From the desk of James Burts, CEO, Keystone Systems:
As we enter the new year, it’s time to both look back at 2021 and ahead to things to come in 2022. 2021 was a year with ups and downs. While it wasn’t our first year to cope with the complexities of Covid, we certainly hoped 2021 would bring Covid to a close. That certainly didn’t happen, and we continue to work remotely and miss out on the simple pleasures of getting to see our coworkers and stay in touch about the details of one another’s lives. (“How was your son’s baseball game last night?” “Did your daughter get the part she wanted in the school play?” “Hey, what nice restaurant do you recommend for our anniversary dinner next week?“) We are making it work to work remotely, but also acutely aware what we’re missing.
On the other hand, 2021 was the year that we had (by far) the largest participation in a KLAS Users' Conference. This was largely because the conference was forced to become an on-line, virtual conference. It allowed nearly twice the usual number of participants to attend, because people could attend without having to travel. We all learned a lot from that conference--both in terms of the content that was shared, and in how to best utilize an online platform to put on the conference.
2021 was also the year had to say goodbye to Kay Holloman, the co-founder and longtime CEO of Keystone Systems. Though she retired from the daily goings-on of Keystone over 10 years ago, she was still a valued advisor and staunch advocate for our libraries until the very end. Mitake and I will do our very best to continue her passion for excellent customer care by making sure libraries always get the service and support they need from us in order to succeed and thrive.
Finally, in 2021, we welcomed the West Virginia Instructional Resource Center (WV IRC) to the Keystone family. They chose KLAS to provide the capabilities they need to take their services to the students of West Virginia to a new level while allowing their staff to work far more efficiently. It is truly a win-win for everyone involved. Welcome WV IRC!!
As we look ahead to 2022, we hope for the day we can *finally* get back to the office, at least to some degree. I don’t know that we’ll ever return to 100% in person at the; we’ve all become accustomed to working from home, and there are some real benefits to being to doing so. For our IRC customers, we will continue development of the new integration of KLAS with APH’s ordering system. As for our LBPDs, we’re developing new partnerships with NLS to improve integrations and hopefully to streamline Serials processing.
