FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Kristin Vogel
Vice President Sales & Business Development
1-860-760-0438 August 18, 2011
kristin.vogel@mk-sorting-systems.com For Immediate Release

mk Sorting Systems announces exclusive partnership to offer top quality EM security systems

Simsbury, CT – mk Sorting Systems has exclusively partnered with Tagit Group in order to provide libraries in North and South America with the quality and security they desire in an Electromagnetic (EM) security system.

The majority of U.S. libraries currently utilize EM security, however, the two most common issues libraries face with EM is the low detection rate and high number of false alarms. EM gates have traditionally performed with only a 65% read rate accuracy. mk EM Security Gates shatter the traditional results with an accuracy rate of over 90% detection. The innovative, patented 3-D detection technology ensures detection at virtually any label orientation.

“We found that many libraries are unhappy with their current security gates based on poor detection rates and significant false alarms. Our new EM Security Gates offer a cost-effective EM solution that exceeds expectations and provides reliable protection of library items,” says Markus Flory, President of mk Sorting Systems. “Tagit’s values as a company compliment mk Sorting Systems’ standards of flexibility, reliability and individuality which provide for a successful partnership.”

The SGEM line of gates offer remote support and configuration capabilities. Three distinct SGEM styles are available: Light, Luxor and Clear. mk EM Security Gates provide exceptional performance and style and are universally compatible with EM requirements. In addition to the EM security gates, mk Sorting Systems offers a variety of EM accessories including EM strips for any type of library items, deactivators and reactivators.

About mk Sorting Systems
mk Sorting Systems, a subsidiary of mk Technology Group, develops and installs user-friendly self-service, sorting and RFID systems and book dispensing solutions for libraries. mk offers individual, customized automation solutions designed to meet each library’s specific needs.

For sales and marketing information, contact Kristin Vogel, Vice President Sales and Business Development at 1-860-760-0438 or by e-mail at kristin.vogel@mk-sorting-systems.com. Visit mk Sorting Systems on the web at www.mk-sorting-systems.com.

About Tagit
Tagit Group develops, produces and markets worldwide innovative EAS electromagnetic systems, labels and accessories. They offer a complete library solution and provide their clients with a one-stop shop for EAS solutions. They are the only EM vendor that develops and manufactures all products in-house.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Norcross, GA —August 17, 2011

The community of Evergreen libraries has had a busy six months (January through June, 2011) owing to the addition of 114 library systems with 140 separate branches and outlets. This six-month experience eclipsed the growth seen in the community in any previous year.

In July, a blog post detailed cumulative summary numbers in the growth of Evergreen since its first libraries were migrated in 2006. See the “State of Evergreen, June 30, 2011” (http://evergreen-ils.org/blog/?p=602).

For this six-month period, most of the migrations were of public libraries but also included two academic libraries, a special library and two K-12 libraries. K-12 libraries are currently one of the fastest growing types of library in the community.

Most of the migration activity centered around consortia—a continuing strength of Evergreen—both by adding libraries to existing consortia and by welcoming new consortia: Merrimack Valley Library Consortium (MVLC) in Massachusetts and the NC Cardinal consortium in North Carolina. MVLC migrated its first group: 35 systems with 41 outlets over the U.S. Memorial Day weekend and NC Cardinal's first library went live with Evergreen in late June.

BibliOak, a project of the Connecticut-based Bibliomation consortium, also had a large migration in June. Amy Terlaga, Assistant Director for User Services at Bibliomation, summarized the migration and their plans: “With Evergreen, last May we were able to fold in our 48 public library members to an already thriving network of 10 public libraries and three K-12 schools. Now we're about to add our 19 K-12 schools in time for the new school year. We're thrilled to have such a robust, flexible open source system that allows for easy configuration given our ever expanding needs.”

Reflecting the fact that Evergreen is open source, free software, there have been a variety of methods used by the various implementers of Evergreen over time. Unlike proprietary systems, where libraries are locked into one vendor, with open source, there is an array of choices for libraries. Many of these libraries and consortia migrate using their own staff and resources; others use open source vendors for some or all parts of their migrations and subsequent support. The growth of the community and the growth of choices for its users have resulted in a healthy, robust ecosystem as reflected in the experience of the first six months of 2011.

About Evergreen
Evergreen is a robust, open-source integrated library system best known for its unique ability to meet the needs of very large, high-transaction, multi-site consortia. However, it has also proven equally successful scaled down for even the smallest libraries.
Since its debut in September 2006, the software has sustained the 280-plus libraries of the Georgia PINES consortium. Evergreen has earned acclaim and praise from users worldwide, including a Technology Collaboration Award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Evergreen now supports almost 1000 libraries of every type-public, academic, special, and school media centers. Evergreen’s rapidly expanding community includes libraries across 4 countries including 18 U.S. states and 8 Canadian provinces.
For more information about Evergreen, including a list of all known Evergreen installations, see http://evergreen-ils.org.

About Equinox Software, Inc.
Founded by the original Evergreen designers and developers, Equinox Software is a growing team of skilled professionals who provide services for Evergreen and Koha. These services include software development, consulting, training, legacy data migration, 24x7 technical support, and system hosting. Equinox also engages and supports a rapidly expanding open source community.

For more information on Equinox Software, please visit http://www.esilibrary.com.

Press contact: Corinne Hall, corinne@esilibrary.com, 770-709-5571
Evergreen and Koha are open source software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL. Evergreen and the Evergreen logo are trademarks of the Georgia Public Library Service.

In August, 2011 students at the Documentation Research & Training Centre of the Indian Statistical Institute, at the Bangalore Centre (DRTC) will be using LibLime Academic Koha as part of their coursework. DRTC is a premier library science school in India, founded by father of library science in India, Dr. S.R.Ranganathan. DRTC offers 2 year M.S. program in library and information science.
Students in Professor K. S. Raghavan’s “Cataloging Theory and Practice” course will have access to their own production ILS to assist them in completing their coursework.

LibLime will provide the class, Professor Raghavan, and his assistant, Pradeep Balaji B., with a hosted installation of LibLime Academic Koha, free of charge. Students will have full cataloging access in the cataloging module, including MARC Bibliographic records, MARC Holdings records, and item records. They will be able to create their own set of collection codes, location codes, and item types. They will create actual working records for discovery access in the OPAC.

“I would like to thank LibLime team very much for this generous Koha with Class program, which would go a long way in training and learning among us in the institute,” said Pradeep Balaji B. “Cataloguing Theory & Practice paper is part of the course for the first year M.S. Library and Information Science Students. In this course, I assist Prof. K.S. Raghavan in practice sessions. My classes are planned to familiarize the students with MARC and AACR2 cataloguing codes. With Koha getting more popular in India as free ILMS with its amazing features of support of Unicode-compliance for Indic script, superior cataloguing module of creating records, importing records from other cooperatives, it would be more beneficial for the students, learning by a live demonstration than manual practice. The classes for this paper will be held from August till November, 2011.

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.

8/16/2011
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla
(888) 900-8944
sales@bywatersolutions.com

ByWater Solutions Welcomes Melia Meggs as Operations Manager

ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and official Koha support company is proud to welcome Melia Meggs as their Operations Manager. Melia will be working as a project and communications manager for ByWater, and will facilitate communication and operations for the migration and development departments, as well as contribute to the everyday support of ByWater's three hundred-plus library customers.

Melia earned a BA in English Literature with a Spanish minor from the University of Georgia. Her past work experience, which includes writing and editing magazine articles and ad copy, teaching and tutoring, property management, and contract negotiations and case management as a paralegal at a law firm, helped her develop excellent communications and customer service skills. She put these skills to work in the IT field at Catalyst IT in New Zealand in the capacity of project manager, where she was introduced to open source software and to the Koha project. While at Catalyst she managed successful migrations for public, private, and government libraries, while delivering excellent customer service and reliable support. She is a Certified Associate in Project Management (Project Management Institute), and in her spare time she loves to read.

Melia commented on her recent decision to join the ByWater Solutions team;

"My love of reading resulted in spending many days of my childhood in and around local libraries. I enjoyed being on the Koha project with Catalyst and I am thrilled to continue working on Koha with an exciting company like ByWater. ILS software has become an absolute necessity in today's library world, and systems like Koha help these valuable institutions save money, and provide superior services to their patrons. I look forward to helping the switch to an open source solution be a smooth one for our customers!"

“The key to success for a company like ByWater is keeping up with external growth." stated Brendan Gallagher, CEO of ByWater Solutions. He continues; "We are very impressed with the ideas, initiative, and organization that Melia brings to the table; she is a perfect fit for our team and is fulfilling a crucial role as our Operations Manager. We are thrilled to have her on as part of the crew and I am sure our customers will feel the same!"

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 such as Koha and Evergreen. 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 and Evergreen communities for the strengthening and advancement of the Koha and Evergreen ILSs. For more information about ByWater Solutions, please visit: http://www.bywatersolutions.com

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

DUBLIN, Ohio, August 15, 2011—OCLC, along with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the American Theological Library Association, today named five librarians chosen to participate in the Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellowship Program for 2012.

The 2012 Jordan IFLA/OCLC Fellows were announced by Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO, at a news conference during the World Library and Information Congress: 77th IFLA General Conference and Assembly in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The 2012 Jordan IFLA/OCLC Fellows are:

• Mrs. Efua Ayiah, Assistant Librarian, University of Education, Winneba, Ghana
• Ms. Gladys Mungai, Assistant Librarian, KIPPRA, Nairobi, Kenya
• Mr. Md. Shafiur Rahman, Information Officer, ICDDR,B, Dhaka, Bangladesh
• Miss Tanzela Shaukat, Librarian, National Disaster Management Authority, Islamabad, Pakistan
• Mrs. Ngozi Ukachi, Librarian II / Cataloguer, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria

The Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellowship Program supports library and information science professionals from countries with developing economies. The program provides advanced continuing education and exposure to a broad range of issues in information technologies, library operations and global cooperative librarianship. With the selection of the five Fellows for the class of 2012, the program will have welcomed 60 librarians and information science professionals from 33 countries.

“The Fellowship Program is of great benefit to both the participants and the hosts,” said Mr. Jordan. “The Fellows gain insight from visits to libraries and interactions with library leaders and OCLC staff. OCLC learns about librarianship in the Fellows’ home countries, and the challenges they face. These exchanges promote greater global understanding within the library community.”

During the four-week program, which will run from April 13 through May 10, 2012, the Fellows will participate in discussions with library and information science leaders, library visits and professional development activities. The program will be based at OCLC headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, USA. Topics and issues explored include information technologies and their impact on libraries, library operations and management, and global cooperative librarianship.

The program also gives Fellows the chance to share their home customs and cultures with other Fellows, with colleagues they meet during the program, and with their hosts. The Fellows’ visits to libraries provide other opportunities to broaden their knowledge about issues facing libraries today. They observe portions of the OCLC Global Council meeting, gaining insight into issues affecting global library cooperation and the governance of a global library cooperative. They visit selected libraries and cultural heritage institutions to meet with leading information professionals and discuss real-world solutions for libraries.

The Fellows give formal and informal presentations about their home countries and libraries, and the challenges facing libraries in their home countries. As their program concludes, Fellows translate their program experiences into specific development plans to guide their continued growth and personal contributions to their home institutions and countries of origin.

“This program has been an eye-opener; it has opened a new chapter in my professional journey,” said Khumo Dibeela, 2011 Fellow from Botswana.

The selection committee for the 2012 Fellowship program included: Barbara Kemmis, American Theological Library Association; Hella Klauser, German Library Association; Sjoerd Koopman, IFLA; Nancy Lensenmayer, OCLC; George Needham, OCLC; Gwenda Thomas, Rhodes University, South Africa; and Ingeborg Verheul, IFLA.

In 1999, OCLC and IFLA created the early career development program to bring promising librarians from developing nations to OCLC for training and interaction with OCLC staff and librarians in the United States.

Sponsorships from interested organizations are available. For more information about sponsoring the Fellowship program, contact George Needham, OCLC Vice President, Global and Regional Councils at needhamg@oclc.org.

Application information for the 2013 Fellowship Program is available on the OCLC Web site www.oclc.org/community/careerdevelopment/fellows/.

About OCLC
Founded in 1967 and headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a nonprofit library service and research organization that has provided computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing, eContent, preservation, library management and Web services to 72,000 libraries in 171 countries and territories. OCLC and its member libraries worldwide have created and maintain WorldCat, the world’s richest online resource for finding library materials. Search WorldCat.org on the Web at www.worldcat.org. For more information, visit www.oclc.org.

About IFLA
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the library and information profession. Founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1927 at an international conference, IFLA now has 1,600 Members in approximately 150 countries around the world. IFLA was registered in the Netherlands in 1971. The Royal Library, the national library of the Netherlands, in The Hague, generously provides the facilities for IFLA headquarters. More information can be found at www.ifla.org/.

About ATLA
Established in 1946, the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) is a professional association of more than 1,000 individual, institutional, and affiliate members providing programs, products, and services in support of theological and religious studies libraries and librarians. ATLA’s ecumenical and international membership represents many religious traditions and denominations. For more information, visit www.atla.com.