Orange County Library System
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Orange County Library System (OCLS) is a public library system located in the Orlando area of Central Florida. OCLS has headquarters in the Orlando Public Library in downtown Orlando, 14 branch locations, and a home delivery program called Materials Access to Your Library (MAYL). The library system operates with the mission "Information, Imagination, and Inspiration."
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[edit] History
In 1920, Captain Charles L. Albertson, a retired Police Inspector of New York City and winter resident of Orlando, donated his book collection to the City of Orlando on the condition that it furnished a building named after him to house it. In 1962, Orlando voters approved construction of a new Main Library, which was completed in 1966. Architect John M. Johansen of New Canaan, Connecticut, designed the building, referring to it as a "composition in monolithic concrete."
When the need arose for a larger building, voters approved the sale of $22 million in bonds for construction. The expanded 290,000 square-foot building, which opened in 1985, spanned an entire city block and became the largest public library building in the state of Florida. Architect Duane Stark designed exterior walls that matched the color and texture of the rough hewn cedar pattern of the original concrete walls.
[edit] Branches
The main location of the Orlando Public Library is located at 101 East Central Boulevard. This library houses a children’s department, teen space, computer resource center, Library Central, and Z-Coffee Café. The library's collection consists of a wide variety of print materials, including fiction, nonfiction, world languages, genealogy, and special materials that comprise the Florida and Disney collections. The library also has audiovisual materials and electronic resources to meet customer needs.
The 14 branch locations are strategically placed around 1,000 square miles of Orange County and offer services relevant to their communities. Some of these services include gaming, programs, and computer classes taught in the English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole languages. The following are the names of the OCLS branch locations:
- Alafaya Library
- Eatonville Library
- Edgewater Library
- Herndon Library
- Hiawassee Library
- North Orange Library
- South Creek Library
- South Trail Library
- Southeast Library
- Southwest Library
- Washington Park Library
- West Oaks Library
- Windermere Library
- Winter Garden Library
[edit] Related Services
The Materials Access to Your Library (MAYL) program allows library customers with resident cards to request materials for home delivery free of charge. Most deliveries are made by Priority Express Parcel, a private courier, although some are sent by U.S. Mail. This popular service circulates as much, if not more, material as a branch location and is operated in the basement of the Orlando Public Library.
OCLS operates a virtual branch[1] which provides access to the library's catalog, information on programs and classes, and electronic collections, including Virtual Galleries. Resident cardholders can request material for home delivery, browse content in online databases, take virtual computer classes, and download audiobooks.
[edit] Technology Used
OCLS was the first public library to offer RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. To those who subscribe to the feeds, the library delivers news about library events, new technology, and information for children and teens. OCLS offers podcasts and video podcasts of storytelling and other library events, blogs, and informative virtual galleries on topics that include travel, history, holidays, and more. OCLS cardholders can access a variety of electronic resources, including databases, downloadable audio books, streaming videos, and virtual computer classes.
The library system features free Wi-Fi access in all locations, allowing anyone with a library card and a wireless enabled computer device to use the Internet. In addition, all locations house public computers with Internet access, though these also require an active library card to use.
Several locations provide self-checkout stations that allow customers to check out materials on their own. The library materials that are housed in self checkout locations are given Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, which store information about the items and identify material at the point of checkout.
[edit] Reference services
The Orange County Library System performs mobile reference, in which staff roam the library buildings to assist customers rather than wait at a desk for people to approach. Each mobile reference staff member wears a Vocera Communications Badge, which is a wireless device that uses voice recognition software. With a touch of a button, these badges allow staff to communicate with each other throughout the building and place calls outside the library. Mobile reference staff also carry handheld computer devices to access the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) or the Internet while assisting customers in the stacks or anywhere in the library.
The Orlando Public Library houses Quest Line, the library’s telephone reference center. Librarians and reference assistants field an average 13,000 calls per month, assisting customers with account information, material requests, and reference questions. Quest Line staff also provide digital reference services through email and Orange Chat, an instant messaging program. The library’s busiest branches and the Orlando Public Library’s third floor provide customers the opportunity to communicate with Quest Line staff through a videoconferencing system known at OCLS as OLIVE (OCLS Interactive Virtual Experience).
[edit] Awards
The Orange County Library System has received several awards, including:
- 2006 recipient of the Thomson Gale Award for Excellence in Reference and Adult Services awarded by a division of the American Library Association (ALA) for the library’s eGuides, or online reference tools. The “Starting your Own Business” eGuide in both English and Spanish languages explain how to use library resources to start and grow a successful business.
- 2006 ULC/Highsmith Award for Excellence issued by the Urban Libraries Council to recognize the OCLS Teen Library Corp, a group of teen volunteers who give back a little “TLC” to their library.
- Second Place 2006 Be Innovative Award given by Innovative Interfaces, Inc. for the Library’s Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC).
- 2005 Award of Excellence in Public Library Management from the Urban Libraries Council for the Spectrum Program, a program that cross trains library assistant managers by allowing them to rotate positions every six to nine months.
- 2003 Outstanding Library Programs Award for Continuing Education and Staff Development from the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET) for a customer service training program called Ready, Set, Go! that is designed for support staff.
