Local libraries expand services by joining Missouri Evergreen
November 6, 2019
Charlea Estes-Jones
An exciting new opportunity will mean better services for library patrons across Barry and Lawrence Counties. The Barry-Lawrence Regional Library system is joining Missouri Evergreen, a statewide group of 45 partnering libraries to save money and offer expanded services to patrons.
According to Barry-Lawrence Library director Gina Milburn, "The Library is always working to provide better services despite having limited funds. We are announcing a win-win by joining Missouri Evergreen. This will not only save us money but will provide our patrons with better service.”
While Missouri Evergreen is a software change that will come with a few growing pains, overall the switch will save the library system over $10,000 a year and will greatly expand the print materials offered to patrons.
Barry-Lawrence Regional Library marketing director Greg Brown said the system began looking into the program a couple years ago and made a firm decision to join last year. He said, "It is a software change, but joining Missouri Evergreen is more about the money savings. The bigger aspect is it allows us to share our materials with 45 other libraries. It is similar to inter-library loan except for it doesn't cost anything for patrons to use. It's a little more streamlined and faster overall process.
"It won't cost anything with the Missouri Evergreen consortium. It's basically like Inter-library loan expanded and is free. It's going to save us about $10,000 in cost from our other software system."
As the program is put into place, there are some changes that library patrons need to be aware of. Starting this week, November 4 through November 13, the library will not receive any new books or other materials as they move from one computer system to another. All branches will be closed on Monday, November 11, for Veterans Day, and there may be some online disruptions in terms of holds or e-resources during that time. Those disruptions could continue through November 13.
The official 'Go Live' date for the new software is November 14. Staff will work to help patrons use the new program, and by December 2, patrons should be able to begin borrowing books from the consortium of 45 other libraries.
Brown added, "We are very diligent about checking to make sure we are using our limited funds and providing great services for our communities, we don't want to make a mistake by not doing research. So, as soon as we found it made sense for us to join Missouri Evergreen and did the research, we knew we definitely wanted to do this. But, it's such a big undertaking to flush our old software and data and then rebuild the database and reboot the entire library system. It's a big process.
"It's a lot newer and smarter. So, once patrons get in there and can utilize the features it offers, I think they will really appreciate Evergreen just from that standpoint. There is a lot of good in this change."
The Barry-Lawrence Regional Library is made up of branches in Monett, Cassville, Aurora, Eagle Rock, Marionville, Miller, Mt. Vernon, Pierce City and Shell Knob.
Charlea Estes-Jones
An exciting new opportunity will mean better services for library patrons across Barry and Lawrence Counties. The Barry-Lawrence Regional Library system is joining Missouri Evergreen, a statewide group of 45 partnering libraries to save money and offer expanded services to patrons.
According to Barry-Lawrence Library director Gina Milburn, "The Library is always working to provide better services despite having limited funds. We are announcing a win-win by joining Missouri Evergreen. This will not only save us money but will provide our patrons with better service.”
While Missouri Evergreen is a software change that will come with a few growing pains, overall the switch will save the library system over $10,000 a year and will greatly expand the print materials offered to patrons.
Barry-Lawrence Regional Library marketing director Greg Brown said the system began looking into the program a couple years ago and made a firm decision to join last year. He said, "It is a software change, but joining Missouri Evergreen is more about the money savings. The bigger aspect is it allows us to share our materials with 45 other libraries. It is similar to inter-library loan except for it doesn't cost anything for patrons to use. It's a little more streamlined and faster overall process.
"It won't cost anything with the Missouri Evergreen consortium. It's basically like Inter-library loan expanded and is free. It's going to save us about $10,000 in cost from our other software system."
As the program is put into place, there are some changes that library patrons need to be aware of. Starting this week, November 4 through November 13, the library will not receive any new books or other materials as they move from one computer system to another. All branches will be closed on Monday, November 11, for Veterans Day, and there may be some online disruptions in terms of holds or e-resources during that time. Those disruptions could continue through November 13.
The official 'Go Live' date for the new software is November 14. Staff will work to help patrons use the new program, and by December 2, patrons should be able to begin borrowing books from the consortium of 45 other libraries.
Brown added, "We are very diligent about checking to make sure we are using our limited funds and providing great services for our communities, we don't want to make a mistake by not doing research. So, as soon as we found it made sense for us to join Missouri Evergreen and did the research, we knew we definitely wanted to do this. But, it's such a big undertaking to flush our old software and data and then rebuild the database and reboot the entire library system. It's a big process.
"It's a lot newer and smarter. So, once patrons get in there and can utilize the features it offers, I think they will really appreciate Evergreen just from that standpoint. There is a lot of good in this change."
The Barry-Lawrence Regional Library is made up of branches in Monett, Cassville, Aurora, Eagle Rock, Marionville, Miller, Mt. Vernon, Pierce City and Shell Knob.