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LISWire: Preston Library at the Virginia Military Institute Goes Live on Koha with ByWater Solutions
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September 27th, 2012LISWire9/27/2012
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla
(888) 900-8944
sales@bywatersolutions.comPreston Library at the Virginia Military Institute Goes Live on Koha with ByWater Solutions
ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and the U.S.’ forefront provider of Koha (www.koha-community.org) support, announced today that Virginia Military Institute’s Preston Library is now live on their installation of the Koha integrated library system.
ByWater Solutions completed the migration for the Preston Library in July and will be providing ongoing support and hosting services for them.
Don Samdahl, Head Librarian, commented on their experience with migrating to and using Koha:
“Last year, after evaluating our existing integrated library system environment with a view to the future, Preston Library at the Virginia Military Institute, concluded that the Koha open-source library system offered us the best value. The primary factors that led us to choose Koha over other systems were control of our data, an opportunity to work with a vendor and a community to improve the product, a stable, wholly web-based system, a system we could manage and maintain, and overall cost. We selected ByWater Solutions as our migration partner due to their experience with academic libraries. After a successful migration, we are pleased with the new system. Libraries looking to the future should give Koha serious attention if they value the above factors.”
Preston Library’s collections include over 300,000 volumes of print materials, over 5000 non-print items, and more than 300 scientific, literary, and general interest print periodicals. Their customized online catalog can be viewed here: http://koha.vmi.edu.
About Preston Library:
The mission of Preston Library is to provide library materials and services of the highest quality; to teach skills needed for academic inquiry and lifelong learning; to support faculty and undergraduate research; to provide access to and promote the use of Institute historical materials; to support the creation and use of multimedia by cadets and faculty; and to offer library services to the community at large. Preston Library’s collections include over 300,000 volumes of print materials, over 5000 non-print items, and more than 300 scientific, literary, and general interest print periodicals. In addition, the library provides access to more than 100 full-text and citation databases and over 60,000 full-text electronic journals, many purchased through VIVA (the Virtual Library of Virginia). Preston Library is a selective depository of U.S. government publications, with current holdings of about 200,000 federal and state documents. For more information about the Preston Library, please visit: http://www.vmi.edu/libraryAbout 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:
ByWater Solutions is a full service, high quality support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their ILS than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in first rate Koha implementation and support with library systems of all sizes. Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions to support Koha not only lowers the cost of implementing and maintaining an ILS, but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit: http://bywatersolutions.com/ -
September 27th, 2012LISWire
~ Discovery Service from EBSCO Publishing Helps Increase Database Usage and Provides Easy, Customized Search Experience to Northern Caribbean University Users~
IPSWICH, Mass. — September 27, 2012 — Northern Caribbean University in Jamaica has selected EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) from EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) to provide an easy to use and powerful discovery tool that will search its entire collection. The discovery solution from EBSCO will be known as SmartQuest and will be used to search all of the University’s databases as well as the library’s catalog.
During the evaluation of EBSCO Discovery Service, Northern Caribbean University library realized that EDS provided exactly what librarians were looking for to broaden their library. Northern Caribbean University’s Systems Librarian, Talitio Russell says that they wanted SmartQuest to be a single, easy to use, customizable platform to retrieve catalogue items. “EDS offers our users exactly what our library needs: a single search for discovery of our entire collection and features to heighten the research experience, providing everything our user’s need in one place.”
Feedback received from faculty and students during the evaluation process was instrumental in the decision making process. Librarians say that the feedback helped push the library in a new direction – to implement a one-stop “discovery” system. Russell says, “we received positive feedback from users regarding the ease of which EDS can be searched. Its user-friendliness was a big factor in our decision to choose EDS.”
In addition to naming the discovery solution SmartQuest, Northern Caribbean University has also incorporated other custom branding features into EDS including customizing the page with school colors and banners. With EDS, institutions can also create custom pages for individual departments or subject-specific research.
As the library continues to use EBSCO Discovery Service Russell hopes that database usage will continue to increase. “We are already seeing an improvement in database usage since we implemented EDS. We have a good relationship with EBSCO and are very pleased with the results EDS has provided so far and hope it continues.”
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.
The Base Index for EBSCO Discovery Service forms the foundation upon which each EDS subscribing library builds out its custom collection. Beginning with the Base Index, each institution extends the reach of EDS by adding appropriate resources including its catalog, institutional repositories, EBSCOhost and other databases, and additional content sources to which it subscribes. It is this combination that allows a single, comprehensive, custom solution for discovering the value of any library’s collection.
The EDS Base Index is comprised of metadata from the world’s foremost information providers. At present, the EDS Base Index represents content from approximately 20,000 providers in addition to metadata from another 70,000 book publishers. Although constantly growing, today the EDS Base Index provides metadata for more than 64,000 magazines & journals, 825,000 CDs & DVDs, nearly six million books, more than 320 million newspaper articles, approximately 400,000 conference proceedings and hundreds of thousands of additional information sources from various source-types.
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 e-books. The company provides more than 350 databases and nearly 300,000 e-books. 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 -
September 27th, 2012LISWireCuyahoga Falls, Ohio, --No one enjoys going through a divorce especially when children are involved. Each family that struggles through a heart wrenching divorce will appreciate the positive messages throughout this book to help families cope with the devastating changes. My Family is Divorced, is a unique book written and Illustrated by Anne Kline focusing on the reality parents and children face during a divorce. What Is Kudzu Kidz? Kudzu Kidz are silly leafy-like friends with giving hearts. They grow fast with children and guide them to stay on the right path especially during difficult times. Tough topics are their specialty. They encourage kids to make the right choices as well as remain confident and positive no matter how messy life becomes. About the Author Anne Kline is a self-published author (illustrator/writer) of a unique line of children’s books owned under her company called Kudzu Kidz, LLC. Her first book, My Family is Divorced is published by createspace and sold on www.createspace.com/3973332 and www.amazon.com/My-Family-Divorced-Anne-Kline/dp/1479171158/ref=sr_1_1?ie.... She is also a member of Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Recently, www.ourfamilywizard.com added her book to their online store. Kudzu Kidz, LLC grew from Anne Kline’s inspiration while running trails in Atlanta, Georgia as she trained for the NYC marathon. Kudzu is a vine that grows a foot-a-day in the southeastern United States that was brought over from Japan to help with erosion. It grows rapidly overtop barns, houses, telephone wires or nearly anything that crosses its path creating unusual shapes. Ms. Kline thought they looked like cartoon characters. Who knew an 8 mile run would create the birth of Kaye, Narz and Scooter? Shortly after her inspired run, she painted each character onto cheap canvas with acrylics. Sixteen years later, having experienced life by having two beautiful daughters, losing four precious babies to miscarriages and struggling through a heart wrenching divorce has taught her that no matter how messy life becomes, there is always something or someone to be thankful for in her life, luckily she got legal help with her divorce from a divorce lawyer at www.sariehlawoffices.com/divorce-lawyer/. This lesson has formed the mission statement of her Kudzu Kidz, LLC and she plans to share this message with young children everywhere. Stay positive and believe in yourself. About Kudzu Kidz, LLC Kudzu Kidz, LLC target market is boys and girls at the age of 4 through 9 years old with our focus on encouraging self-esteem and building positive ways to overcome any challenge in their lives, like divorce and the use of online resources, learn More about the author of this here. Our main goal is teaching the powerful value of being thankful for people or things in our lives and believing in ourselves to accomplish any goals we set. We feel it is important to realize our existing blessings in life instead of complaining about what we don't have or things that go wrong. We will explain through stories including humor how negative experiences teach us how to improve ourselves. We encourage children to be thankful for failures in life, because it teaches us how to learn from our mistakes. Kudzu Kidz shows how to turn negative circumstances into something positive and be thankful for what we learned instead of dwell on our shortcomings. www.kudzukidz.com
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