Duluth, Georgia -- October 7, 2016. Equinox is pleased to announce two new additions to the SPARK/PaILS Consortium. Claysburg Area Public Library, Hollidaysburg Area Public Library, Martinsburg Community Library, Roaring Spring Community Library, Tyrone-Snyder Public Library, and Williamsburg PA Public Library; affectionately known as The Blair County 6–BC6 for short; joined Altoona and Bellwood-Antis within SPARK. Bellwood-Antis Public Library migrated two weeks before The BC6.
The BC6 previously shared a server to host their ILS. They will begin physical resource sharing within SPARK very soon. Bellwood-Antis Public Library is also in Blair County. Along with previously migrated Altoona, Blair County libraries are now unified.
Erica Rohlfs, Equinox Project Manager, had this to say about the migrations:
"Being a part of the Blair Libraries' migrations was exciting and challenging. There were 3 total migrations, Altoona, Bellwood-Antis, and BC6. It's almost ineffable to describe the joy that came with knowing how large this migration was for both the Blair Library System and the community they serve. The librarians put an incredible amount of time and thought into their migrations, not only in the complex policy decisions but also in details, such as streamlining the BCLS branding. I just can't say enough about how hard they worked to unify their catalog, merge patrons, and streamline resource sharing. Also, their new children's library cards are awesome!"
Scott Thomas, SPARK/PaILS Executive Director, added; "One of the most exciting things about bringing new library systems onto SPARK is to see how the change directly improves services to library patrons. SPARK will enable the citizens of Blair County to use multiple libraries with ease and to benefit from the enhanced access to many collections county-wide."
About Equinox Software, Inc.
Equinox was founded by the original developers and designers of the Evergreen ILS. We are wholly devoted to the support and development of open source software in libraries, focusing on Evergreen, Koha, and the FulfILLment ILL system. We wrote over 80% of the Evergreen code base and continue to contribute more new features, bug fixes, and documentation than any other organization. Our team is fanatical about providing exceptional technical support. Over 98% of our support ticket responses are graded as "Excellent" by our customers. At Equinox, we are proud to be librarians. In fact, half of us have our ML(I)S. We understand you because we *are* you. We are Equinox, and we'd like to be awesome for you. For more information on Equinox, please visit http://www.esilibrary.com.
About Pennsylvania Integrated Library System
PaILS is the Pennsylvania Integrated Library System (ILS), a non-profit corporation that oversees SPARK, the open source ILS developed using Evergreen Open Source ILS. PaILS is governed by a 9-member Board of Directors. The SPARK User Group members make recommendations and inform the Board of Directors. A growing number of libraries large and small are PaILS members.
For more information about PaILS and SPARK, please visit http://sparkpa.org/.
About Evergreen
Evergreen is an award-winning ILS developed with the intent of providing 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 1400 libraries across the US and Canada are using Evergreen including NC Cardinal, SC Lends, and B.C. Sitka.
For more information about Evergreen, including a list of all known Evergreen installations, see http://evergreen-ils.org.
