7/27/2011
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CAUSE Goes Live on Koha with ByWater Solutions

ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and official Koha support company, announced today that CAUSE (Comfort for America's Uniformed Services) is now live on their installation of the official Koha integrated library system.

Cause organizes programs that promote recreation, relaxation and resiliency for members of the US Armed Services recuperating from injuries received in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The organization's Digital Entertainment Library provides access to media such as DVDs and video games.

The Library's Koha installation went live on July 15th, and they have contracted with ByWater Solutions for ongoing support and hosting services.

Pam Derrow, Executive Director of CAUSE, and Scott Merrill, IT Volunteer, commented on the CAUSE Digital Entertainment Library's move to Koha with ByWater Solutions:

"Since we are not your typical library and have no librarians or full time staff we were looking for an easy to use, flexible, reliable, and cost-effective solution to manage our seven (and growing) branches. Koha was immediately an attractive solution and ByWater’s hosting and support options made it even more attractive."

They continue: "Working with Ruth (ByWater's Lead Migration Specialist) often at late hours and weekends we were able to quickly migrate our existing data of over 6,000 biblios, 15,000 holdings, 11,000 patrons, and 230,000 historical transactions to a test system. After some minor modifications recommended by Ruth to improve performance we quickly turned the switch to Go Live. Our volunteer staff has expressed nothing but praise with “their” new system. We look forward to continue to grow with ByWater in supporting our military wounded."

The CAUSE Digital Entertainment Library's customized online catalog can be viewed at: http://catalog.cause.bywatersolutions.com

About the CAUSE Digital Entertainment Library:
C-DEL provides free and easy access to DVDs, video games and gaming systems. Often the only source of free entertainment on military posts, the library is one of the most popular Cause programs. Since the first C-DEL branch opened at Walter Reed in 2005, almost 200,000 lending transactions have been recorded. In addition to being popular entertainment, video games also have therapeutic value. Recent studies have shown that playing video games can activate the parasympathetic nervous system and reduce heightened tension related to stress. There is even research showing that playing Tetris, a puzzle video game, may reduce PTSD flashbacks. C-DEL's greatest value, however, lies in the interaction that occurs between wounded warriors and members of the community.

C-DEL Locations
Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC
Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, TX
Balboa Naval Medical Center San Diego, CA
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany
Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, Ft. Hood, TX
Womack Army Medical Center, Ft. Bragg, NC
Ft. Riley, KS

Opening Soon
Ft. Belvoir, VA September 2011
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Bethesda September 2011
Ft. Stewart, GA September 2011

For more information or to make a charitable donation, please visit: http://www.cause-usa.org

About Koha:
Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha's impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.

Koha’s OPAC, circulation, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies--XHTML, CSS and Javascript--making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit: http://www.koha-community.org

About ByWater Solutions:
With over 10 years of experience, ByWater Solutions offers customized hosting, data migration, configuration, installation, training, support options and development of enterprise class open-source library systems. Offering a 24/7 technical helpline, ByWater Solutions’ clients have the support system they need to make their software work for them. ByWater Solutions pledges to share 100% of all developed code to the Koha community for the strengthening and advancement of the Koha ILS. For more information about ByWater Solutions, please visit: http://www.bywatersolutions.com

In August, 2011 students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science will be using LibLime Academic Koha as part of their coursework. Students in Professor Bobby Bothmann’s “Cataloging and Classification I” course will have the ability to learn cataloging and classification firsthand by creating records in their own ILS.
LibLime will provide the class and Professor Bothmann with a hosted installation of LibLime Academic Koha, free of charge. This will allow the students unlimited access and all privileges associated with the staff end of the ILS as well as all OPAC functionality for the duration of the course. They can create, edit, and delete MARC records, review them in the OPAC, and see how the ILS indexes work for retrieval.

“Having taught cataloging and classification for a few years”, said Professor Bothmann, “I have found one of the stumbling blocks is how to effectively teach the importance of what MARC 21 coding does for the patron, so I'm very excited to have students create records in a real environment, observe how MARC tags and indicators effect the OPAC display, and to see how indexing works.”

LibLime's Koha with Class program is designed to give library school faculty a chance to embed the use of an ILS into their coursework and curricula. Students gain practical experience with library automation software as they prepare to enter the library workforce. LibLime provides free support for these Koha with Class installations, and already there are dozens of faculty members throughout North America taking advantage of this program. LibLime is looking to expand the program overseas to support librarianship at an international level.

To learn more about the program visit - http://www.liblime.com/we-give-back.