Each month, ByWater Solutions selects one library to be awarded $500. These funds are meant to support libraries and their communities and fill gaps in funding to further library goals.

We are very excited to announce our first winner of the ByWater Community Giveback, the Silver Lake Public Library Foundation in Silver Lake, Kansas. Find out more here: https://www.silverlakelibrary.org/

The Silver Lake Public Library Foundation, Inc. was organized to further educational purposes through improvement and support of library services. They provide advocacy, private financial support and innovative leadership to transform Silver Lake Public Library into a vibrant life-long learning center that builds the community and enriches lives.

The funds from the ByWater Community Giveback will be used for the Silver Lake Library’s Snag-a-Snack Program. The money granted by ByWater Community Giveback will help the Foundation to limit the amount of funds they have to pull from their Children’s budget for the program.

The funds for the program go towards providing healthy after-school snacks to any school aged child in the Silver Lake School District. Their main goal is to reduce after-school hunger in the communities of Silver Lake by providing two non-perishable snack items to any student, three days a week when school is in session and when the library is open. Snacks are served Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Through this afterschool-program they hope not only to feed children but to increase library service connections with youth and families in their community. In the 2 years that they have led the Snag-a-Snack Program, the library has served 3,814 students. In the 2019-2020 school year, they served 1,605 students and in the 2020-2021 school year they served 2,209 students. They hope to continue to see an increase in their numbers for this school year and beyond.

About the ByWater Community Giveback
We will select one library a month to donate $500 to their Non-profit 501c3 organization such as Friends of the Library, Library Foundation, or other funding entity. These funds are meant to support libraries and their communities and fill gaps in funding to further library goals. We LOVE libraries. Our team is made up of librarians and library fanatics. We're always looking for ways to give back and create opportunities where we can to support libraries. This is a small token of thanks for all the hard work libraries do in their communities every day.

Learn More About the Program and How to Apply: https://bywatersolutions.com/community-giveback

If you have more questions, please contact: Outreach@bywatersolutions.com

ByWater Solutions, America’s forefront provider of Open Source library technology support, announced that Washoe County Law Library is now live on Koha! The catalog can be viewed here: https://washoelawlibrary.bywatersolutions.com/

ByWater completed the transition of the library’s almost 41,000 items from SoftLink and continues to provide support services for Koha.

Andrew Fuerste-Henry of the ByWater Solutions Education Team, recently commented on the implementation, "Sarah and her staff at the Washoe County Law Library were great to work with! They brought a clarity of mission and a willingness to learn that will ensure their new system provides both ease and functionality to library staff and patrons alike. Throughout our training sessions, I was delighted by the enthusiasm with which they embraced a new set of tools with which to meet the needs of their users."

About The Washoe County Law Library
Washoe County Law Library is the public law library for Washoe County. As a public library, everyone is welcome to use any and all of the library's legal resources. Their staff is dedicated to helping patrons find and access the law. Library staff invite patrons to visit or call the law library for further assistance.

The mission of the Washoe County Law Library is to enhance access to justice by (1) providing legal information, education, resources, tools, and materials, in print and digital formats, to those engaged with the justice system, and (2) partnering with the courts, bar associations, legal clinics, civic organizations, and government entities to help ensure the legal needs of the community are addressed.

Learn more here: https://www.washoecourts.com/LawLibrary/AboutUs

About ByWater Solutions
ByWater Solutions is a full service, high-quality Open Source support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their systems than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in the first-rate implementation and support services with library systems of all sizes for the Koha ILS, Aspen Discovery, Folio LSP, Coral ERM, and Libki PC Management.

Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions not only lowers the cost of implementation and maintenance of OSS but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit https://bywatersolutions.com.

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.

For More Information
Jessica Zairo
Director of Library Sales & Outreach
ByWater Solutions
bywatersolutions.com
Phone:(888)900-8944

ByWater Solutions, America’s forefront provider of Open Source library technology support, the MetroShare Consortium in Texas is now live on Aspen Discovery and Koha with ByWater Support.

The customized OPACs for the libraries in MetroShare are available here:

Richland Hills Public Library - librarycatalog.richlandhills.com
Benbrook Public Library - discovery.benbrooklibrary.org
Watauga Public Library - catalog.wataugatx.org
Keller Public Library - librarycatalog.cityofkeller.com
Burleson Public Library - catalog.burlesontx.com
Forest Hill Public Library - discovery.foresthilllibrary.org
Haltom City Public Library - catalog.haltomcitytx.com

Addie Van Salisbury of the Aspen Discovery Implementation Team commented on the migration, "MetroShare was a great group to work with as they were excited to explore all of the customization features they could utilize for their patrons. The newly formed consortium is a great addition to the Aspen Discovery community as it is clear their patrons’ experience is very important to them. They were excited to spotlight all of their local materials along with all of the new content patrons now have access to thanks to the members of Metroshare Consortium!"

About the MetroShare Consortium
The MetroShare Consortium is a newly formed consortium in Texas consisting of seven public libraries.

The MetroShare libraries include: Burleson Public Library, Benbrook Public Library, Forest Hill Public Library, Haltom City Public Library, Keller Public Library, Richland Hills Public Library and Watauga Public Library.

The MetroShare consortium launched their new new online catalog to provide a more user-friendly experience and an improved integration of digital titles. Watch their promo video here: https://youtu.be/OvpaBa97evE

About ByWater Solutions
ByWater Solutions is a full service, high-quality Open Source support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their systems than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in the first-rate implementation and support services with library systems of all sizes for the Koha ILS, Aspen Discovery, Folio LSP, Coral ERM, and Libki PC Management.

Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions not only lowers the cost of implementation and maintenance of OSS but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit https://bywatersolutions.com.

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 Aspen Discovery
Aspen is a full-featured Discovery System that integrates with e-content and other 3rd party providers, giving your patrons comprehensive access to all of your materials in one place. Aspen combines your library catalog with e-content, digital archives and enrichment from all major third party providers, improves relevancy and ease of use, provides native reading recommendations, displays all formats of titles within one result (FRBR) and much more. Aspen was created to give users an improved experience over other Discovery systems with less of an impact on library budgets. For more information about Aspen please visit: https://bywatersolutions.com/projects/aspen-discovery

For More Information
Jessica Zairo
Director of Library Sales & Outreach
ByWater Solutions
bywatersolutions.com
Phone:(888)900-8944