Equinox migrates Brookfield Public Library to the Missouri Evergreen Consortium

News Announcement

Duluth, Ga., October 12, 2020: Equinox is pleased to welcome Brookfield Public Library to the Evergreen ILS with their successful migration to the Missouri Evergreen Consortium.

The Brookfield Public Library’s move will support 1,116 patrons and encompass a total of 2,1307 bibliographic records. Services provided by Equinox included project management and Evergreen software configuration. Data extraction and bibliographic deduplication were completed as part of their migration encompassing item, patron, and transaction records. Remote training was also provided by Equinox.

“It is scary changing the way you have done your entire workflow for 20 years,” said Gina Smith, Director of the Brookfield Public Library, “but with the help of Equinox, who had to train us entirely online due to COVID-19, we are confident as we move forward knowing that the migration to Missouri Evergreen was the best decision for our community.” 

The Missouri Evergreen Consortium began as a resource sharing initiative in 2012 in an effort to create an integrated library system for libraries in Missouri. They are supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provision of the Library Services and Technology Act as Administered by the Missouri State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.

“Brookfield Public Library began a migration to Missouri Evergreen while operating under restricted hours due to COVID-19,” said Jennifer Weston, Implementation Project Manager at Equinox. “During the migration project the Brookfield staff conducted a significant data review and database cleanup operation which resulted in a successful data migration – all while successfully reopening the library to the public. Brookfield patrons will benefit from the library’s tireless efforts to implement a new system including the convenient option to be notified via text or email when materials are ready to be picked up. It has been a real honor and pleasure to work with Brookfield Public Library to provide new opportunities for the library’s community during these unpredictable times.”

About Equinox Open Library Initiative
Equinox Open Library Initiative is a nonprofit company engaging in literary, charitable, and educational endeavors serving cultural and knowledge institutions.  As the successor to Equinox Software, Inc., Equinox carries forward more than a decade of service and experience with Evergreen ILS, Koha ILS, and other open source library software. At Equinox, we help you empower your library with open source technologies. To learn more, please visit https://www.equinoxinitiative.org/.

About Evergreen
Evergreen is an award-winning ILS developed to provide an open source product able to meet the diverse needs of consortia and high transaction public libraries. However, it has proven to be equally successful in smaller installations including special and academic libraries. Today, over 1500 libraries around the world are using Evergreen including NC Cardinal, SCLENDS, and B.C. Sitka.  For more information about Evergreen, including a list of all known Evergreen installations, see http://evergreen-ils.org.

Highlights from the 2020 Koha-Us Annual Conference: “Online Together”

By Felicia Beaudry, Product and Implementation Trainer at Equinox

Koha-US welcomed the Koha community to its 2020 Conference, themed Online Together, September 22 – 24.

Stephanie Chase, Executive Director of the Libraries of Eastern Oregon and Principal Founder of Constructive Disruption, gave the keynote address on the topic of change management.  She encouraged everyone to focus on the “together” part of the theme and the collaborative nature of the Koha community and open source in general. Ms. Chase also reminded us of Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model, much of which resonated during these challenging times:  lead with purpose and humanity – whatever we do, do with kindness, empathy, and care. She pointed out that many people are still mourning the loss of how things used to be, a regular schedule of getting the kids off to school, commuting to work, and gathering with friends and family.  Many of us will mourn again when we need to go back to commuting to work, lose the time we’ve used for extra reading, cleaning, self-improvement, etc.

Covid-19 was addressed again in a presentation from Cindy Li, Head of Emerging Tech and Systems at Bridgewater State University.  She spoke about the campus-wide response to the pandemic, as well as the library’s response, focusing on e-resources, but also having a plan for in-person services.

There were a number of really excellent presentations:  how to use basic HTML and CSS to customize slips, using jQuery, integrating Koha and MARCEdit, working with the Advanced Cataloging Editor, making short educational videos for Koha users and patrons, and many more.

We at Equinox were happy to have two presentations at Koha-US 2020 this year.  Jennifer Weston and I kicked off the first day of presentations with a discussion of why adaptability was so important in our migration of Biblioteca Nacional de Puerto Rico to Koha as part of the Equinox Open Source Grant.  Rogan Hamby and Jason Etheridge did a terrific introduction to kmig, an open-source git like tool they developed to use for Koha migrations and data projects.

The last day of the conference, dubbed Bug-a-Palooza, was a new take on the normal hack-away.  It started with a Sandbox how-to, with subject specific discussions throughout the day on bugs and enhancements, but all through Zoom.

If you weren’t able to attend the conference live, you can still enjoy all the presentations.  Recordings, slides, links, and other information for each session are available on the conference website.  Recordings are also available on the Koha-US’s YouTube channel.

Implementing Koha ILS at the National Library of Puerto Rico

By Hilda Teresa Ayala-González, Interim Library Director, Biblioteca Nacional de Puerto Rico

Introduction

The General Library of Puerto Rico was created by Law Number 44 from June 6, 1967 and was assigned to the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP) by Dr. Ricardo Alegría. In 2003, it became the National Library by Law Number 188 from August 17 with the aim to preserve and provide access to the rich, unique, and significant bibliographic productions about and related to Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans.

The services of the National Library are aimed towards the advancements and dissemination of the cultural values of Puerto Rico. Through the encouragement of leisure reading, specialized research works, educational activities and group visits to the facilities, the National Library fosters a deeper engagement with the Puerto Rican academic, scientific, and creative production and its users. As a National Library, it safeguards the published treasures of Puerto Rico and makes them available for the wider public.

In 2019 the National Library decided to move from the outdated ILS system (Mandarin M3) to an open source system looking for alternatives to attain staff and users’ needs in times of economic limitations. Thanks to the Equinox Open Library Initiative in January 2020 the possibility of a renovated Integrated Library System became a reality.

Adapting Koha to our needs

One of the most important aspects of the initial discussions related to the design was the need to develop a bilingual user interface (OPAC), the default being Spanish and optional English. This was taken into consideration as the main language in Puerto Rico is Spanish, but also, as an option to expand access to our resources to English-speaking populations too; many second or third generations of Puerto Ricans living outside the Archipelago’s main language is English. This design was successfully achieved by providing tailored translations in Spanish to those texts that were not already part of what the community of Koha offers, with an emphasis on automated text messages that users receive when using the OPAC services.

In terms of the database design, the team had to take into consideration that the datasets were stored in 19 different “libraries”, as called on the previous ILS, and this needed to be combined into one whole data set to make sense in the new design. The distinction was preserved under the “location” as each data set had specific use restrictions.

The migration process and design of the database and services coincide with the government closures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in early March 2020, shaping also decision making to optimize access to our valuable resources and expand the possibilities for our users, according to new challenges the virus represents for the health of the population served.

Some of the add on services that are new to attend to our users’ needs are: self-registration, article requests, lists & carts, and placing holds for in-person visits. Through self-registration everyone interested in researching the collection can do it. This allows for little intervention from staff and focuses on changing permissions to residents only, which will take advantage of in-house use of materials. But, the researchers that wish to request copies of particular articles of chapters can do it (for a fee), as a new digitization service is currently being implemented to expand our services not only to residents that live far, but also those not living on the main Island. The idea of implementing lists and carts is to allow researchers to facilitate compilations that address their research topics and to store or share the bibliographic data for future use.

As a National Library policy, the collections are for in-house use only. With the new challenges related to keeping staff and users safe from COVID-19, we decided to implement hold services for those users that will require in-person visits. Through holds we can facilitate scheduling visits and creating workstations for users without a lot of contact from personnel and researcher. Also, it will help with timing quarantine. Although we considered this feature as a measurement to respond to the current times, we have decided that the benefit of allowing researchers to let us know ahead of time which resources they will be consulting could result in an efficient use of time and we will maintain it for the future as well.

Planning for future projects

One extraordinary opportunity we had with the Koha team was to develop a specific cataloguing framework to provide a link and access to the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP) journals collection. The resources were digitized and are maintained in a digital archive, in a separate online platform. Previously, the journals were indexed to facilitate researchers access to articles (ca. 1,309). In 2005 the project was not carried on. Through Koha, we decided to link each digital journal and upload a new access version to the 27 new journals that were published since 2005. This framework provides users with the table of content of the journals and the link to the digital version.

This framework will also be put into place to increase access to other digitized material by the ICP and special digitization projects the library is currently planning.

Final remarks

The new catalogue was launched (https://bnpr.kohacatalog.com/) in June 2020 and even though we are still not providing in-person services to users, 30 have already register through the system. We are very excited with the possibilities of the Koha ILS and the projects that lay ahead to continue to increases access and enhance services for our users, more importantly to the Equinox services and support for the next three years.

Going Fine Free in Evergreen ILS

By Rogan Hamby, Data and Project Analyst at Equinox Open Library Initiative

Recently an increasing number of libraries have decided that going fine free is an important part of their plans to provide optimized services for their communities. Many other libraries are interested in this possibility but not sure how they would accomplish this.  To help you out here are the things to look at in going fine-free at your Evergreen library.

Circulation Policies

The one thing you must do to go fine-free is to not charge fines anymore.  In Evergreen there are three components to this.  First under Administration -> Server Administration -> Circulation Recurring Fine Rules you will want to create a rule for zero fines.

Now go to Administration -> Server Administration -> Circulation Max Fine Rules and create a max fine rule for zero fines.

Finally, go to Administration -> Local Administration -> Circulation Policies and edit your existing rules to use your new recurring and max fine rules.

While you are doing this you also have an opportunity to condense any circulation policies that only differ due to fine amounts.  While that is all you have to do in order to go fine-free, there are a few other things you will want to consider.

Group Threshold

One concern with going fine-free is how to encourage patrons to return materials and prevent further loss of unreturned materials.  The answer in Evergreen is a group threshold for a standing penalty.  Go to Administration -> Local Administration -> Group Penalty Thresholds.

Here you will want to edit or create thresholds for the penalty PATRON_EXCEEDS_OVERDUE_COUNT.  The ‘Threshold’ field contains the number of overdue checkouts that will trigger this penalty.  Change the threshold to any value you want.  You can create different thresholds for different patron groups by using the ‘Group’ drop-down selector and creating new penalty thresholds so that perhaps Adults are limited to 5 while Juveniles get 10.

Transition Period

One important consideration is that you will have a transition period.  Evergreen stores the values of circulation rules in the circulation when it is made.  So, if you check a book out with a $0.10 a day fine on July 1st and switch to fine-free on July 2nd that book will still accumulate $0.10 a day fines if it becomes overdue.

One tool that libraries can do to reduce fines for check-ins is to use the Amnesty Mode check-in modifier on the ‘Checkin Items’ screen.  This won’t remove existing fines on a circulation but will prevent new ones from being generated during the check-in.


Notices 

You will want to review any existing print, email and SMS notices you generate for their language in regards to fines.  In fact, this may need to be done twice, once while transitioning if fines continue to accumulate on older circulations and then to finalized new language after a determined cut off point.  You can calculate a cut off for a transition point by taking the date of your switch to fine-free and then adding the length of your longest circulation plus the time it would take to go to lost or the maximum time based fine accumulation.

Preparing Staff

Finally, as with any public service impacting change, you will want to prepare staff.  All staff should have the major talking points about why the library is doing this and how it benefits the community.  Additionally, some libraries will choose to allow staff to forgive or void fines either during the transition or permanently.  In this case, circulation staff will need the account permissions to apply the payments or void bills.

Talk to Your System Administrator

So far we have talked about what can be done in the staff client.  Additional tools exist for those with the ability to directly write scripts for the Evergreen database.  This shouldn’t be done unless the person doing it is very comfortable with these kinds of changes but it is a powerful tool.  Two major opportunities exist for those who do a data project as part of going fine-free.  One is that you can edit existing open circulations to use the new fine free rules and not accumulate new fines.  Not having to have a transition period greatly simplifies the process for staff and patrons.  The second is that if you also want to forgive historical fines you can have those zeroed out in bulk.