11/30/2015
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla
(888) 900-8944
sales@bywatersolutions.com

Hocutt-Ellington Memorial Library Goes Live on ByWater Solutions Koha Support

ByWater Solutions, an open source community contributor and America's forefront provider of Koha support, announced today that the Hocutt-Ellington Memorial Library of Clayton, North Carolina is now live on their Koha open source integrated library system.

ByWater Solutions has completed the migration of the Libraries' more than 75,000 titles earlier this year and is providing ongoing hosting and support services to the library. The Hocutt-Ellington Memorial Library's customized online catalog can be viewed at: http://heml.bywatersolutions.com

Christie Starnes, Director of the Clayton Library, commented on their decision to migrate to Koha with ByWater:

"Moving from a traditional library system to an open-source system was like shedding off this great weight and frustration that we didn’t realize we had. It has been extremely easy to operate and manage, especially in regards to collecting data and providing user access. The ease of sharing notes, editing accounts and making changes to records have been a synch. If you’re interested in the cataloging feature, my cataloger and I can attest to the ease of dropping in MARC records, batch edits and creating item types – it makes cataloging much more dreamier than it already is for those of us to specialize in this library field. My favorite, or rather ‘most fun’ is how you can personalize the catalog homepage and make it look and feel exactly the way you want. The open source options for OPAC is the best way to promote your brand and feature items."

She continues:

"Obviously the associated cost is a major plus, but having the ByWater Solutions crew help maintain the site and give us access to the MySQL report library is like free shopping with a gift card with every online visit!"

About the Hocutt-Ellington Memorial Library:
Our mission is to enrich the quality of life within our community by nurturing library users of all ages. The library upholds and supports the Library Bill of Rights. The Hocutt-Ellington Memorial Library will be the community’s preferred resource for local history, recreational reading, lifelong learning, quality collections and exemplary service. Our commitment to value is uncompromising. We strive for quality services delivered to each member of the community. Our commitment to inclusiveness embraces defending the rights of all individuals to use the library’s resources and services. We value our community’s diversity and strive to reflect that by providing a full spectrum of resources and services to the community we serve. Our commitment to integrity ensures that our town’s activities will be conducted with fairness, openness and honesty. We will do the right things, not just the easy things. Our commitment to stewardship guides us as we wisely utilize all resources to secure the best value for the community. Our commitment to transformation is achieved by embracing change rather than sustaining the status quo. We work to ensure that the knowledge, skills and abilities of our employees are relevant to the needs of our community.

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–HTML5, 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/

11/17/2015
CONTACT:
Nicole Engard
(888) 900-8944
klassmates@bywatersolutions.com

Red River College using Koha Klassmates

ByWater Solutions, an open source community contributor and America's forefront provider of Koha support, is happy to announce that the more than 30 students enrolled in four classes at Red River College are using Koha through the Klassmates (http://klassmates.us) program.

Brian Rountree, MLIS, Instructor at Red River College spoke of his plans for Klassmates:

"I have found it very helpful to have the students practice using as many different library programs as I can find. It brings 'real life' to the classroom activities and assignments. It provides skills they can use when at their practicum sites. It is a bonus when they can say at an interview that they are familiar with certain products. Koha is used by several libraries in the Winnipeg, Manitoba area so we are excited to be able to practice with this program. The program will be used in two cataloguing courses [Introduction and Multi-media Resources], in an Introduction to Libraries course, and in a Collection Development course."

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 in North America 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/

Wuhan University Drops Primo Central for EBSCO Discovery Service™
~ Evaluation Reveals EDS Delivers Superior Integration, Coverage & Functionality ~

IPSWICH, Mass. — November 16, 2015 — Wuhan University, located in Wuhan, Hubei, China, has opted to replace Primo Central with EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) from EBSCO Information Services to provide a more powerful user experience through broader content and greater functionality. Wuhan University is ranked in the Top 15 best universities in China according to US News & World Report and Academic Ranking of World Universities. Wuhan University is also ranked as the number1 academy per the 2015/2016 ranking studies done by Research Center for China Science Evaluation (RCCSE) and Network of Science and Education Evaluation in China (NSEAC), on the discipline of Library and Information Science as well as Archives Management.

According to Liu Xia, Deputy Head Librarian at Wuhan University, Primo Central was not meeting all their research needs. “Before implementing EDS, we used to have Primo Central from Ex Libris for free. However, in many aspects, such as library holdings integration, coverage of Chinese resources and platform functionalities, Primo Central was not able to completely meet our requirements.”

In order to provide a better overall search experience for its staff and students, the library launched a thorough evaluation of discovery solutions. The content and functionality of EDS impressed librarians as well as research users. “In our evaluation, we found that EDS has a relatively higher coverage of our famous scholars' publications (ex. academician, common scholars, national outstanding youth, etc.) than any other discovery service,” said Xia. “EDS covers 100 percent of the top 10 international journals in each of our nine key disciplines.”

Xia adds that the usability of EDS also brings value to our users. “EDS has a clean, user friendly and powerful search platform. Users can choose multiple options in facets search and define relevance and available page layouts. This is very convenient and time-saving for readers when they are trying to search and find what they need.”

At the conclusion of their assessment of discovery services, results showed that 74 percent of users consider EDS the best discovery service for searching foreign language resources and they majority said if users can only choose one platform, they recommend EDS. Wuhan University listened and chose EDS.

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 its relevance and value ranking technology.

About EBSCO Information Services
EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) is the leading discovery service provider for libraries worldwide with more than 8,000 discovery customers in over 100 countries. EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS) provides each institution with a comprehensive, single search box for its entire collection, offering unparalleled relevance ranking quality and extensive customization. EBSCO is also the preeminent provider of online research content for libraries, including hundreds of research databases, historical archives, point-of-care medical reference, and corporate learning tools serving millions of end users at tens of thousands of institutions. EBSCO is the leading provider of electronic journals & books for libraries, with subscription management for more than 360,000 serials, including more than 57,000 e-journals, as well as online access to more than 750,000 e-books. For more information, visit the EBSCO website at: www.ebsco.com. EBSCO Information Services is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a family owned company since 1944.
###

For more information, please contact:
Kathleen McEvoy
Vice President of Communications
(800) 653-2726 ext. 2594
kmcevoy@ebsco.com

North Bethesda, MD, October 12, 2015 – The Ellsworth Correctional Facility Library has gone live on LibLime Academic Koha 4.12. The experienced Library staff at the Correctional Facility worked closely with the LibLime Project Management team to successfully migrate bibliographic, item, authority, patron and transactional data to LibLime Academic Koha from their legacy commercial system.

About Ellsworth Correctional Facility
Ellsworth Correctional Facility provides housing for 832 multi-custody adult male inmates. Ellsworth’s mission is to safely and effectively contain and supervise inmates, while also providing for community, employee and inmate safety. Furthermore, the facility plays an integral role in reducing crime and its associated costs by providing inmates with a means to improve their conditions through involvement in traditional correctional programming, faith-based activities, cognitive-based activities, exposure to "real life" skills and effective staff-inmate interaction. Moreover, the inmate population is offered an opportunity to participate in a variety of facility-support and community-based work activities.

About LibLime-PTFS
LibLime, a division of PTFS, is the global leader in providing support for open development Library Service Platforms (LSP). Rather than sell software licenses for static, hard-to-customize software products, LibLime educates libraries about the benefits of open development, enabling them to make choices about how best to provide their communities and staff with better technology services. LibLime then facilitates deployment of the LSP in libraries by providing outstanding consulting, development, implementation and support/hosting services. PTFS is also the developer of the world’s leading content management software, Knowvation, and specializes in meeting library personnel staffing requirements, digitization and metadata keying services. For more information, see http://liblime.com or http://ptfs.com.