POMONA, CA - February 23, 2010 - Auto-Graphics, Inc. (OTCBB: AUGR), a technology innovator providing library automation solutions for 40 years, today announced that the company delivered its NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP)-compliant Circulation Interlibrary Loan Link (CILL) module to Vernon Parish Library in Louisiana. CILL marries the borrowing and lending functionality between Vernon Parish's interlibrary loan (ILL) system, Loan SHARK - powered by Auto-Graphics' AGent Resource Sharing - and the library's integrated library system (ILS), Library.Solution - provided by The Library Corporation (TLC). The CILL module provides a more streamlined workflow for library staff to dramatically reduce the steps required to both borrow and lend items and to streamline and further automate the process of managing ILL transactions.
"Using NCIP has greatly reduced our workload. We can now accomplish in half-an-hour what previously took one-and-a-half to two-hours to complete," said Howard Coy, director of the Vernon Parish Public Library. "Prior to implementing NCIP, our process was to manually write titles onto cards with barcodes, resulting in incomplete information being available to staff and patrons in the system. With the new functionality, complete information about an item is added - and, best of all, deleted when appropriate - automatically. We now have more information available instantly."
The State Library of Louisiana has supported statewide integration of NCIP capabilities to participating libraries in Loan SHARK for several years. The work done at Vernon Parish Library illustrates how the convergence of ILS and ILL has become a reality and also allows libraries to feel comfortable extending patron-initiated services without the burden of increased staff load. In these difficult economic times, Louisiana public libraries are able to create expanded library collections while also reducing staff time by enhancing their systems to improve workflow and increase access to materials.
Auto-Graphics has analyzed the NCIP-enabled workflow and concluded that the number of steps required to complete a borrowing or a lending transaction is reduced by up to 50 percent. Using a minimal savings of three minutes per step, a typical library filling an average of 3,000 ILL requests in a year will realize a total of 1,275 hours of freed-up staff time. This additional staff time can be used to process additional ILL requests or can be assigned to other priority library tasks.
"NCIP is one of those great standards that makes perfect sense in theory, but has had slow progression from being a standard to having practical application in our industry. Vernon Parish showcases how NCIP provides direct economic and strategic benefits to the state of Louisiana and its many Parish libraries," said Albert Flores, vice president of sales at Auto-Graphics.
About Auto-Graphics, Inc.
Founded in 1950, Auto-Graphics has been a technology innovator for more than five decades, providing data automation solutions to customers across multiple industries. For over 40 years, Auto-Graphics has helped libraries of all sizes become more efficient and patron-centric. The AGent integrated product suite - currently used by more than 6,000 libraries in North America - is comprised of AGent Iluminar a next generation patron user interface; AGent VERSO a complete integrated library system; AGent Resource Sharing a robust interlibrary loan and consortial borrowing solution; and AGent Search a powerful federated search application. AGent products are standards-compliant, built with an open systems architecture and are available via the Software as a Service (SaaS) hosted delivery model. For more information, please visit www.auto-graphics.com.
