PaILS is pleased to announce that the Allentown Public Library, Easton Area Public Library, and the Bethlehem Area Public Library will be joining SPARK! These three important libraries will bring a wealth of resources, energy, and talent to the consortium. They will be migrating sometime in the latter half of 2017. More details to follow. Let’s all give a warm SPARK welcome to our friends in the Lehigh Valley.
By the Numbers
Here are some impressive SPARK numbers: Population Served by SPARK Libraries: 1,512,639 Titles: 1,287,992 (100 percent increase over last year!) Copies: 2,727,846 Circulation: (May 15-April 16): 3,831,881 (48 percent increase over last year!) Patrons: 559,669 (Increase of almost 60,000 over last year!) Library Service Outlets (Live, Migrating, or Committed): 105
SPARK Users Group
The big news is 71 people attended the annual SPARK Users Group Meeting in State College last Thursday. This is a record! Attendees got to travel in the SPARK Time Machine to hear about the recent past and the future, receive an introduction to Evergreen 2.10, hear reports on the Evergreen International Conference, and learn about tips and tricks for Cataloging, Circulation, the SPARK Catalog, and Reports. Let’s not forget … Read More
New Feature: Update from the Executive Director
A lot of great things are happening with SPARK, and I feel it is important that everyone is kept up-to-date. To that end I am going to be posting regular updates to www.sparkpa.org. My first post has a spring theme. With another Pennsylvania winter well behind us, everyone is having meetings and gatherings. I had the pleasure of speaking at the District Library Center Meeting in Hershey on April 25th. … Read More
Stumped by Reports? Try this video.
If you feel baffled by SPARK reports, give this video a try. It gives a great overview of the basics: Thank you to Elizabeth Davis and Christina Thomas at the Scranton Public Library for putting it together.
SPARK Ignites Facebook!
PaILS / SPARK is now on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Pennsylvania-Integrated-Library-System-178285719211694/ Please “Like” us. Also, feel free to send us your SPARK-related content (Photos, Anecdotes, Favorite Features etc.). This would be much appreciated!
SHAREiT Update Completed
SPARK’s first 2016 quarterly update to Pennsylvania’s AccessPA SHAREiT database has been completed. PaILS provides this service at no additional cost to our member libraries.
Scott Thomas Named New PaILS Executive Director
The Board of Directors of Pennsylvania Integrated Library System (PaILS) has selected Scott Thomas as the Executive Director replacing Lewis Maurer upon his retirement. PaILS is a non-profit corporation that oversees SPARK, an open source, Evergreen-based ILS shared by over 80 Pennsylvania libraries. Thomas comes to PaILS from he Scranton Public Library (Lackawanna County Library System) where he has served as Head of Information Technologies / Technical Services. He holds … Read More
Upgrade to Evergreen v2.9 Scheduled
PaILS is happy to announce that we will be upgrading SPARK to Evergreen version 2.9 later this year. The test environment will be upgraded on Nov. 11 and the production server will be upgraded on December 17. I will be in touch with more information about webinars and other information pertaining to the upgrade. Here’s the description of the improvements and enhancements that will come with v2.9 Evergreen now supports placing … Read More
Full Time SPARK System Services Coordinator
Lugene Shelly, SPARK Coordinator and Director of Williamsburg Public Library begins full time as SPARK System Services Coordinator on August 1. Lugene will continue to provide support to PaILS member libraries only better; she will be available full time! In her expanded leadership role, Lugene will coordinate the development, implementation, management and maintenance of the SPARK Evergreen Open-source Integrated Library System to ensure optimal performance and use for member libraries … Read More