The Importance of Playing Nice with Others

by Nathan Curulla on Oct 15, 2020

Collaboration is key to a unified solution for your end users and we believe our policies and procedures provide the best path toward that goal.

Interoperability has always been a big focus for us here at ByWater. We feel as though it is crucial for libraries to have the freedom and flexibility to choose whatever peripheral services they want to compliment their ILS. This can take many forms, whether it be many solutions from many vendors, or many solutions from one vendor. The key is to allow for these relationships to happen without charging the vendor, or the library for that privilege. This opens up a myriad of possibilities and eliminates barriers other companies have in place that limit the ability for 3rd party vendors to interact with their system.

Because of this policy, ByWater has one of the largest and most diverse group of company partners in the entire library technology industry. We currently work with over 40 companies and their products to ensure our partners have multiple options for collaboration (a full list of our company partners can be found here). Our policy also opens the doors to smaller companies to have the opportunity to interact with Koha, Aspen and FOLIO and allow for more possibilities for our library partners to interact with a more diverse set of organizations. The end result is not having to put all of your eggs in one basket while still providing a hand picked set of additional services with less of an impact on your budget.

ByWater also works with 3rd party systems based on a meritocracy. We do not receive kickbacks from any of the companies we work with for integrations, as we do not want to suggest applications based on what we get paid for. Instead, we strongly encourage our partners to take excellent care of our mutual library partners, and if that experience is great then we share their successes with others when asked. As a result, our library partners can rest assured that we provide an unbiased recommendation when consulting with us on what works best with Koha. Collaboration is key to a unified solution for your end users and we believe our policies and procedures provide the best path toward that goal. ∎

About ByWater Solutions

ByWater Solutions is a full service, high-quality Open Source support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their systems than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in the first-rate implementation and support services with library systems of all sizes for the Koha ILS, Aspen Discovery, Folio LSP, Coral ERM, and Libki PC Management.

Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions not only lowers the cost of implementation and maintenance of OSS but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit https://bywatersolutions.com.