Tour Polaris on Your Own

Monroe County Public Library is one of the best examples of a library who uses the Polaris PowerPAC framework as their library website.  MCPL has made extensive and attractive UI customizations.

While the member libraries maintain their individual websites, the consortium uses PowerPAC as their sole web presence.  Where there’s a need for a page of local content (e.g., a page with Book Recommendations) , Black Gold has added custom pages within the PowerPAC framework and linked them to a “Main Menu” in the side dashboard area.

Each member library at MLC has a very attractive, custom PowerPAC look and feel.   MLC uses the full suite of Chilifresh products:  review, bookjacket images as well as the Polaris Social integration of the Chilifresh Connections product.

Pierce County Library System has made creative use of the Custom Content area on their initial welcome page.  There are selectable tiles for popular functions like reserving a computer and making a purchase request.

Brampton has done some very basic customizations and added quite a few nice dashboards in the left panel of their PowerPAC.  Interestingly, BL offers both Overdrive and Cloud Library ebooks.  The Overdrive interface uses the legacy non-integrated approach while the Cloud Library uses the full Polaris eBook integration.

Mid-Columbia Libraries has done an extraordinary amount of customization to their PowerPAC.  In addition, MCL has used the Polaris API to provide extensive discovery features right on their Drupal home page.  This site is an excellent example of how far you can go with your customizations and/or custom API implementations.

As a hosted customer they’ve taken a very unique approach: Lee College’s Polaris system (and therefore PowerPAC) is hosted in the cloud by Innovative, but Lee staff have located their customization files (stylesheets, etc.) on a local server – giving them freedom to change aesthetic elements quickly and easily on their own.

Both resource sharing and autonomy are very important to the member libraries of CCS. This balance of attributes is very evident when you visit the Polaris PowerPAC pages for each library. Member libraries do a certain level of customization on their own while CCS consortium staff are quick to provide consulting and administration services.

Maricopa County not only uses PowerPAC as their library website, but they’ve populated the site with some great content. 

DPL has long been one of our favorite examples of a library who has created a consistent and attractive look and feel for both their website and PowerPAC.