Portland, Maine, June 25, 2015. LibraryThing is proud to announce the debut of TinyCat, a new online catalog (OPAC) for small libraries. TinyCat provides a powerful, simple, and inexpensive online catalog for so-called "tiny" libraries (libraries with up to 10,000 titles).
"The smallest libraries—churches, synagogues, community centers, small schools, and so forth—don't have many good options," said Tim Spalding, President of LibraryThing. "TinyCat gives them an online catalog every bit as good as a big library's."
TinyCat builds on LibraryThing.com, a personal cataloging and social networking site which small libraries have used for years. "But LibraryThing was designed for cataloging and getting gloriously lost in the wild world of books," said Spalding. "It's too big, open, and social for ordinary library patrons." TinyCat transforms LibraryThing into an OPAC layer, focused on helping patrons search and discover books without getting lost in the weeds. It also adds critical elements libraries demand, such as MARC-format imports and exports, barcode support, and a simple circulation module.
TinyCat Highlights
TinyCat was built to be simple and clean, for quick and easy access to a library's holdings. The interface was built to look and work great on any screen and device, becoming even simpler and more focused when viewed on a smartphone.
TinyCat is also thoroughly modern, with features not yet found in many big-library systems. Faceted searching allows patrons to narrow their searches rapidly by media, collection, language, and other criteria. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) on every page thwarts snooping on patron activity.
Finally, TinyCat is enhanced with features from LibraryThing's signature catalog-enrichment product, LibraryThing for Libraries, which adds librarian-vetted users reviews, major media reviews, and recommendations to standard library data. LibraryThing's "tag" and genre systems provide additional ways for patrons to find materials, and its series and awards coverage is extensive.
Available Soon
TinyCat will be available in the third quarter 2015. LibraryThing will be demoing TinyCat at Booth #3634 at ALA Annual San Francisco. For more information—or if you're a librarian of a small library who might be interested in beta testing TinyCat—email info@librarything.com.
About LibraryThing
LibraryThing is a leader in social networking for readers and in software for libraries. LibraryThing.com counts over 1.9 million members who have cataloged 97 million books. In addition to TinyCat, LibraryThing also offers libraries a suite of catalog enhancements through LibraryThing for Libraries. Learn more at LibraryThing.com and LibraryThing.com/forlibraries.