INWOOD, WV, July 21, 2004 – TLC has restructured the CARL.Solution system shared by Arlington County Public Library and Arlington County Public Schools in Virginia to enable increased site autonomy and consortium functionality.

The two institutions have shared a CARL.Solution ILS database as “Arlington County Library System” (ACLS) for seven years.

CARL.Solution offers many different consortia structures -- and ACLS opted to take advantage of the robust parameters available to independent institutions by CARL.Solution. TLC performed the restructuring over the July 4th weekend with virtually no interruption in service. Patrons were searching the catalog the morning after the holiday.

Now, the two Arlington County institutions share a combined bibliographic database and have separate bibliographic, patron, and circulation databases for greater autonomy and flexibility. Bibliographic updates to the individual and shared databases are performed in parallel and in real time. As separate circulating institutions, each agency may specify its loan parameters and fines and fees for books and audiovisual materials. Parameters at each library determine whether the library allows the fines/fees generated on items owned by the other institution to be paid. Each institution may retain patron history for different time periods, since schools often want longer circulation histories due to privacy concerns. Students and public library users can still check out materials from either institution because of the shared bibliographic database.

Maureen Karl, Materials Management Division Chief for Arlington County Public Library, commented “We are so grateful to the TLC staff for their dedication to this project. They carefully communicated with all parties through the entire process, and the result was a smooth transition to the new structure.”

Arlington County Public Library and Arlington County Schools have successfully shared CARL.Solution as one institution since 1997. Together, their 47 library agencies own over a million items and circulate three million items annually. ACLS will migrate to TLC's new CARL.X ILS later this year.