Last year our church was given a very large gift to benefit our library. Our library board elected to move the library to the main floor to make it more visible and to increase circulation. Now I need your expert help. How do you figure out how much shelving you need? I have emailed three different library supply stores for help but I asking you as well.
When you made large purchases which company did you use? We are replacing all of our furnishings as far as table , chair, and circulation desk. The new space will be 1085 square feet. Our collection is a little over 5000 pieces, currently we have 610 feet of shelving.
My next question is about software. What program do you use to manage your collection? I am seeking something very user friendly for our patrons and our volunteers. Do any of you work with the public library to any degree like inter-library loans etc? Right now we use Church Library Pro and I struggle with it. The support is via email and I work nights and weekends so I am finding it not to be all that it should be. Thank you all for your input in advance. There are so many choices it can be very overwhelming
Replies
Congrats on your gift and remodel. I'm like the others we use Concourses level 3. It is very user friendly and so is their tech support.
I'm the Director of the Virginia Church Library Association and we just had our spring conference this past weekend. We had Allison Maynard from Book Systems with us leading both Concourse and Atriuum classes. I sat in on the Atriuum class. It seems to be just as user friendly excepted it is a web based program vs installed on your computer.
As for the furnishings all of my shelving was hand built. The table and chairs we've had for awhile but they came from either The Library Store or Brodart. We do have a Resources tab on our website that has links to various library supplies and furnishings companies vacla.org.
Good luck with the project
Congratulations on the gift to the library! It is affirming to hear that church libraries are valued and appreciated.
As far as software, we've used Concourse and Atriuum. Both have been extremely user friendly (and both by the same company - Book Systems).
I wish I could help regarding furniture and shelving. Our shelving was custom built by a member.
Good luck!
For software, I use Concource from Book Systems. I have level 3 and it does what I want and is user friendly, I think.
Other companies I use are Demco for supplies and Follett to order books.