I would just like to extend a hearty thanks to Gwen Bevill and everyone at the Kennedale Public Library for giving me so much great information and time and for building and maintaining such a wonderful library that is accessible to all. I hope that I get to come back this Spring for my internship and learn even more from you all!
Photo, CC 2.0: vistamommy / Flickr
The library building was named for the old mayor, who has since passed. His name was Bill Abbott. He was actually the person who brought technology to the Kennedale Public Library. He built its first computer system. That was what he loved to do. He also painted and was a general fixer-upper of things as most mayors in small towns are. Bevill knew him and called him a friend. Technology started there, but it did not stop there for this library.
Technology can be so big and overwhelming at times, but really, it can start small. It can start with one or two people who have passion about it. You can start out by filling one need at a time and going from there. And even in these lean times, there is money to be found for libraries. Looking at all the technology that this small library has and knowing that nearly all of it came from grants is inspiring to me. It makes me want to spend even more time learning how to write grant proposals.
Still, I was humbled as I left the building and saw these two boxes filled with tech books that were being weeded out of the collection. It's kind of fitting, though. Technologies change so fast. If you make the right decisions, though, you can get a long life out of your choices, relatively speaking. Maybe your technology will even outlast the books on the subject your library holds!
I arrived at the library a little early and met with Gwen Bevill, Library Director. She's been at the Kennedale Public Library for 17 of its 20 years in existence and was its first ever paid employee. She started out as a volunteer and quickly librarianship became her passion. I'm very appreciative that I was able to snag some of her time and learn where the library is headed in the way of technology and a little about how they got where they are today.
After she greeted me, we sat right down and she started to show me their integrated library system, Evergreen. The library moved from a commercial software solution called Athena to this program which is open source. They did it along with 13 other libraries that form a consortium called the North Texas Library Consortium.
View NTLC Library Partners in a larger map
Patrons of the member libraries are able to view the holdings of all the libraries, place holds and have items delivered to their home library. Bevill pays about $6,000.00 per year for the courier service and says it's worth every penny to be able to offer her patrons access to all these materials. She also talked about how it helps when deciding which items to select and weed when someone else might hold the item she's thinking about letting go. It also allows her to focus more on different areas of the collection, like large print books, which her patrons really appreciate. The courier comes twice a week to pick up and drop off books.
The library switched to Evergreen along with these other libraries and for other reasons, too. One of those reasons was to be able to take the catalog to the Internet, which they hadn't done before 2009 when they made the switch. Another reason was because Follett bought Sagebrush and after some research Bevill found that many still using Athena weren't satisfied.
They do still have Athena running, however, but it's only used by library staff to create bar code labels. It's much easier doing it with Athena rather than having to buy sheets of pre-printed bar code labels and then map the numbers to books in Evergreen. Another aspect of Evergreen that Bevill wishes were easier to use is the ability to quickly create and use reports. She liked the old program better for that. With Evergreen, there are a lot of report templates that you can use, but it's not that easy to sift through them all and find what she wants.
Since the implementation of Evergreen in 2009, they've had to upgrade three times, including twice in the last two months. One of the features of the program is that it's able to email patrons to let them know that they have an item coming due and also when items are overdue.
As a result of the switch, they were able to take the catalog online and it's now integrated into their Web site. Their site is maintained by Bevill herself. She uses a content system called Plinkit. Plinkit itself is made possible with grant money from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and around here it's offered through the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. As you can see from the long list here, Plinkit has allowed a lot of libraries to have an online presence. Bevill said that it's easy to use and she gave me a demonstration of features and showed me how she updated it.
She said she goes in about once a week and makes changes and updates the site. She regularly updates her patrons about new materials and she has front-and-center access to the TexShare Databases. These only cost her about $80 per year but include a lot of great offerings that can be used in the library or at home like:
She also has a great program for children offered called TumbleBooks, which are like eBooks for kids. It reads the book along with them, highlighting the words as it goes along.
One of the areas of librarianship that I'm particularly interested in is technical services. She talked with me about how they process books mostly in-house, including doing their own book covering and using OCLC for copy cataloging. She said it takes about 25 minutes to process an item, not counting the cover. When she showed me a book that had been processed elsewhere and one that they had done themselves, my heart sang when she went over fine details like using tape vs. glue and the placement of bar codes. Happy times. Warm fuzzies for me. Do they keep the CDs that sometimes accompany books with the books themselves? Yes, yes they do. I love this. It always drives me crazy when there's supposed to be a CD with the book and I get home and it's not there because they keep them separated. One library I know of actually catalogs them separately. Madness, I say!
Other highlights of their technology in words:
And highlights in pictures:
They serve a small population, but have a large collection of books on CD:
There are 8 computers available for use by patrons with Internet coming in through fiber optic lines. Patrons are able to use the computers for an hour at a time, but the time can easily be extended upon request. CASSIE is used to manage the reservation, sign-in and timing functions which has helped remove the librarians as the "middle men" for these functions.
There is no filter on the Internet, however, there is an acceptable use policy which includes a statement about not viewing pornography on computers as children can always be present. (The library has a very open design.) There is also WiFi available to all, but nowadays it gets turned off at 10pm because the police noticed a lot of people hanging out in the parking lot at night using computers in their cars.
They use Deep Freeze on the computers but no anti-virus software except on the staff computers (which use Norton).
They use bar code scanners.
They have a machine that uses a camera (like closed circuit television) to magnify book pages that I was very interested in. I can't believe I've never seen one of these! I have a son who is blind in one eye and frequently uses screen magnification on the computer, large print books, the Talking Books program and all sorts of other things, but I'll tell you, this is another tool he could definitely use. Bevill demonstrated its use for me. The part that moves the book around is very smooth.
The Friends of the Library recently purchased this large screen television and they have been using it to make announcements about the library and events in the community.
They offer printing, scanning and copying services. There are no printers, however. Everything is sent from the computers to this multi-purpose machine and then patrons pay at the circulation desk.
Bevill obtained a grant and purchased this machine that polishes scratched DVDs and CDs. She said that it has really extended the life of the collection and they also generate a little revenue by polishing patron discs for $1 each. I'd say $1 is definitely better than buying a new disc.
Also, check out that coffee machine. That's one piece of high tech equipment I know a lot of libraries couldn't be without. It allows their librarians to operate at full capacity and with less errors!
They use these "Disc Stakkas" from Imation to store DVDs. I'd never seen this before. She just scanned the bar code of a DVD box into the computer and it knew which one to go to and find the disc and pop it out. Bevill said that this is about as much anti-theft protection as they need.
For security purposes, they have cameras that watch all angles of the library and since they have a small staff, if someone is working in the back, they can see the circulation desk when a patron needs help.
One of the funniest parts of my nearly 3-hour tour came when I asked Bevill what she felt she didn't have enough of. She said to me, "There is no such thing as enough electrical outlets or storage."
Isn't that the truth?!
A few questions that I definitely want answered:
Some of those may seem quirky or narrow, but I guess in my head I'm comparing Kennedale to the larger Fort Worth system. I'm familiar with how Fort Worth does things and I want to see the differences between small and large libraries. For a reference point, Fort Worth has a population of 741,206 and Kennedale has a population of 7,284.
For the rest of the questions I'm just going to go with the flow and see where that takes me.
I gave her a call today and we talked a little bit about their switch to Evergreen and some of the things that I was interested in seeing. I didn't get too in depth on the phone since I'm a very visual learner and like to get my hands on things. She said she'd set up the old system and Evergreen side by side so that I could see the two systems in action. Even though they switched to Evergreen, they still have Athena going, too. I wondered why, but decided to save that for the visit.
Friday, November 4th at 11:00 a.m. I will be visiting their library. To get ready, I spent some time reading about both Athena and Evergreen since I'd checked out the library site previously.
