10/30/2015
CONTACT:
Nicole Engard
(888) 900-8944
klassmates@bywatersolutions.com

ByWater Solutions Unveils Koha Klassmates Program for Library Schools Nationwide

ByWater Solutions, an open source community contributor and America's forefront provider of Koha support, announced the rollout of a new program dedicated to providing free hosted Koha installations for library schools nationwide for the purposes of teaching and learning about integrated library systems and open source. The program, Koha Klassmates, made a very big impact on its first day by attracting over 20 library school inquiries via the Klassmates website (http://klassmates.us). Koha Klassmates is one of the many new learning initiative being rolled out by ByWater between now and the beginning of 2016.

Nicole Engard, Vice President of Community Outreach for ByWater commented on the Klassmates program:

"When I was in library school, I remember learning about library systems from books and cataloging in word processing applications. I didn't get a chance to learn about using an ILS until I was in the library. With this program future librarians will already have hands on experience with one of the best integrated library systems out there!"

About Koha Klassmates:
Koha Klassmates is a service of ByWater Solutions, an open source community contributor and America’s forefront provider of Koha support. This service offers free hosted installations of the Koha Open Source ILS to library school instructors for use in their classrooms. Using this service library school students can learn what it means to use a real ILS before entering the workforce. For more information or to sign up please visit: http://klassmates.us/

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:
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/