Tampa Bay, FL—More than 10,000 patron-placed interlibrary loan requests later, the Anywhere Anytime Library e-Catalog (Alleycat) is purring along. It's been a little over a year since the switch was flipped on Alleycat at the Florida Library Association Conference and Tampa Bay Library Consortium. Using epixtech's Universal Resource Sharing Application (URSA) system, Alleycat provides patron-placed interlibrary loans to 2.8 million patrons belonging to 20 libraries with 54 outlets. It connects libraries using Dynix, Horizon, and other local systems for circulation. Uncomplicated interlibrary loan requests are all placed by patrons directly, leaving library staff to concentrate on more difficult ILL requests. Alleycat handles patron authentication across disparate systems for loans, with plans to include authentication for full-text journal articles, indexes and databases developed locally.
Patrons are enthusiastic about the ease of placing requests via Alleycat and the email notification they receive when items are ready for pick up. In fact, from patrons to librarians, it's been one accolade after another for Alleycat, beginning with the Florida Department of State, Division of Library and Information services selecting AAL e-CAT to submit under the 2000 Library and Technology Act grant program as an Exemplary Project. The chosen projects will be featured in various Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Publications.
Lauren Stokes, Tampa Bay Library Consortium's Automation Services Support Coordinator, who has overseen much of the Anywhere-Anytime Library and its many challenges, has had a lot to say about the AAL e-CAT and epixtech's involvement. “The Anywhere-Anytime Library provides access from anywhere at anytime via the World Wide Web. While many Tampa Bay Library Consortium Libraries provided access to their own catalogs via the web or dial-in prior to implementation of this prototype pilot, they did not share a common search tool. When completed, we will have 36 library systems from the TBLC area with a total of 101 outlet. epixtech has been great to work with—in standards, in installation, and in training. epixtech does all the installing and setting up of the software, while our job is to profile the systems. It takes us about a month to set up a library with full circulation interoperability on our system.”
President and CEO of epixtech, Lana Porter, is very impressed with what the Tampa Bay Library Consortium has done with epixtech's URSA product. “Tampa Bay Library Consortium continues to lead the way with its interlibrary loan service. Together we envisioned this service in 1998 and it has been very rewarding to see it come about. The patrons have been very enthused about the service as it now stands, but it continues to grow with a web ‘portal' projected with links to such things as online databases and e-books. Tampa Bay Library Consortium has really shown that with URSA there is no limit to what can be done with interlibrary loans.”
About epixtech
epixtech is the leading provider of automation technologies, solutions and services for libraries worldwide. epixtech's award-winning library automation systems, Dynix and Horizon Sunrise, as well as ConnectLib solutions for patron self-services, desktop management and interlibrary loans and its new Web-based solutions and services empower libraries and their patrons. epixtech was formerly Ameritech Library Services, and became a private corporation in December 1999. epixtech's library automation solutions meet the needs of academic, research, public, corporate, consortia and K-12 school libraries. Headquartered in Utah, epixtech has offices in Evanston, Illinois; Waterloo, Ontario; as well as in Australia, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Taiwan. epixtech, inc. is located at 400 West 5050 North, Provo, Utah 84605; Telephone: 800.288.8020; fax 801.223.5202; and www.epixtech.com.