Polaris is powerful library software enabling librarians to manage patrons and resources — putting libraries at the center of the communities they serve. The CLC has been a Polaris customer and partner library since 2009. We work closely with the company’s product analysts and engineers to develop and implement solutions that meet our member libraries’ needs.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers a set of services that together form a reliable, scalable, and inexpensive computing platform “in the cloud”. CLC uses Amazon to power our web facing DNS infrastructure and one layer of our offsite backup strategy.

CLC uses Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to offer additional backup redundancy. We also use Azure websites to power our alerting platform to ensure that we can be aware of service issues even if our network connection is offline.

Content Café enriches the OPAC with full-color jacket images, full-text reviews from ten of the industry’s most respected journals, professionally-written summaries, informative tables of contents, and complete book details. CLC has enabled Content Café integration with the PowerPAC and MobilePAC to provide a richer patron experience when patrons use these services.

CLC uses Dell Servers and Switches to power our core infrastructure. Our production environment has over 1.5TB of RAM, 96 CPU cores and utilizes 10GB ethernet.

Discourse is a Free, Open Source Forum and Email Listserv platform by the founder of Stack Exchange. CLC uses Discourse as our primary email listserv and web based forum platform. We use Discourse to communicate with our members about service outages and for our committees and workgroups to communicate with each other about important topics and issues.

CLC uses Jitbit as our HelpDesk solution. The software is dead simple, amazingly powerful, is reasonably priced and takes seconds to set up. CLC uses the on-premises versions of the ticket system. Jitbit integrates perfectly Active Directory, email and Slack. The same installation is also used by some of our member libraries to support their local IT infrastructure.

The CLC uses NoveList Plus with integration into the PAC via Novelist Select to provide access to the most respected database of reading recommendations available. It is a comprehensive source of information about books that includes expert recommendations, reviews, articles, lists and more.

CLC uses PDQ Deploy to roll-out patches and software updates to our server infrastructure. We also use it with our member libraries to roll-out client updates to the Polaris software. This saves our members hours of repetitive manual work and allows upgrades to progress more quickly and smoothly.

Postmark is a scalable and affordable email infrastructure service, with all the marketing-friendly analytics tools built. CLC uses Postmark to deliver almost 1 million email notices each month. Postmark’s APIs also allow the CLC to automate the process of bounced email handling so staff spend less time correcting patron accounts.

PRTG

CLC uses Slack both to communicate with the team and member libraries in real time. The CLC has also configured Slack to send out alerts anytime a member library enters a critical ticket, allowing the CLC to respond faster to larger problems.

The CLC uses Twilio’s cloud communication platform to deliver thousands of SMS messages and Telephone notices each day. Twilio’s powerful API and cost effective pricing allow us to serve our members with streamlined workflows all without the need for expensive hardware.

CLC uses WordPress to host our public website. WordPress allows us to create, upload, and import content with the easy-to-use admin and lets the beautiful customizable themes take care of the rest.