JEFFERSON — With the dissolution of the Council of Ashtabula County Libraries earlier this year, six of the eight independent library systems in Ashtabula County have recently formed a new consortium.
The group includes Henderson Memorial in Jefferson, Conneaut, Rock Creek, Harbor Topkey, Kingsville and Andover with a new name, Independently Cooperating Ashtabula Network or ICAN, according to Kathleen Jozwiak, director of the Jefferson library.
The consortium recently signed a five-year contract with LibLime of Athens, Ohio to provide software and hardware installation, data migration and ongoing support services. The new system is with Koha ZOOM, an integrated library system and union catalog all six libraries will share for patron and inventory uses.
Not included in the new consortium are Ashtabula County District Library and Grand Valley Public Library, who have opted to stay with Horizon Sirsi/Dynix, according to GVPL director, Andrew Davis.
“We are looking at other open source systems, the state library association has discussed with us. CACL has ended with four of the original members pulling out. Only ACDL and our library in Orwell are continuing to use Morgan Paul, our technical support person,” Davis said.
The six original member libraries in CACL will continue with their existing open-source system, Horizon Sirsi/Dynix until the joint contract ends Aug. 31. Any monetary assets left by Aug. 31 will be divided among the six libraries.
LibLime’s contract to make the switch totals more than $103,000. It will be paid over five years, Jozwiak said. Each of the library will pay $3,583 a year for five years. “All preliminary migration of records from the Horizon Sirsi/Dynix system has started,” she said.
After the five year payoff, each of the six libraries in ICAN will continue to pay $1,500 per year for maintenance of the system. LibLime will do the maintenance of equipment and each library can customize their own Web site.
“We are so excited about all the benefits of this open source. Not only will it save us substantially compared to our current system for four of the libraries, but the benefits of customizing the software to do exactly what we want far outweighs the tradition proprietary integrated library system vendors,” she said.
Jozwiak also noted that with the new company LibLime and Koha ZOOM, the software is free. Each of the six libraries in ICAN play an equal role in the use of this new open source integrated system.
Local News
Six independent Ashtabula County libraries form new consortium
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