Bibliomation Requests to be IMLS Grant Partner

Earlier today I submitted our letter of application to become the first library to participate in the first wave of King County Library System's IMLS open source library system (OSLS) grant partners. The grant calls for King County to add three libraries per year for the next three years to their grant project. King County's initial library partners are The Peninsula Library System (San Mateo, California), the Orange County Library System (Orlando, Florida), and the Ann Arbor District Library (Michigan). The grant was awarded to King County last September 2009.

The following is an excerpt from Bibliomation's letter of application:

[...]
On behalf of Bibliomation, I respectfully request that you consider our consortium as a first wave partner of additional IMLS grant partners for the year 2010.

Bibliomation is a committed and active member of the Evergreen community. Some of our projects include:

• The contracting out of Dan Scott of Project Conifer to develop Evergreen-specific SQL training course materials. Dan spent two days training eight Bibliomation staff members to write Evergreen SQL queries. Bibliomation has worked with Dan to make these course materials available to all interested Evergreen libraries under the Creative Commons license.

• The development of a collaborative-based Evergreen kids' catalog. Bibliomation was able to find three other Evergreen sites to help develop the project plan and functional specifications for this major addition to the Evergreen ILS.

Bibliomation has also brought up two small CT public libraries on our first Evergreen system. We plan to add at least six more public libraries and one school system before we migrate our entire consortium (48 public libraries, 23 K-12 schools) in the summer of 2011.

I believe that we will be a strong asset to your IMLS grant project.
[...]

-Amy
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Amy Terlaga
Assistant Director, User Services
Bibliomation, Inc.
terlaga{at}biblio{dot}org

The Lebanon Schools join BibliOak

The Lebanon Schools have just joined Bibliomation's development partners project. This K-12 school system joins the Jonathan Trumbull Library, in Lebanon, already a BibliOak partner, scheduled to go live May 18th. This bodes well for Lebanon students as they will be able to use the same ILS in both their public library and school library environment.

We are excited to have these three schools (elementary, middle, and high) join us since Bibliomation already has 23 K-12 schools as members and we need to test Evergreen functionality against specific school needs.

Bibliomation plans to bring up the Lebanon Schools at the start of their new school year this September.

--Amy
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Amy Terlaga, Assistant Director, User Services / terlaga{at}biblio{dot}org

The Douglas Library, North Canaan Joins BibliOak

The Douglas Library in North Canaan, CT is the eighth public library to join Bibliomation's Development Partner Project. Douglas Library is very close to the David M. Hunt Library, in Falls Village, another development partner library that recently signed up. There will be great opportunities for reciprocal borrowing on the Evergreen system between these two libraries.

Erica Joncyk, the director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village, was instrumental in getting the Douglas Library to join. Erica wrote in her letter of intent to us:

"I look forward to working with you and your team and the excellent service that Bibliomation is known to provide."

Falls Village and Sprague Join BibliOak Project

The David M. Hunt Library, in Falls Village, and the Sprague Public Library are the latest two Connecticut public libraries to join Bibliomation's Development Partners Project, BibliOak.

These libraries join the Beacon Falls Public Library (live March 3rd), the Douglas Library of Hebron (live March 8th), the Jonathan Trumbull Library (go live date - May 18th), the Slater Library of Griswold and the Windham Free Library (go live date - July 1st) as the sixth and seventh partners of this Evergreen pilot project.

Bibliomation staff will have plenty of experience running this consortial library system by the time we migrate our 48 public libraries and 23 k-12 schools sometime in 2011!

Evergreen Canned Reports - Testing

Equinox has delivered a set of 29 reports for Bibliomation staff to test. They fall into three broad categories:

• Library Collections (10 reports)
• Library Patrons (9 reports)
• Library Services (10 reports)

I've already run a handful of them, and so far, they're looking very good. For instance, we really needed an Item Count by Shelving Location report (which I had forgotten to ask Dan Scott to help us write in SQL) and that report is found under Library Collections. It seems to produce the correct results, too.

Examples of some of the other reports:

• Inventory List - Lists of titles and items by shelving location and call number range
• List Items Added by Date Range
• List Patrons with Outstanding Balances
• Count Patrons Added by Date Range
• Items Loaned by Receiving Library & Date Range
• Items Loaned by Sending Library & Date Range
• Count In House Usage by Library Circulation Modifier

If you're curious to see the full list of reports, feel free to send me an email at terlaga{at}biblio{dot}org.

--Amy
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Amy Terlaga
Assistant Director, User Services

Douglas Library of Hebron is now LIVE on Evergreen

The Douglas Library of Hebron was the second library in Bibliomation's Development Partners project to go live on Evergreen this past Monday, March 8th. We can now start seeing how holds function between these two libraries.

We have a little bit of a break before the third library, the Jonathan Trumbull Library in Lebanon, goes live (May 18th). So it should be very easy to troubleshoot any consortial issues with just two libraries for these next two and a half months.

--Amy
==========
Amy Terlaga
Assistant Director, User Services
terlaga{at}biblio{dot}org

Equinox Press Release about BibliOak

FYI

Here is Equinox's press release about the launch of Bibliomation's Development Partners Project:

"First Bibliomation Libraries Live on Evergreen"

--Amy