Aspen Update #1 - What is a Discovery System?

As we approach our November 1st Go Live date for our discovery system, Aspen, we want to share with you our first update.  The Aspen Implementation Team had the initial Kickoff Meeting with Bywater Solutions (the company hosting Aspen) team.  We have a project planning spreadsheet which the Implementation Team is already working on.

You might be wondering what a discovery system is and how it is different from our current catalog, CARL.  A discovery system integrates a library catalog with other electronic resources.  Aspen will include all our physical material (books, DVDs, CDS, etc.) with our Hoopla, Overdrive, Kanopy, Tumblebooks, and more electronic content.  CARL will still be in the back end, but it won’t be the public interface/page to search anymore.

We already have our test URL, https://metrolibrary.aspendiscovery.org; however, it only has our Hoopla content so far:

We have many more actions to complete before we will have the final test discovery system.  If you have any questions or suggestions, please send an email to Aspen[email protected].