Blanchester and Wornstaff Memorial public libraries

The Blanchester and Wornstaff Memorial public libraries have gone live on Evergreen, making a total of eight library systems on the new Consortium of Ohio Libraries (COOL). More than 10,000 new patrons will now be part of the COOL consortium and over 90,000 bibliographic items have been added to the combined catalogue.

Equinox Software oversaw data migration and will continue to provide advanced technical support. OHIONET will partner with Equinox to provide hosting and primary system administration. The COOL project received initial funding from the local libraries and an LSTA grant from the State Library of Ohio.

Shae Tetterton, Equinox project manager, said: 'I'm truly amazed by what this consortium has accomplished in the last year. Last year at this time, the very first library was going live. Today the COOL consortium has eight library systems live. Blanchester and Wornstaff are great additions to this group, and I look forward to the continued growth of the COOL consortium.'

Founded by the original Evergreen designers and developers, Equinox Software is a leader in open-source solutions for libraries. Their goal is to engage and support a rapidly growing open source community while assisting libraries in moving away from expensive proprietary vendors and products.

Evergreen is a robust, open-source integrated library system best known for its unique ability to meet the needs of very large, high-transaction, multi-site consortia. However, it has also proven equally successful scaled down for even the smallest libraries. Evergreen now supports almost 1,200 libraries – public, academic, special, and school media centres across countries, 31 US states, and eight Canadian provinces.

For more information, the COOL catalogue can be viewed online at http://www.cool-cat.org/.