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    November 21st, 2012LISWire aggregatorLISWire

    North Bethesda, MD, November 20, 2012- After using the new release of LibLime Koha 4.14 with Lucene Solr for a few weeks, South Central Library System (SCLS), based in Wisconsin, has strong positive feedback for LibLime regarding the latest iteration of the open-source software. SCLS maintains a 42-member LibLime Koha union catalog with over 832,000 bibliographic records, more than 2.3 million item records, and three circulation transactions per second during peak production.

    Vicki Teal Lovely, ILS Project Manager for SCLS, says, “Since we upgraded to LibLime Koha 4.14 using the Solr search engine, we have seen several benefits. The time that it takes to index data has reduced from 5 hours to just minutes. Solr has fixed some searching flaws that were a problem with the Zebra search engine: facets now work for all titles in the search result and diacritics and punctuation no longer cause searches to fail. We were able to make relevancy ranking adjustments that have resulted in a noticeable difference in search results. Member library staff members have commented that relevancy is definitely improved. Searches such as "1984" and "The Help" result in a list with the English language books right at the top. What you don't see is the fact that Solr is a much more robust and flexible search engine. It lays the foundation for us to make continued improvements to the searching in our public catalog. SCLS is proud to have been a co-sponsor of the development of the Solr search engine for LibLime Koha.”

    The latest code version changes the indexing engine from Zebra to Solr, which provides for more precise searching. The Solr engine will bring many benefits not available in the prior Zebra engine. With Solr, indexing of imported records (single and batch) takes only minutes to complete. In the OPAC, searchers will benefit from expanded facet searching that covers the entire results set, as opposed to simply the screen being viewed. A new titles feature is automatically embedded into the OPAC and libraries can control the length of time titles remain on the list. This new addition brings back search results within 3 to 5 seconds, which is much improved over the time required to complete a search in Zebra.

    About LibLime - PTFS
    LibLime – PTFS is the global leader in providing support for the Koha open source ILS. Rather than sell software licenses for static, hard-to-customize software products, the PTFS LibLime Division 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. The PTFS LibLime Division then facilitates deployment of Koha in libraries by providing outstanding consulting, development, implementation, and support/hosting for libraries of all types and sizes. PTFS is also the developer of the world’s leading content management software, ArchivalWare, and specializes in meeting library personnel staffing requirements, digitization, and metadata keying services. For more information, see http://liblime.com or http://ptfs.com or http://archivalware.net.