Is your catalog accessible via the Internet for your patrons?

[Joanne Ladewig]

My goal this summer is to get our library (at least the nonfiction) cataloged in some way that we can give our congregation access to it via the church website. We don't necessarily want it interactive at this point (a static record would be fine), just something that they can look up titles, subjects, or authors on, and that we can do the same from our library laptop. We'd also like to be able to add our own patron reviews.

 

Eventually we'd like to automate our circulation as well, but that can wait for the time being. It could even be two different systems, since our collection is small and we are very limited in adding more (physical) books, DVDs, etc. due to space issues.

 

Is it possible to do this (catalog collection & get online) with password protection from the website (i.e. they'd need to be registered with us to view the catalog) for under $500 or that plus automated circ for under $1000? Does anyone have practical experience with such a program?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[Barbara Keil]

Hello,

Sorry I took so long to reply. I was in the field for a few days with my Army Reserve unit, not much internet access out there : ) I set up the library thing account so only I have the password to make changes, everyone else are browsers.

As I said previously, we have no library budget so I am fairly limited I have donated out of my own pocket the few improvements that have been made. I looked at some products but even the small programs were too costly to justify at this time.

Barb Keil

[Joanne Ladewig]

Barb,

First, thank you for serving all of us by being in the Army Reserve! Second, thank you for your input on Library Thing. We considered that system originally but (even though our room is small) we have close to or perhaps slightly more than 2,000 holdings already and may be able to squeeze in more, since we have mostly paperbacks and have changed from videos to DVDs, which take up so much less room. I want to share some ideas with you since you mentioned that your resources are very small, but I will do that by posting a new topic, which I think will be of interest to many. Look for it soon on the Home page of the ning - it will be called "Making Lemonade from Lemons Library."

[Barbara Keil]

Thanks Joanne,

I plan on attending a church librarian conference in the Kansas City area in August and hope to get ideas there and I am most interested in seeing the Lemonade Library.

Barb

[Joanne Ladewig]

Barb - it is under the Ideas area on the Main page. I will have to get some pictures to share soon.

[Peggy Krause]

I am interested in changing to Library Thing. I understand it's $25 for life- free up to 200 books. I'm wondering if you are able put in accession numbers, how do you make book labels, and are you able to have more than books on there (DVD's, etc.) Are there any drawbacks that you are aware of. Currently we're using CROSS, which cost about $150 to start, but requires a yearly charge.

[Yvonne Knight]

You need a regular library program that will support labels, I use Surpass CL. There are a number of fields in LibraryThing, I put my accession number at the beginning of the "publication" and separate it with a slash (/) I do it here because it is sortable, that way if I wish to sort by accession number I am able. You may check it out on...
http://www.librarything.com/profile/pcbclibrary