-
February 16th, 2012LISWire2/16/2012
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla
(888) 900-8944
sales@bywatersolutions.comHuntington Public Library joins VOKAL and Goes Live on Koha with ByWater Solutions
ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and the US’s forefront provider of Koha (www.koha-community.org) support, is happy to welcome Huntington Public Library to Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL). Huntington Public Library is now live on the Koha integrated library system through VOKAL.
VOKAL now has 30 libraries using the system and expects to grow to about 40 over the next 2 years. The system contains 604,000+ items and 44,000+ patrons. Circulation in January, before the addition of Huntington Public Library, exceeded 159,000. VOKAL is the largest public library system in Vermont.
Richard Pritsky, Assistant Director at Carpenter-Carse Library in Hinesburg, VT and member of the VOKAL implementation team states simply that “VOKAL + ByWater = Wonderful Koha Synergy!”Nicole C. Engard, Vice President of Education at ByWater Solutions, welcomes the Huntington Public Library to the Koha community and VOKAL, “Having helped train VOKAL libraries these past few years has been an awesome experience. The libraries in this consortium contribute so much to the Koha community at large and love learning to use their Koha system. I am happy to welcome yet another library to this amazing group!”
About the Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL):
The Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL), is a project of the Green Mountain Library Consortium dedicated to creating a shared catalog and Integrated Library System.
In 2007, the Stowe Free Library, the Carpenter-Carse Library (Hinesburg), and the Kimball Public Library (Randolph) joined with Sheila Kearns of the Vermont Department of Libraries to explore options for an ILS system to replace Follett. They decided on Koha, and in May of 2008, this team became VOKAL. For more information about VOKAL, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/vokalvtpublic/home
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://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 the enterprise class open source library system, Koha. 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
-
February 15th, 2012LISWire
DUBLIN, Ohio, February 14, 2012—The Website for Small Libraries project, which began as an OCLC Innovation Lab experiment in 2011, is now available as a beta service for any library wishing to set up its own website.
By participating in the project, libraries will be able to quickly and easily set up a website that provides basic functionality for making small collection information available on the Web, setting up users, checking materials in and out, placing holds, and providing library contact, location, service and event information.
“The goal of the Website for Small Libraries project was easily stated, but not so easily realized,” said Mike Teets, OCLC Vice President, Innovation. “We wanted small libraries with collections of 20,000 items or less to be able to have a simple, inexpensive yet functional presence on the Web.”
Four South Dakota libraries, as well as the South Dakota State Library, were part of the project’s pilot. “Many of our libraries have a staff of just one or two, and small budgets,” said Dan Siebersma, South Dakota State Librarian. “A product that makes it easy for these libraries to have a website with a minimum amount of effort and at a low cost is very desirable. The inventory feature that would allow people to access a library’s collection from the comfort of their home is the icing on the cake.”
In order to make the site as easy to use as possible, the site relies on simple editing of predefined templates to populate the Web presence. It can take just a few minutes to have a library site up and available to patrons on the Web as well as on mobile and tablet devices. The service uses a set of wizards to import collection and user information in a wide variety of formats. It uses statistical algorithms and WorldCat to determine structure and field contents to ease the import processes. Complexity is kept to a minimum by focusing on the minimum fields necessary to make collections accessible.
Tip House, Chief Architect, Global Infrastructure for OCLC, and one of the lead programmers on the project, explained the basic features: “Libraries can provide and promote basic information about their locations, content, events and services using a set of easily updated templates and widgets. Users can create an account, search for materials, place and delete holds, and see their history. It is, essentially, a very basic inventory model for libraries.”
Mr. Teets stressed that this is not a full-featured library management service, but an option for those small libraries that have not been able to take advantage of traditional library systems due to size, cost or technological restrictions.
“If a library already has an ILS, this will not replicate that kind of system. It’s not meant to,” said Mr. Teets. “Our research suggested that as many as half of the libraries with one or two employees had, essentially, no Web presence. This project hopes to positively impact those libraries and their users.”
“WebJunction has worked with small and rural libraries since its inception,” said Jennifer Peterson, WebJunction Community Manager. “Many of these libraries don’t have the time, money or technical background to implement a full-scale, online management service. This project will enable them to reach their users on the Web in an entirely new way. And because the sites are optimized to run well on mobile devices, they’ll be able to connect to users for whom the mobile Internet is now the main way of getting online.”
“We hope this is a useful, affordable option for small libraries that want to establish a Web-based connection to their communities,” said Mr. Teets.
Libraries interested in signing up can do so at http://beta.worldcat.org/lib/. Participation in the project costs $500 per year and comes with a 90-day trial period. Libraries are free to import and export their collection and patron data as they try the service, as well as through the product life.
State library organizations, consortia and other library groups interested in group rates should contact their OCLC Library Services consultant.
-
February 14th, 2012LISWire
~ Agreement with Oriprobe Information Services Inc. Brings Valuable Research Literature from Asia to EBSCO Discovery Service™ Users ~
IPSWICH, Mass.& WINDSOR, Ontario — February 14, 2012 — A new partnership between EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) and Oriprobe Information Services Inc. will allow content from China/Asia On Demand (CAOD) to be accessible within EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS). The agreement allows for metadata from this valuable collection of research literature from Asia to be added to the Base Index of EDS. The EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers (and growing) in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers, representing far more content providers and publishers than any other discovery service.
China/Asia On Demand features a vast collection of reliable, authoritative information spanning arts and humanities, STM (Science, Technology, Medicine) research, social and business information. The collection includes over 10,000 journals and more than 40 million research articles. The addition of this content to the EDS Base Index will benefit EDS users looking for unique research literature from China, Japan and Korea.
China/Asia On Demand is part of a growing list of publishers and other content partners that are taking part in EDS to bring more visibility to their content. Partners include the world’s largest scholarly journal & book publishers including Elsevier, Wiley Blackwell, Springer Science & Business Media, Taylor & Francis Informa, Sage Publications, and thousands of others. Partners also include content providers, such as LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters (Web of Science), JSTOR, ARTstor, Credo Reference, World Book, ABC-CLIO, and many others.
EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box—searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.
EBSCO Discovery Service is quickly becoming the discovery selection for many libraries (www.ebscohost.com/discovery/eds-news), and an obvious partner for content providers. Because the service builds on the foundation provided by the EBSCOhost® platform, libraries gain a full user experience for discovering their collections/OPAC—which is not typical in the discovery space. Further still, in the many universities and other libraries where EBSCOhost is the most-used platform for premium research, users are not asked to change their pathways or habits for searching. There’s simply more to discover on the familiar EBSCOhost platform, and the same can be said for library administrators who can leverage their previous work with EBSCOadmin™.
About Oriprobe Information Services
Oriprobe Information Services, Inc., headquartered in Ontario, Canada, is a leading supplier of information solutions and China/Asia electronic resources. Oriprobe offers copyright permission acquiring and granting, content licensing, translation, and information retrieval services from China as well as other parts of Asia. Oriprobes electronic collections include journals, dissertations/theses, conference proceedings, patents, standards, newspapers, companies and products, institutions, policies and laws. For more information, visit the Oriprobe Information Services web site at www.oriprobe.com, or contact info@oriprobe.com.About EBSCO Publishing
EBSCO Publishing is the producer of EBSCOhost®, the world’s premier for-fee online research service, including full-text databases, subject indexes, point-of-care medical reference, historical digital archives, and eBooks. The company provides more than 350 databases and nearly 300,000 eBooks. Through a library of tens of thousands of full-text journals and magazines from renowned publishers, EBSCO serves the content needs of all researchers (Academic, Medical, K-12, Public Library, Corporate, Government, etc.). EBSCO is also the provider of EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS), which provides each institution with a fast, single search box for its entire collection, offering deeper indexing and more full-text searching of journals and magazines than any other discovery service (www.ebscohost.com/discovery). For more information, visit the EBSCO Publishing Web site at: www.ebscohost.com, or contact: information@ebscohost.com. EBSCO Publishing is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., one of the largest privately held companies in the United States.###
For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Public Relations Director
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebscohost.com -
February 14th, 2012LISWire
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Duluth, GA —February 13, 2012
Equinox Software is proud to announce the successful Evergreen implementation of a telephony notification system powered by Asterisk. The Davidson County Public Library System, part of the North Carolina Cardinal consortium, piloted an early version of the system which is also now being used at King County Library System. This system allows patrons to receive automated calls alerting them that items on hold are ready for pick-up. It also allows the library to send out reminders to patrons that their items are due and need to be renewed or returned.
Libraries running Evergreen will see potential for this system as a more cost effective alternative to other notification systems. According to Lebbeous Fogle-Weekley, one of the Equinox Software Developers assisting with the project, "Evergreen's telephony notification system can use digital telephony (like a VoIP service) or, in some cases, existing phone hardware, like a PBX, and either of these approaches can potentially reduce costs and add control compared with using a third-party solution."
About Equinox Software, Inc.
Founded by the original Evergreen designers and developers, Equinox Software is a leader in open source solutions for libraries. Their goal is to engage and support a rapidly growing open source community while assisting libraries in moving away from expensive proprietary vendors and products.
For more information on Equinox Software, please visit http://www.esilibrary.com.
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. Evergreen now supports over 1,000 libraries of every type-public, academic, special, and school media centers across 4 countries, 31 U.S. states, and 8 Canadian provinces. The Georgia PINES, King County Public Library System, SCLENDS, and NC Cardinal consortiums are all currently running Evergreen.
For more information about Evergreen, including a list of all known Evergreen installations, see http://evergreen-ils.org.Press contact: Corinne Hall, corinne@esilibrary.com, 770-709-5571
-
February 13th, 2012LISWireFebruary 14, 2012, Medford, NJ—Information Today, Inc. (ITI) announced the publication of Web of Deceit: Misinformation and Manipulation in the Age of Social Media, edited by business researcher and author Anne P. Mintz. In 2002, prior to the emergence of internet social networks, Mintz’s critically acclaimed book, Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet, alerted a generation of internet users to the dangers of relying on information found on websites. With the publication of Web of Deceit, Mintz returns with a new team of researchers, journalists, and subject experts to show how intentional misinformation is spread today utilizing an array of social media tools, sites, and networks. Epitomized by such popular resources as Facebook, Myspace, eBay, Twitter, and Craigslist, the worldwide social media phenomenon provides manipulative individuals and organizations with the means to spread misinformation and propaganda on an unprecedented scale, according to Mintz. “Bending the truth or telling outright lies is not new,” she said. “It’s just the messenger who has changed, and this messenger spreads the word lightning fast and to far-flung places.” In Web of Deceit, Mintz and eight expert contributors explore many of the social media channels and techniques used by unscrupulous people and organizations to take advantage of the unwary. Chapters illuminate the how, what, and why of identity theft, hate sites, ecommerce fraud, US trade data statistics, information warfare, political propaganda, charity scams, and more. Special features include a guide to evaluating the information integrity of websites and an annotated glossary of terms. “Anne Mintz has once again assembled some savvy writers who have a lot to teach us about being safe on the web,” said Ari L. Goldman of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “The dangers of social media command our attention now more than ever, and this book is a must-read for anyone who socializes, shops, or interacts online. In other words, all of us!” Readers can access more content on the book's website at www.webofdeceit.net. ABOUT THE EDITOR Anne P. Mintz spent several decades as the director of information centers in media and investment banking before becoming a freelance business researcher, writer, and editor. Her current endeavors include working on behalf of publishers to present their content online in searchable formats. She is the editor of Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet (CyberAge Books, 2002) and numerous articles on the quality of online information. She holds a BA in English from the University of Massachusetts and an MLS from Rutgers University. ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Contributors to Web of Deceit include Amber Benham (“Evaluating Websites”), Eli Edwards(“Demonizing the ‘Other’”), Ben Fractenberg (“Ebuyer Beware”), Laura Gordon-Murnane (“The Intentional Misleading of the American Public”), Cynthia Hetherington (“They Know Where You Live”), Deborah A. Liptak (“Information Warfare and Cybersecurity”; “The Technologies of Deceit”), Meg Smith (“Social Media and Intentional Misinformation”), Craig Thompson (“Charity Scams”), and Anne P. Mintz (“If It’s on the Internet, It Must Be True”). Web of Deceit: Misinformation and Manipulation in the Age of Social Media (224 pp/softbound/ $29.95/ISBN 978-0-910965-91-0) is a CyberAge book published by Information Today, Inc. (ITI). It is available wherever books and ebooks are sold through Independent Publishers Group (IPG), www.ipgbook.com. For more information or to order call (800) 300-9868 [outside U.S. call (609) 654-6266]; fax (609) 654-4309; email custserv@infotoday.com; or visit the ITI website at www.infotoday.com.