YourLibrarySite(TM) Now Offers SOPAC Integration.

The library website development team at YourLibrarySite.com (a website development initiative offered by CraftySpace, LLC) is currently integrating Social OPAC functionality with the Palos Verdes Library District's website (PVLD.org). YourLibrarySite is using John Blyberg's SOPAC2 Drupal module to integrate PVLD's ILS with their website. This integration empowers library patrons to review, tag and rate biblio records without leaving PVLD's website, and to view the content created by other patrons.

An innovative further step allows libraries to optionally share their patron input with other libraries, thereby creating a richer environment for all involved. This sharing also allows newly created SOPAC communities to "prime the pump" by displaying patron-created content from already established SOPAC communities.

About YourLibrarySite and SOPAC2:

Last year at the Internet Librarian 2007 conference, Joseph Muennich (one of the partners from YourLibrarySite) met with John and began discussing how best to enable social integration of an ILS within a library's website. (If you aren't already familiar with John, you may want to check out his blog at Blyberg.net). This year, John invited CraftySpace, and a small group of other library-focused developers, to a technology summit sponsored by the Darien Public Library (http://www.darienlibrary.org/). Participants learned about SOPAC2, and what it adds to the open source library community. CraftySpace is using this information upgrade the PVLD.org to a Drupal 6 site with SOPAC2 integration.

YourLibrarySite will be offering SOPAC2 trainings on the West Coast in the near future. For information, contact paul@yourlibrarysite.com or visit http://yourlibrarysite.com .

For a detailed explanation of SOPAC, see http://www.blyberg.net/2008/08/16/sopac-20-what-to-expect/ and http://www.thesocialopac.net/

YourLibrarySite provides website packages and web development services to Public, Academic, and Special libraries. YourLibrarySite uses the Drupal open source CMS platform and is a well established participant in the Drupal open source community.
_________________________________________________________________

Paul Berger
YourLibrarySite.com
1659 Oak St.
Eugene, OR 97401
541 485-7220 Direct
877.878.1794 Toll-free
paul@yourlibrarysite.com

We are pleased to announce that the Library of Virginia has become the fifth state to join the Plinkit Collaborative. Plinkit is software for libraries to use in creating smart, new web sites for their patrons. It was a co-recipient of the 2008 ASCLA Leadership and Professional Achievement Award at ALA in Anaheim this year. Colorado, Illinois, Oregon and Texas are already members.

Plinkit stands for "Public Library Interface Kit." Plinkit is built using Plone, an open-source content management system. Library web sites are created and edited right through the web, using built-in text editors and other powerful features that make it easy for library staff to keep their content current. The Plinkit platform allows small libraries with limited funding to develop a professional looking web site that gives patrons quick access to catalogs, databases, calendars, information and events.

"Virginia is pleased to offer this hosting service at no charge to our library systems,” said Elizabeth M. Lewis, Director of Library Development and Networking at the Library of Virginia. “Plinkit helps fulfill a longstanding goal to improve accessibility to Internet resources including the statewide database project, Find It Virginia. In the current economic climate, maximizing all resources is essential.”

Created in Oregon in 2006, the goal of the Plinkit Collaborative is to pool funds in support of software development, training, documentation, and marketing activities. For more information, visit www.Plinkit.org or email jshaffner@BCR.org.

Partnership Results in Ground-breaking Support for Chinese, Japanese and Korean Character Sets

PROVO, UT, October 31, 2008 – Stanford University and SirsiDynix, the global leader in strategic technology solutions for libraries, today officially announced the completion of a project that allows searching and display of the library’s Chinese, Japanese, and Korean holdings in the original scripts. In a previous related project, functionality for searching, sorting, and displaying was made available for Arabic and Hebrew scripts.

Stanford and SirsiDynix worked together for over a year to make support for Asian and other non-Roman character sets a reality in the Stanford environment. In order to make the character sets available and of the highest quality, Stanford and SirsiDynix partnered on the intricate details of searching, sorting, and displaying of multiple character sets in a single collection for both patron and staff access. Stanford Libraries’ language experts assisted and offered enhancement suggestions to culminate in the most accurate, high-quality search solution available. Stanford moved from their original SirsiDynix Unicorn library system to a newer system—SirsiDynix Symphony®—and a Unicode platform to make the character set display possible.

Catherine Tierney, Associate University Librarian for Technical Services at Stanford, said, “This project was a successful partnership between Stanford and SirsiDynix. Stanford Libraries provided language expertise and input to the required functionality, and SirsiDynix development was very responsive. When Stanford discovered issues during testing and implementation, SirsiDynix worked hard and ensured critical needs were addressed before production implementation.”

Finding information in other language scripts is crucial to many Stanford scholars. In fact, states Assunta Pisani, Associate University Librarian for Collections and Services at Stanford, "Offering native character support for our Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew and Arabic scholars has been a critical priority for Stanford University Libraries, and we are delighted finally to be able to do so. The ability to search, sort, and display records of our significant holdings in these scripts represents a vast improvement in the potential for discovery and access to these materials through our catalog.”

Gary Rautenstrauch, CEO at SirsiDynix, said, “The SirsiDynix and Stanford partnership was a success for both parties—and for patrons who will be assisted with this new functionality. This partnership has expanded the capabilities of our Unicode offering to further the extensive multilingual access that supports the research and educational needs of all people.”

Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources supports Stanford’s mission of teaching, learning, and research by making information and knowledge accessible and preserving it for the future. The libraries have amassed rich collections of more than 8.5 million volumes in the humanities, social sciences, science and engineering.

To see the new Chinese, Japanese and Korean character set functionality, go to http://socrates.stanford.edu/.

For further information about support for Latin-based and non-Latin character sets, contact SirsiDynix at
1-800-288-2080, extension 1 or email sales@sirsidynix.com.

Symphony Implementation Brings Accolades for Significant Quality and Productivity Improvements

PROVO, UT, October 28, 2008 – Last Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008, the County of Los Angeles Public Library system received the “Best Application of Technology” award due to their implementation and use of SirsiDynix Symphony®, a full-featured integrated library solution that helps libraries succeed in serving their patrons.

SirsiDynix and the County of Los Angeles Public Library—a system with 85 libraries, approximately 14 million in circulation and over 7.5 million titles—succeeded in implementing Symphony on time and on budget with significant cost savings and greatly increased services and functionality.

Appropriately, the “Best Application of Technology” award recognizes the organization that most shows a significant service quality or productivity improvement from the use of recent technological advances. The award is bestowed by the Los Angeles County Quality and Productivity Commission.

The County library estimates their recent move to Symphony from DRA Classic has produced an annual cost savings of 1.5 million dollars. In addition, the library cites other benefits from their Symphony implementation, including:

 Greatly improved user experience and catalog searching
 Substantial gains in customer holds (the library experienced a tripling of holds after the Symphony implementation, indicating customer satisfaction with the new catalog’s ease of use and functionality)
 Enhanced content offerings, such as book covers, excerpts, reviews and author notes
 Staff proficiency through in-depth, customized training
 Robust functionality, including EDI X-12, 9xx, and Unicode support
 Extensive management reporting and statistical analysis tools with Directors Station™

Margaret Donnellan Todd, County Librarian, stated, “SirsiDynix partnered with the County throughout the process from system design through production. This large scale and complex implementation experience led by Fred Hungerford, Assistant Director and Migell Acosta, Systems Manager, with the help of SirsiDynix staff, was implemented on time and on budget. With extensive training of over 1,500 staff and excellent data migration, we enjoyed much better results than we had expected. Customers are enjoying the functionality and ease of use, and we are enjoying cost savings and the greatly improved management reporting tools.”

SirsiDynix’ Chief Executive Officer, Gary Rautenstrauch, said, “SirsiDynix strives to bring success to each library, and this award further demonstrates our commitment to offer functionality and services that contribute to each customer’s success. We couldn’t be more pleased for Los Angeles County Public Library and this ’Best Application of Technology’ honor.”

For a private demo or further information about SirsiDynix Symphony, feel free to contact a SirsiDynix sales professional at 1-800-288-8020, extension 1 or sales@sirsidynix.com.

ATHENS, OH--November 4, 2008-- LibLime, the leader in open-source solutions for libraries, and the Labette Community College in Kansas, announced today that the Library has selected a Koha ZOOM hosted solution for their next integrated library system.

The Labette Community College collection will be hosted off site at one of LibLime's secure data centers. The Library has also contracted with LibLime for data migration of their 22,500 bibliographic records, support, and training on their Koha system.

The Library has been operating with a homegrown system that is actually part of a campus-wide system developed by the now Director of IT, Anthony Rabig. Scotty Zollars, Director of Library Services, affectionately calls the system the 'Rabig 2000'.

"Although the Rabig 2000 does not have all of the bells and whistles of a commercial system, it is a very functional system and with Tony’s ability to make it do anything he wants, there is not a system out there that matches it--especially in regards to its report creating abilities," explains Scotty. "The downsides of the system are that the students do not find it user friendly and it is based on a green screen AS-400 system."

The AS 400 system will no longer be supported after December 2008 (though the Library can continue to access their data through mid 2009). This prompted the library to look for a system that closely resembles the Rabig 2000 in flexibility while offering an improved OPAC interface from the homegrown system.

"We found that with Koha and LibLime," continues Zollars. "LibLime offered an easier way to adapt the system to fit the needs of the LCC Library. Also, the thought of having more control of the system and not having to go through as many layers to initiate changes was appealing to all concerned. Finally, the cost and the company’s ability to fit the migration into the college’s needed timeframe were the final deciding factors."

The Library staff are confident that Koha's interface will greatly appeal to students, and they are looking forward to Koha's powerful reporting functionality.

About Labette Community College

Labette Community College is one of 19 community colleges in the state of Kansas and one of six in the southeastern part of the state. It is well-known for providing transfer courses to those students going on to the state’s universities and for its excellent allied health programs of Nursing, Radiography and Respiratory Care, as well as its innovative Recording Arts Technologies programs.

The library is staffed, in addition to Scotty Zollars, by two full-time, two part-time and two student assistants. It provides library services for the 1031 (FTE) students enrolled in the college’s main campus, satellite center, and extension sites, as well as the employees of the college and the citizens of the service area.

In addition to the main collection, the Library has some special collections, including a set of Carnegie books that was donated to the college with a large amount of prints in the 1930’s. The library also collects local history materials on southeast Kansas history, the history of Parsons, and the Katy Railroad. The Library houses the college’s archive of pictures, articles, pamphlets, publications and other items.

The LCC Library is located on the first floor of the main building on the Labette Community College main campus located in Parsons, Kansas.
The Library is open from 8 am to 9 pm M-Th and from 8 am to 4:30 pm on Friday on the main campus. The Library is available 24/7 through the library’s web site and databases with proxy server access.

About Koha

Since it was first put into production in early 2000, Koha has enabled new realities of open access, affordability, and free innovation for hundreds of libraries around the world. Koha has lived up to its name, which means ‘Gift’ in the Maori language of New Zealand. From the outset, many libraries understood the power of this gift. They downloaded it, they installed it, they changed it, and they contributed their solutions back to the library community.

Several companies around the world support Koha, providing libraries with a full array of services including installation, migration assistance, data integrity testing, staff training, software maintenance, support and customization. To learn more about what services are available visit http://koha.org/support/.

About Koha ZOOM

Koha ZOOM is the next-generation release of the award-winning Koha open-source integrated library system. Notably, it includes a powerful search engine based on Zebra, a high-performance indexing and retrieval engine. Koha ZOOM's search engine can read structured records in practically any input format (e.g., email, XML, MARC) and allows access to them through exact boolean search expressions and relevance-ranked free-text queries. It supports large databases (more than ten gigabytes of data, tens of millions of records) as well as incremental, safe database updates on live systems.

To try out Koha ZOOM for yourself, visit LibLime's demos:

http://liblime.com/demos

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

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(888)Koha ILS (564-2457)

tnb@liblime.com

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