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.
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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.

11/10/2015
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla
(888) 900-8944
sales@bywatersolutions.com

ByWater Solutions Welcomes Jessica Zairo as Koha Educator

ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and the U.S.’ forefront provider of Koha support, is happy to welcome Jessica Zairo as ByWater's newest Koha Educator. Jessica will join the ByWater team assisting partners with and educating partners on their Koha Open Source ILS.

Jessica has both graduate and undergraduate degrees in Library Science. She received her MLIS from the University of South Florida and undergraduate degree from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. She has worked as a Law Librarian and as Member Services Coordinator for an 18 county library consortium in Florida. She has worked and trained with libraries of all sizes and types. Her primary professional interests are advocacy, outreach and training library staff on everything from technology to project management and customer service techniques.

Jessica commented on her recent decision to join ByWater Solutions:

"I am ecstatic to be joining the ByWater team! I am excited to educate people on open source and Koha and look forward to supporting our partners here at ByWater."

Melissa Lefebvre, Operations Manager, commented:

"We are all very excited to have Jessie join our team. Her enthusiasm and energy for empowering libraries is invigorating and infectious. We know that her excitement for helping libraries will not only put migrating libraries at ease during training but will also get them excited for their move to Koha."

About ByWater Solutions:

With over 10 years of experience, ByWater Solutions offers customized hosting, data migration, configuration, installation, training, support options and development of the enterprise class open source library system, Koha. Offering a 24/7 technical helpline, ByWater Solutions’ clients have the support system they need to make their software work for them. ByWater Solutions pledges to share 100% of all developed code to the Koha community for the strengthening and advancement of the Koha ILS. For more information about ByWater Solutions, please visit: http://www.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–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

YBP Library Services and University of Chicago Work
Together to Improve Kuali OLE Acquisition Workflow
~ OLE GobiAPI Was Developed to Improve the Efficiency of
the Ordering Process for Kuali OLE and GOBI Users ~

CONTOOCOOK, N.H. — November 9, 2015 — Libraries using Kuali OLE and GOBI (Global Online Bibliographic Information) from YBP Library Services will be able to use a new functionality that will streamline the acquisitions process. The OLE GobiAPI will allow the real-time transfer of bibliographic and order details for all print and electronic orders placed via the GOBI platform.

Developed by the University of Chicago on behalf of the OLE project, The OLE GobiAPI provides comprehensive OLE order data mapped from any field in the GOBI order screen. This saves librarians from having to manually transfer the order information from GOBI to Kuali OLE and from loading daily MARC files, giving them immediate access to order information in OLE. This process also allows GOBI to harvest a library’s OLE order number for display in GOBI and subsequent invoice matching.

YBP Senior Vice President of Sales and Operations Mark Kendall says that YBP, an EBSCO company, continuously works to develop ways to make systems more efficient for libraries and ultimately, improve the experience of library users. “We are committed to working with our partners to improve technologies that will enhance acquisition and technical workflow efficiencies. The OLE GobiAPI will not only provide substantial value to YBP’s OLE customers but will also allow librarians to spend less time updating and maintaining internal systems, and more time helping library users.”

Kendall adds that YBP’s involvement in the development of the OLE GobiAPI is in line with EBSCO’s support of open resource integration through technology development. “EBSCO made a decision to fully open APIs for YBP’s GOBI services earlier this year to allow libraries the flexibility to choose the systems that work best for them without giving up functionality that is important to them.”

“One of Kuali OLE’s core values is to develop a next generation ILS environment that leverages integration with external vendor systems,” says James Mouw, Associate University Librarian for Collection Services. “We at Chicago are pleased to have a flexible platform like OLE that allowed for a very easy integration. We very much look forward to GobiAPI’s streamlining one of our major acquisitions flows.” The Library will offer its API development for incorporation into the base product pending approval by the project’s Functional Council. The programming funded by Chicago and developed by HTC Global Services will allow other OLE partners seamless integration with YBP’s GOBI and will be easily adaptable for use with other vendors who support the API standard.

This improved process will be available in the coming weeks. University of Chicago Systems Analyst Stuart Miller, and YBP Library Services Vice President, Academic Service Integration Ann-Marie Breaux, will discuss the analysis and development process for OLE GobiAPI during Kuali Days on Thursday, Nov. 12, starting at 3:45 p.m. at the Hilton Austin in Austin, Texas.

About Kuali OLE and the University of Chicago Library
Funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Kuali Open Library Environment (OLE) is the first open source system designed by and for academic and research libraries for managing and delivering intellectual information. OLE went into production at the University of Chicago Library in July 2014. The Library is a founding member of the OLE project and continues in its role as an active development partner. University of Chicago Library Director and University Librarian Brenda Johnson is Chair of the OLE Board.

About YBP Library Services
YBP Library Services provides print and digital content, supporting collection management and technical services to academic, research and special libraries throughout the world. GOBI, YBP's acquisition and collection development interface, provides access to more than 13 million titles. YBP has 300 employees with customers in 63 countries and is headquartered in Contoocook, N.H., USA. For more on the company, visit www.ybp.com.

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.

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