About SCLENDS

SCLENDS, which stands for “South Carolina Library Evergreen Network Delivery System," is a consortium of 20 county libraries and the State Library that has agreed to share resources and circulating materials. SCLENDS libraries share a single catalog, which means that patrons can search for items at any of the libraries as easily as they search for items at their home library. Requesting items is as simple as clicking a button. Within a few days, any available circulating item can be delivered from any SCLENDS library across the state. This benefits libraries by helping them take advantage of economies of scale and share expertise with other libraries around the state.

Quick Stats

• Circulates roughly 362,000 items a month
• Transfers roughly 18,000 items between library systems each month
• Gives patrons access to more materials than ever before--together, SCLENDS serves almost half of the state’s counties and has a collection of more than 2.75 million items
• The smallest member of SCLENDS went from having a collection of less than 40,000 items to more than 2.75 million.
• As of March 2014, SCLENDS libraries have loaned items to patrons in South Carolina more than 19 million times. The average cost of a book on Amazon.com is $9. That is a value of over $171 million dollars.
• Loans materials from the furthest points of the state, which usually happens within 48 hours at no more than 1/6th the cost of buying the item
• Loaned more than 750,000 items between counties facilitated by SCLENDS at a value of more than $6.8 million at less than 1/7th the cost
• Uses Evergreen, an open source integrated library system (ILS), thereby saving more than $300,000 a year in costs among the 19 libraries