• Memorial Day: Saturday, May 24 &
  Monday, May 26
• Independence Day: Friday, July 4 &
  Saturday, July 5
• Labor Day: Saturday, August 30 &
  Monday, September 1
• Veteran’s Day: Tuesday, November 11
• Thanksgiving: Thursday, November 27
  (Wednesday, November 26, close at 4:00)
• Christmas: Wednesday, December 24
  Thursday, December 25
• New Year’s: Wednesday, December 31
  Thursday, January 1, 2009
  Tuesday close at 1:00

Our first Summer Saturday for 2008 is June 21st, and the last is August 23th. The library closes at 2:00 pm on Saturdays between those dates.

What does Koha stand for? It means “gift” in the Maori language of New Zealand. Libraries from around the world have developed and shared this gift for the past seven years. Now CCFLS is using this gift, Koha, to manage everything we do at the library. It keeps track of the library catalog, patron information, and the transaction data between patrons and the materials. The new system is all web based and is designed to incorporate library standards. Anyone with access to the Web can now search what books are available and their status, all in real time.

John Brice, System Administrator, explained other improvements in Koha Zoom, “The most noticeable new feature is instant access to library account information from home. From the web patrons can access their library card information, including how many books they have checked out or how much in fines they owe. Of course, all account information is password protected. When searching for materials, pictures of the books appear on the result screens. In some cases, links to Amazon.com will allow patrons to read scanned samples of the book. Anyone can now go to http://catalog.ccfls.org and use it.”

The Crawford County Federated Library Sytem made the decision to use Koha after evaluating both Open Source and commercial software packages. Open Source software is free software that anyone can modify and distribute. After determining the old software was completely obsolete, we decided to evaluate available library management software. “No commercial or Open Source ILS answered our needs,” said Brice. “Koha had the best mixture of features along with the ability to allow us to modify the program to meet our needs. The advantage between Open Source and commercial software is that you can modify Open Source software to meet your policies and procedures, instead of modifying your policies and procedures to meet the software’s capabilities.”

Brice explained one concept of Open Source, “we can add features to the program by either developing it ourselves or contracting a support company. In fact, CCFLS did just that during the past year. The original Koha program did not run fast enough. So we hired Liblime, based in Athens, Ohio, to enhance the program, resulting in the new Koha Zoom program. Since we sponsored Koha Zoom other libraries from around the world can now benefit from it.”

Asked how much money was saved by using “free” Open Source software, Brice stated “although the cost of the Koha program itself was zero, CCFLS still invested the same amount of money as if we had used a commercial program. We had the cost of enhancing Koha, and purchasing of computer servers and network equipment. Overall the total cost will be about $45,000.”

CCFLS decided to use its own staff for setup, data migration and support. “We could have hired a company like Liblime to manage the transition of the project. However, we felt we had the technical expertise to do it ourselves.” said Cindy Murdock, System Network Administrator. Murdock also stated, “We have hired Liblime to provide us with some technical support which is specific to our installation and beyond our level of technical experience. This shows that open source technology can be supported as easily as commercial software.”

MPL is the first library in CCFLS to be using Koha. The remaining eight member libraries of CCFLS will have Koha installed later in the summer and early fall of 2007.

About CCFLS

The Crawford County Federated Library System provides technical, financial, and professional library services to the nine state-aided public libraries and two reading centers in Crawford County. The nine public libraries are: Benson Memorial Library (Titusville), Cambridge Springs Public Library, Cochranton Area Public Library, Linesville Public Library, Meadville Public Library, Saegertown Public Library, Shontz Memorial Library (Conneaut Lake), Sprinboro Public Library, and Stone Memorial Library (Conneautville).

About Koha ZOOM

Koha ZOOM represents a generational leap in Koha’s development. Notably, it includes a powerful search engine based on Zebra, a high-performance indexing and retrieval engine. Koha ZOOM’s search engine can read structured records in practically any input format (eg. email, XML, MARC) and allows access to them through exact boolean search expressions and relevance-ranked free-text queries. It supports large databases (more than ten gigabytes of data, tens of millions of records) as well as incremental, safe database updates on live systems.

Ask Here PA is a service for Pennsylvania residents, Pennsylvania students, and/or Pennsylvania-related questions.

Ask Here PA is designed to provide fast answers to your questions, using information found on the Internet and in proprietary databases funded by libraries. In most cases, Ask Here PA Librarians from across the state will provide an answer online in 15 minutes or less. If your question involves lengthy research, they will get you started and/or provide a referral for you or your question.

Presently the service is available daily from noon to 5 pm; after September 6th, it will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Click the link above or our link under “Resources” to try it.

John Brice, Executive Director, comments that “The last two weeks were especially busy in June. Every time I walked through the library there were many patrons using computers, reading newspapers and checking out lots of items. The Children’s Room has been especially busy this year.”

In one category alone, Children’s picture books, circulation rose from 2,775 items in May to 8,646 books in June. The library also saw increases over May in fiction, magazines, videos, and YA Fiction.

In June the Non-Fiction Department checked out 6,090 items. Pat Bailey, Adult Services Librarian said that “not only books but foot traffic into the library has increased. We are seeing more and more people use our Internet computers and we have seen large increase in the number of patrons connecting to the web through our Wireless hotspot.”

Fiction’s 7,183 circulation was an increase of over 1,200 books from last year. Joice Imel, Fiction Librarian hearing the news exclaimed, ”Cool, that makes seven months of increases for the Fiction Department! I am especially pleased to see Young Adult circulation rise. We have been expanding the YA collection for over a year and the kids are really responding to the new books.”

Children’s circulation for June was 16,795 items up over 3,000 from last year. Mary Lee Minnis, Children’s Librarian was unavailable to comment because “it is just to busy to think up something clever to say”. Once she caught her breath she said, “Summertime is always such a pleasure because the the children are enthusiastic and take great pleasure in exploring new things to read. I can always sit down again after the the ten weeks of summer reading club are over.”

The previous monthly circulation record was set in June 2004 when 29,371 books circulated. The past 12 months circulation for the library now stands at 247,244 which is 4,523 items higher than last year.

Individuals are able to subscribe to NextReads from the Access PA website (http://www.accesspa.state.pa.us). Simply click on “Subscribe to NextReads” and submit your name and email address. These sites are accessible to all residents and library patrons in Pennsylvania from their libraries and from home.

In the right column, you’ll find links to our departments, as well as links to our Internet resources like the POWER Library, our catalog or our Internet Resource Guide, a database that you can search for useful websites.

Enjoy!