The Bergen County Cooperative Library System(BCCLS) is a database that compiles data from every library in Bergen County into one location accessible by the internet. I was first introduced to this database in middle school to help me find the books I was required to read over the summer. I used it all throughout high school and still today to find books I need for my classes without having to purchase them.
BCCLS was created to "to foster resource sharing among Bergen County public libraries. The cornerstone activity has been, and remains, reciprocal borrowing where a patron's hometown library card is honored at all participating libraries."1 This database allows any person with a library card to search the holdings of every library in Bergen County and several from Essex , Passic and Hudson Counties. Once the borrower has found the book they have searched for he or she may then fill out a simple request form and the book will be mailed to their home towns library free of charge, where the borrower may pick it up at their leisure.
BCCLS is built from Symphony Integrated Library System, which is a database written in SQL. Symphony is a Software as a Service(SaaS) database provided by SirsiDynix who hosts and maintains the software using their own hardware. "...your library can run all the tools of the Symphony system on less bandwidth than it takes to stream a YouTube video."2 Using the SaaS delievery model provided by SirsiDynix, BCCLS is able to be run and maintained at a highly reduced price making it available without any cost to the libraries patrons. The other benefits of using SirsiDynix's hardware to host the database is security of user information, and a guaranteed "uptime" thanks to SirsiDynix's consistent maintenance of their own hardware.
BCCLS interface is very user friendly allowing those whom have limited computer skills or experience to use the database with little to no problem. There are several different options to search the database with allowing the user to limit the number of matches and find the specific book he or she is looking for. These search options include title, author, series, subject, collection(fiction non-fiction etc.), and language the book is in. Several of the books covers are also added to database allowing to user to quickly identify the book they are looking for. The users are also able to search within a specific libraries catalogue giving them the ability to browse that libraries holdings.
Answers to Questions
1. One problem that may occur when using BCCLS is the sheer amount of results a search may yield even with the advanced search options. A second is the cover feature is under utilized, several books that have been published recently don't have cover photos which makes it harder to find the book you're looking for while combing a search that yielded a large result.
2. It provides a competitive advantage because it cuts out the need to physically go to a couple different libraries to find the book you need saving yourself some time and gas money.
3. Some suggestions I have for improvement would be to ensure that at least the majority of books have a photo of the cover, also adding a "search within results" feature would solve the problem of having to look through several pages of results in order to find the book you're looking for.
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