Tour Polaris on Your Own

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.

Richland Library has accomplished some of the most sophisticated customization work we’ve seen.  Their website features a fully responsive web design and Richland has used the Polaris API to integrate a lot of searching and PAC functionality right into the home page.

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.

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.

Barrington’s PowerPAC boasts a very simple and attractive elegance – a design consistent with their overall web presence. BPL is one of the best examples of a library which has branded its PowerPAC to match its over all web presence.

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.

Clinton-Macomb has created a very nice custom theme for their PowerPAC that matches their home page.  Additionally, they’ve done a few things we haven’t seen at other libraries.  In the PowerPAC header they’ve added prompts where patrons can enter their login information to sign on to their account.

Baltimore County’s catalog represents a very high level of careful customization.  The layout has been modified to include a custom header and footer.  The navigation mechanism in the header offers the same effective “drop down” behavior they employ on the BCPL home page.

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.

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.