About Us
At Biblionix, our people either volunteer at or are embedded at a community library. That's the kind of commitment we make to knowing our customers' needs. You can count on us to be in touch with what makes your library tick.
The early years
Biblionix sprang from the needs of the Westbank Community Library, a pioneering library which has served as a model statewide.
Our founder, Alexander "Xan" Charbonnet, began working at Westbank as a teen volunteer in 1993. He officially became the "computer guy" soon thereafter. He solved numerous library problems, ranging from hardware to software to networking.
After three years at Tulane, having earned a Computer Engineering degree summa cum laude, he was drawn back to the library world. Armed with an array of new tools, he created solutions previously unthinkable. It was a huge leap for the librarians: away from a mentality of "work around whatever we're given" to one of "dream it and Xan can make it happen".
He created Biblionix to enable other libraries to enjoy Web-based versions of many of Westbank's solutions.
Apollo
Frustration with Westbank's traditional ILS had been building for some time. The disadvantages were piling up:
- It was designed for schools, lacking many features a public library needs.
- Feature requests fell on deaf ears.
- Bugs causing data corruption persisted.
Worst of all, it was impossible to migrate to another vendor without losing critical data. Because Biblionix's advanced solutions had enabled Westbank to limp along with its current catalog for so long, a bold, perhaps crazy move was made: Biblionix was commissioned to create a new ILS. For the duration of the project, Biblionix worked closely with library director Beth Fox (later TLA's 2006 Librarian of the Year), along with her team of librarians, to create Westbank's dream ILS. Apollo was born.
Learn More
Follow the links below to learn more about how Biblionix works to give small public libraries exactly what they need.