Tour Polaris on Your Own

Finger Lakes Library System is a consortium of five county library systems in upstate New York. Its a classic example of independent libraries sharing a single instance of Polaris.

Guelph has implemented a very attractive and functional PowerPAC.  They’ve remained close to the Polaris classic look and feel, but fleshed out the catalog nicely.  They’ve implemented :  a banner image, dashboards, content carousels, Google Maps and a lot more.

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.

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.

The Johnston Catalog is extraordinary and perhaps the best example of library staff using the Polaris API’s and open architecture to build their own public interface.

Pinnacle is a great example of a single Polaris implementation whose individual libraries have done unique PowerPAC customizations.  If you tour their site and switch among the locations you’ll notice each library’s PowerPAC is very unique even though they share a single instance of Polaris.

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.

Like many Polaris libraries, the Ames catalog features a few content carousels based on booklists compiled manually by library staff.  Ames has done something unique.  They’ve put a mechanism in place which creates a booklist automatically.  The list (and therefore the content carousel) updates dynamically as items are added to and removed from a specific shelf location (“staff picks”).

Our PowerPAC demo is the ONLY system in our list that is not a live, in-production site. We include it so you have a site where you can login as a patron.

Before coming to Polaris, The City Library used Bibliocommons for their discovery layer.  When they moved to Polaris in the summer of 2013 the Library made the decision to use Polaris’s native online catalog.  The Library contracted with Polaris to customize their PowerPAC with the goal of creating a particularly cohesive user experience across their web platforms.