CIVICTechnologies

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Suffolk County (N.Y.) has 54 public libraries serving all of eastern Long Island. But each library defines its service areas by school district and township boundaries, making it sometimes challenging for people to determine which is their library. The library turned to CIVICTechnologies for a geographic information system (GIS) that provides an interactive web map showing people where they can register for a library card.

Live-brary.com was created last year to be the digital library portal that provides access to electronic services shared by all the public libraries in the county.  Patrons need to authenticate library card barcodes to access the OverDrive collection, databases, and homework help, so the library needed to provide an easy way for them to get a card and immediate access. Marc Futterman at CIVICTechnologies was able to pull together data from multiple municipal and government sources, made sense of it, and created a user friendly front-end that directs the resident to a template pre-populated with the correct information to identify their library. The Live-brary.com website brings up an interactive map where a patron types in his or her address to find the correct library, driving directions, and the library's hours.  Then the patron can select the "Get a Card" button to register for a temporary library card.  Since the mapping technology was integrated with the ILS to provide online self-registration, the libraries have seen a definite increase in the number of card registrations. Patrons get a temporary barcode in a few moments, which is enough to download an ebook or get homework help.   

Ruth Westfall, administrator for technology services for the Suffolk Cooperative Library System said, "In addition to meeting our goal of facilitating patron self-registration at the correct library, 'Get a Card' has turned into a readily accessible directory of Suffolk County libraries for staff. This is a sophisticated tool that we could not have developed on our own. We're grateful to have found such a congenial partner in CIVICTechnologies."