information libraries purchase and provide."

Responding to focus groups, the goal of Ohio Web Library federated search was to bring the 'Google' experience to libraries and their patrons by eliminating the repetitious search process. Ohio Web Library provides a single search interface to all databases, merges and deduplicates the results, and does it all at astounding speeds.

"We investigated several commercial options including WebFeat Express and Google Custom Search Engine (CSE)," says Stephen. "However, these solutions either did not offer us as much control as we wanted over search result rankings or could not index proprietary databases such as EBSCO which require authentication to access." OPLIN decided to build their new search solution in-house, using Index Data's open-source Pazpar2 metasearching middleware. Pazpar2 is the driving middleware technology in a growing number of federated search tools including MasterKeyTM, a federated search and discovery system, (http://liblime.com/products/masterkey) and ‡bibliosTM, an open-source cataloging suite (http://biblios.org).

Since not all database vendors use the Z39.50 protocol, OPLIN also contracts with LibLime for OpenTranslators, a hosted web service that provides access to over 9,000 subscription and free content databases as well as Websites. OpenTranslators is an enabling service that makes it easy to build search systems for subscription databases that don't support standards.

Customizations

OPLIN took advantage of the many benefits of open source in their development of Ohio Web Library, including the freedom to customize the software in-house and the ability to contract with developers for additional customizations.

OPLIN installed a custom version of the JavaScript that writes the search results to the page for more control over the appearance of the search results page. OPLIN also enlisted customizations which would change the default Pazpar2 JavaScript behavior and allow them to group several related databases into one "category" search (for instance, Health, Careers, or Business). They then built a drop-down box on the search page containing these 'category' options.

Other in-house customizations include the addition of the Yahoo Spell-checker API and a 'searching' status bar to let users know the search is still retrieving results (important since pazpar2 begins returning results instantaneously!). OPLIN uses EZProxy for authentication and has even included a "Librarians:24x7" link to Ohio KnowItNow 24/7 reference service (www.knowitknow.org). All of this is aimed at offering Ohio libraries and their patrons a convenient and user-friendly experience.

Future Plans

OPLIN plans to continue making adjustments to the site based on librarian feedback. They have the freedom to do so because they are using open source. "Whenever we introduce the site to a librarian, we emphasize that the open-source code that runs the site allows us to incorporate their suggestions to make the site better," adds Stephen. "Several of the changes mentioned above came about because of suggestions from librarians using the site. In most cases, we were able to make the changes within hours."

About Ohio Web Library

Since 1996, OPLIN has been providing a basic collection of online databases to Ohio public libraries. Currently purchased in cooperation with the Ohio academic library information network (OhioLINK) and the school library network (INFOhio), with additional funds from an Institute of Museum and Library Services LSTA grant awarded by the State Library of Ohio, the total cost of this extensive collection tops $4 million annually. In 2004, the network partners began referring to this communal collection of databases as the Ohio Web Library.

About Pazpar2

Pazpar2 is metasearch middleware, capable of searching large numbers of databases simultaneously, providing on-the-fly metadata normalization, merging, ranking/sorting, and facet extraction. Pazpar2 was written by Index Data, who provides support, training, and other services related to their software.

Pazpar2 is the driving technology behind a growing number of federated search tools including MasterKeyTM, a federated search and discovery system (http://liblime.com/products/masterkey) and ‡bibliosTM, an open-source cataloging suite (http://biblios.org).

About OpenTranslators

OpenTranslators is a hosted web service offered by LibLime that provides access to over 9,000 subscription and free content databases as well as Websites. OpenTranslators is an enabling service that makes it easy to build search systems for subscription databases that don't support standards.

About LibLime

LibLime is the global leader in open-source solutions for libraries, with a mission to make open source accessible to libraries. Rather than sell software licenses for static, hard-to-customize software products, LibLime educates libraries about the benefits of open source, enabling them to make choices about how best to provide their communities and staff with better technology services. LibLime then facilitates implementation of open-source in libraries by providing outstanding development, customization, support and training solutions--solutions tailored to each library's needs. For more information, see http://liblime.com.

Press Contact:

Tina Burger

Vice President, Marketing LibLime

(888)Koha ILS (564-2457)

tnb@liblime.com

Bobbi Galvin

OPLIN Customer Relations and Support

OPLIN Support Center

Phone: 614-728-5252

Fax: 614-728-5256

http://support.oplin.org

LibLime and the LibLime logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of LibLime. ‡bibliosTM is also a trademark of LibLime. MasterKeyTM is a registered trademark of Index Data.

Live, mobile Q&A system to power top universities, including UC Berkeley and the University of Kansas

San Francisco, CA–October 8, 2008—Every year, libraries answer more than 374 million reference questions, according to the American Library Association. Mosio, the award-winning mobile Q&A community, today announced the launch of Text a Librarian (www.textalibrarian.com), a new service that helps libraries set up mobile Q&A systems so they may answer students and patrons’ questions instantly via text message to any mobile phone.

On average, Americans text almost twice as much as they talk on mobile phones, according to a recent Nielsen Mobile Survey, making it a preferred means of communication while on-the-go. However, setting up a mobile text communications network for a library or school can be a daunting process: negotiations with cell carriers, complicated software and extensive training—costing tens of thousands of dollars and months of setup.

Now, with Text a Librarian, any library or school can create their own secure, live mobile Q&A SMS reference service in just minutes, with packages starting at just $99/month + set up fees per library/branch. Text a Librarian works across all major carriers, mobile phones and devices, and works seamlessly with existing email and IM systems. Students and users simply text (or email) their question and it shows up live on the library or school’s own private and secure Web dashboard for them to answer back instantly.

For more information and a free online demo, visit: http://www.textalibrarian.com

“Mobility is a way of life for most students and increasingly for society in general, making the way in which we stay connected a central issue for many schools and libraries,” said Noel Chandler, Mosio CEO and founder. “Text a Librarian leverages Mosio’s award-winning Q&A platform to make it possible for students and patrons to tap into the wealth of knowledge of local librarians from their mobile phones, keeping patron information private and secure.”

Beta test clients include public libraries, schools and top Universities, including UC Berkeley and the University of Kansas.

"Mosio's service opens up a whole new world for us. Text a Librarian gives us an easy-to-use texting component, increasing student access to KU Info,” said Curtis Marsh, KU Info Program Director. "We need to communicate with students the way they communicate with each other. It is about time we began offering our service through text messaging."

Mosio has received numerous accolades for its mobile Q&A technology, including the prestigious SXSW Interactive Award for Mobile.

About Mosio (www.mosio.com)

Mosio.com is the award-winning mobile Q&A community that provides quick and fun answers to life’s questions on-the-go. Mosio’s latest innovation, Text a Librarian (www.textalibrarian.com), empowers libraries and schools to connect with students via mobile phone. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. More information is available at http://www.mosio.com.

Media contact:

Vincent Chang

(415) 806-1769

vincent@mosioproject.com