Florence County libraries to close Thursday for new catalog system

FLORENCE — All Florence County Library System locations will be closed Thursday to prepare for a new online catalog system that will give patrons access to more library materials, according to a press release from the library system.

Libraries in Florence, Lake City and Pamplico will reopen Friday, while those in Johnsonville, Olanta and Timmonsville will remain closed through the weekend and reopen Monday.

While the libraries are closed, patrons still will be able to return books at book drops, said Aubrey Carroll, information services manager for the Florence County Library System.

Until the library system reopens, the online catalog won’t be available for placing holds, renewing items and other functions. Patrons will be limited to five checked-out books per library card. DVDs and videos won’t be available until the reopening. New library cards won’t be issued and fines cannot be collected until the reopening, either.

When the library system reopens, the new catalog system will give library patrons access to more materials. The new online catalog system will involve a consortium of 10 South Carolina libraries that will share a single catalog.

The consortium is called SC LENDS, or S.C. Library Evergreen Network Delivery System, which will implement the Evergreen open-source integrated library system to manage transferring books between libraries. By using open source, SC LENDS libraries estimate they will save more than $200,000 a year in software licensing costs.

The nine other participating libraries are the Anderson, Beaufort, Calhoun, Chesterfield, Dorchester, Fairfield, Union and York county libraries and the S.C. State Library. Florence, Fairfield and Anderson are the last to go online, said Ray McBride, Florence County Library System director and vice president of SC LENDS.

When they do, Florence County library patrons will go from having access to 300,000 items at all six of the counties’ libraries to more than 2 million items at all libraries in the consortium, McBride said.

Library patrons will be able to search for items at participating libraries, and any available item in the circulating collection — including books, DVDs, CDs and other materials — can be delivered to their home library in a few days.

“(It’s) a huge increase in what our patrons will be able to request,” McBride said.

Requests can be made via the online catalog. The process is updating the libraries’ card catalog to look more like Amazon.com and making it just as easy for patrons — and library staff — to use, McBride said.

Another real benefit isn’t just the increased amount of materials to which patrons will have access, McBride said.

The Florence County Library System pays $32,000 a year to a vendor for services. But the consortium will cut that cost by $15,000 a year on maintenance. That, in turn, leaves more money for purchasing more materials for patrons, McBride said.

Sharing the cost of hardware saves each of the participating libraries money, Carroll said.

The consortium allows the libraries to provide more resources to patrons, and do so more cheaply, he said.

The libraries have been moving to the new system in phases, which began in the spring and will be completed this month.

Upon its completion, SC LENDS will be the second-largest Evergreen consortium in North America. Evergreen is an open-source software system for library catalog systems, Carroll said.

SC LENDS also allows the libraries in the consortium to add new features for free and to coordinate collection management, McBride said.

“(It’s) really a win-win situation all the way around,” he said.

McBride said other county library systems in the state have expressed an interest in joining the consortium once all 10 participating libraries go live with it.

Patrons already can access collections from the Chesterfield, Beaufort, Calhoun, Dorchester, Union and York county libraries and the S.C. State Library from the Florence County Library System’s Web site, http://florencelibrary.org/wordpress/, which was revamped and relaunched last weekend, he said.

Carroll said Florence County’s six libraries were split up for the SC LENDS upgrade so that each would have full tech support on hand for a smooth rollout.

McBride said he expects the system will be tweaked during the next two to six months as needed.

“(People) will clearly and easily see the benefits of this new system,” he said.

For more information, call the Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation Library in Florence at (843) 413-7074.

On the Web

Florence County Library System, http://florencelibrary.org/wordpress/