The Mid-Hudson Library System will be among the first consortia to use and test Vega Discover. Other standalone libraries are already live on the platform, but we will be leading the charge for systems like ours. Being a pilot library involves soft launching with staff, testing, providing feedback, then soft launching with patrons and gathering feedback from them too. This will help us steer the development of Vega with the developers at Innovative.
Pilot Partners
Mid-Hudson staff have been testing Vega Discover for months. In December 2021, the Poughkeepsie Public Library District (PPLD) partnered with MHLS as our first pilot library to test the new catalog.
PPLD have placed a link to the new Vega catalog on their website. The link to Try the New Catalog Search! is located in the Books and More tab of poklib.org and invites users to test drive the catalog and provides an invitation to give feedback.
In Spring 2022, Highland, Kingston, Marlboro, Patterson, and Mahopac joined as pilot libraries. Each library has a dedicated “collection site” that provides access to the electronic collections (Hoopla, Kanopy, etc.) to which the particular library is subscribed. The entire MHLS physical collection can still be searched and accessed from any collection site. The URLs for each library are:
Poughkeepsie Public Library District: https://discover.midhudsonlibraries.org/
Highland Public Library: https://highland-discover.midhudsonlibraries.org/
Kingston Library: https://kingston-discover.midhudsonlibraries.org/
Marlboro Free Library: https://marlboro-discover.midhudsonlibraries.org/
Patterson Library: https://patterson-discover.midhudsonlibraries.org/
Mahopac Public Library: https://mahopac-discover.midhudsonlibraries.org/
Feedback
We want to collect as much feedback and evaluation from staff and patrons as possible to help make the catalog the best it can be for our communities. We ask that you use the forms below to share your thoughts and ideas about the platform, or email techsupport@midhudson.org with the subject line “Vega Pilot.”
Evaluation Forms
Additionally, we have temporarily added a survey link in the header of Vega itself:
Stay Updated
Keep an eye out for further updates and see the Pilot Review page (log in required) for information on issues, questions, and explanations, where we are continuously working. And don’t hesitate to get in touch if you encounter something that you think needs attention.
You can see the product status board from Innovative Interfaces for features that are in development, coming soon, in planning, and under consideration here: Innovative Product Status Board.
We send out a biweekly update to pilot libraries with new release notes, other updates, and feedback. Click here to view all past MHLS Vega update emails (log in required).