Computers in Libraries 2009 Conference Notes
Howard County Library
Amy De Groff, Director, Information Technology
Danny Bouman, Web Designer
To patrons who are searching for information or support, there is no difference (or there shouldn't be) between the library website and the library catalog. Most libraries manage these two services separately, on different servers and sometimes even in different departments. They look different and operate differently. Howard County Library created a new model. The catalog and the website do the same thing -- educate patrons about collections and services. They wrote a new cms that integrates with Vu-Find (their new front end). They are replacing their ILS with Koha (test group within the library called the Koha Bees). It is interesting to note that they had Aquabrowser as their previous interface and now are going with open source (Vu-Find).
Highlights:
Howard County Library
Amy De Groff, Director, Information Technology
Danny Bouman, Web Designer
To patrons who are searching for information or support, there is no difference (or there shouldn't be) between the library website and the library catalog. Most libraries manage these two services separately, on different servers and sometimes even in different departments. They look different and operate differently. Howard County Library created a new model. The catalog and the website do the same thing -- educate patrons about collections and services. They wrote a new cms that integrates with Vu-Find (their new front end). They are replacing their ILS with Koha (test group within the library called the Koha Bees). It is interesting to note that they had Aquabrowser as their previous interface and now are going with open source (Vu-Find).
Highlights:
- New and hot items - they run a nightly script with their new items. Anything they've gotten within the last 6 months they check in with amazon nightly and display the most popular.
- Blog that anyone is allowed to write - a few guidelines -it has to be about something in the collection.
- rss feeds
- libx on all the staff computers
Howard County Maryland is actually Stub country, and the HoCo Central Library is a place my sister still frequents today. For as long as I can remember, they've always had a strong commitment to technology, though these new ideas like community blogging and an integrated web/catalog presence are particularly impressive.
The forward thinking nature of the library community never ceases to amaze me!