Atlanta, Ga., May 31, 2022 : Equinox Open Library Initiative, a trusted leader in open source technology development and support for libraries, is excited to welcome the Western Pocono Community Library (PA) and the Barrett Paradise Friendly Library (PA) to the Pennsylvania Integrated Library System (PaILS) with their adoption of Evergreen ILS.

“We had a terrific experience migrating to our new system,” said Mary Ann Lewis, Library Director at Barrett Paradise Friendly Library. “The Equinox team was well organized and provided excellent training. We had some quirky issues due to how records were formatted in our previous system, but the Equinox team was always quick to respond with viable solutions. Migrating to a new system, even for a small library, is a daunting task but Equinox made everything go as smoothly as possible.”

The migrations of Western Pocono Community Library and Barrett Paradise Friendly Library encompassed 90,373 bibliographic records. The two libraries provide services for 38,029 patrons in their communities. Equinox provided the libraries with project management and Evergreen configuration in addition to data services including data extraction, bibliographic deduplication, and data conversion of patron and transactional data. Both libraries will be provided with hosting and support from Equinox on Sequoia, Equinox’s hosting platform for open source tools for library automation services. Remote training was provided by Equinox’s expert staff.

“Migrating to a new ILS is an exciting time but can also be scary and time consuming. The team at Equinox handled our migration beautifully,” said Patti Weiss, Library Director at Western Pocono Community Library. “Western Pocono Community Library’s move to PaILS/SPARK was a long time coming and when it was time to take that leap the migration team was extremely helpful and knowledgeable. I could not have asked for a better experience.”

PaILS was founded in June 2011 as a non-profit organization to provide an open source integrated library system. It oversees SPARK, a consortium of Evergreen libraries across Pennsylvania. Equinox has supported the SPARK consortium since 2013.

“It was an honor to collaborate with two such wonderful organizations dedicated to increasing the value of their libraries for their communities,” said Erica Rohlfs, Senior Implementation Project Manager at Equinox. “The value of open source is it really opens the door for increased access, it’s an honor to welcome both of these libraries to PaILS and the Evergreen community.”

Weiss also noted increased access as an important benefit of the migration. “Western Pocono is now in a position to resource share with the entire Monroe County,” she said, “and that is a big deal.”

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For more information:
Laura Barry
Communications Coordinator
Equinox Open Library Initiative, Inc.
EquinoxOLI.org
laura.barry@equinoxOLI.org
877.OPEN.ILS (877.673.6457)

About Equinox Open Library Initiative
Equinox Open Library Initiative is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and is the successor to Equinox Software, Inc. Equinox’s mission as a nonprofit is to promote and support a thriving ecosystem for open source library communities in order to provide libraries worldwide with innovative, affordable, and sustainable open source solutions. We are devoted to reducing barriers to library technology and services, expanding library access to open source software, and providing high quality technology, consulting, and support services.To learn more, please visit https://www.equinoxOLI.org.

About Evergreen
Evergreen Integrated Library System is an award winning and trusted library solution used by more than 1,800 libraries worldwide. Evergreen ILS is a web-based and mobile-friendly system which provides attractive, easy to use interfaces for library acquisitions, administration, cataloging, circulation, OPAC, reports, course reserves, and serials functionality.
 
Evergreen ILS is an enterprise level system designed to manage a scalable catalog shared across libraries, including large public and academic library consortia. While designed for large collections, Evergreen is suitable for libraries of any size and type from government libraries to museum and special library collections. Its flexibility enables libraries to configure policies and settings that work best for their communities and to maintain ownership of their library and systems data.
 
For more information about Evergreen: https://www.equinoxoli.org/products/evergreen/.