This year is
already shaping up to be a busy year for everyone and in our first
issue of Spydus News for 2007 we have news of our latest customers,
product development updates and some new faces to introduce to you
as the Spydus team continues to grow.
Firstly, we are
delighted to announce two new customers in Singapore and New
Zealand, Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute Military
Institute (SAFTI MI) Library and Hutt City Libraries in New Zealand.
Both libraries will commence their implementations this quarter and
we look forward to keeping you up to date with their progress.
The new Spydus 8.4 release will include a great deal of new
sophisticated functionality and will be progressively rolled out in
a succession of 8.4.x releases. This month wecontinue our series
of 8.4 Features with an update on the many new enquiry,
cataloguing and bookings features in the release. We also announce
the new Electronic Cash Drawer that is now available for use with
the Spydus 8 Cash Management interface and don’t miss Hot Tip # 33
which is all about how to configure your Z39.50 target sites for
staff and OPAC users.
Frankston Library in Victoria’s use of Multimedia Online
Tutorials has earned them a nomination for the Spydus Customer
Service Innovation Award this month and don’t forget the first
quarterly prize will be awarded in March, so if you haven’t voted
for your favourite nominee yet…now’s the time to send that email!
Our site of the month for February is Blacktown City
Libraries in New South Wales, which is currently the eighth fastest
growing city in Australia and their high-tech, New Central Library
facility is playing a significant role in helping them to
successfully cater for a rapidly growing community.
Ideas for articles or Hot Tips for the Spydus Newsletter are always
welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Account
Manager.
Civica wins contract with
SAFTI MI Library - another
significant Managed Service
contract in Singapore
Civica has won
another significant managed services contract in Singapore valued at
S$4.2million providing a complete Spydus Managed Service to the
Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute Military Institute (SAFTI
MI) Library.
The SAFTI MI Library is a significant institution within the
SAFTI organisation and was previously completely outsourced to the
National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore. The Spydus Managed
Service will incorporate the complete range of library services
including: full Library Management and staffing; provision of the
Spydus Library Automation Solution; Collection Development; Hardware
Hosting and provision and maintenance of an RFID solution.
This win further cements Civica’s market-leading position
within the Singapore library market and we are well positioned to
work with other libraries within the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF)
organisation to provide a consortia solution.
The SAFTI implementation will commence in February 2007 with
the first phase due to go live in April 2007 and we look forward to
bringing you further reports as the implementation progresses.
Hutt
City Libraries in the Wellington region, on the North Island of
New Zealand has
chosen to implement Civica’s
Spydus Library Management Solution.
Hutt is one of the ten largest public libraries in New
Zealand serving a population of 100,000 people through an eight
branch network, with annual circulation in excess of 1.7 million
items. Following an extensive tender and evaluation process Hutt
Library staff unanimously agreed to replace their aging GEAC library
system with the Spydus solution, which is now implemented at more
than 40 public, tertiary and special libraries throughout New
Zealand.
“2007 is going
to be a year of big change for Hutt City Libraries and it was
vitally important for us to choose a new LMS that suited our
business and customers culturally and recognised our strategic
priorities and values. Civica has a proven track record with public
libraries of similar size and has demonstrated good return on
investment for existing customers. Their Australasian focus and
promised flexibility when it comes to implementation and training
convinced us that this would be the best solution to fit with our
developing business model,” said Sandra Mann, Manager, Hutt
City Libraries.
Kate Amos, CIO,
Hutt City Council commented that Council is committed to working
with quality providers who have a proven track record of successful
and trouble free implementations with strong ongoing support.
“Civica
demonstrated a real grasp of our systems and processes and reflected
these in their communications with us. We are looking forward to
working with a vendor that listens to customers and responds to our
actual requirements,” said Kate.
As announced in the November issue of Spydus News, Civica has
launched a brand
new Award Program for our library customers, the "Spydus Customer
Service Innovation Award" and this month we are
delighted to include this nomination from the staff at Frankston
Library in Victoria.
Frankston Library are using
Camtasia™ as a means to capture both visual and audio
data from a computer, where they can produce a full professional
multimedia movie presentation that can be replayed at any time by
staff and library patrons via their Spydus enquiry interfaces.The movie tutorials are created in the same time it takes
to show the steps on a computer screen by the operator, nothing is
missed, every detail is captured and the tutorials created show
precisely how the task should be accomplished and performed.
According to Brian Searles, IT Officer at Frankston the Library has
implemented this outstanding service in response to the following
workplace and service benefits :
Tutorials can be stored on public computers for customer use,
freeing staff from commonly asked questions such as how to send
an email with an attachment.
Video clips
can be set to run constantly such as those used in kiosk
displays or on screens next to facilities displaying how to use
or introducing new services.
Staff
training is standardised, there is no need for note taking.
Staff can focus
directly on the task at hand. Each staff member can be provided
with a range of modules instead of manuals. This ensures
higher retention rates because staff can replay the module
whenever needed, reducing training costs and staff time.
Tutorials
could be placed on the SPUN knowledge site
covering new fixes, updates and changes within programs. This
would enable exchange of commonly performed tasks within the
libraries, for example creating Crystal reports.
If you would
like to make a nomination for the Spydus Customer Service Innovation
Award all you need to do is contact your Account Manager and they
will be happy to work with you to build a profile.
The new Spydus 8.4 release will include a great deal of new
sophisticated functionality and will be progressively rolled out in
a succession of 8.4.x releases. Some of the main highlights will
include the following enhanced functionality :
Enquiry:
Ability for the library patron to provide online
written reviews, comments and rating on any given title.
New Arabic OPAC
Unified query
Display circulation notices
Ability to translate any enquiry result to all
other related information via a set translation
Cataloguing:
MARC Loading
fully integrated within cataloguing module
Generic item
loader able to create item records from data in any MARC tag
Additional
fields to be added to the item record, for example Rooms
Ability to add subfield data across the screen or down
the screen
Bookings:
·Charges to show
date they were applied
·Ability to set
re-occurring bookings
·Extended PC lockdown facility
General:
·User privilege
levels to be progressively extended across all modules
·ISO10160/61 ILL
compliant
·Libraries Australia
interface
·LibraryLink
Victoria integration
·Database clustering
for larger implementations to aid with performance
·All modules support
the complete unicode character set
Please contact your Account Manager to obtain a formal quotation for
an 8.4 implementation.
Blacktown City Council is located in the very heart of Greater
Sydney, lying half way between the Sydney CBD and the Blue
Mountains. Over the last several decades, Blacktown's growth has
been sustained and rapid, contributing to its present status as the
most populous City in New South Wales, the third largest in
Australia behind Brisbane City and the Gold Coast and the eighth
fastest growing City in Australia.
Large scale urban development has contributed to Blacktown's
continued population growth and to the development of new estate
areas, which has lead to the establishment of forty-five (45) new
suburbs to date.
To
assist with this rapid growth, Blacktown City Council recently
opened a high-tech New Central Library. Just over 5000 square metres
in size, the new two-storey library facility offers all lending
services on the ground floor including reference, local studies,
family history and a technology centre.
On the
first floor, along with library administration and workrooms is a
substantial multi-function space that will allow the library to
deliver a program of lectures, seminars and social/cultural events.
The
library also provides two floors of underground parking for library
patrons and extensive use of new technology to allow patron
independence in use and to redirect staff to provide better customer
service. The technology centre will provide access for library
patrons to internet facilities, word processing and other
educational software packages. The centre will also allow the
library to provide basic internet training and email training to
patrons on a much larger scale.
This month
Blacktown City Libraries celebrated their 2nd anniversary
since going live on Spydus and Civica and Blacktown City Libraries
have been working in a close partnership over this period to ensure
that Spydus is a total solution for the Council.
Blacktown has
now implemented the full suite of Spydus modules, installed the
Spydus RFID solution with a 7 bin sorting machine and most recently
went live with the fully audited Cash Management module. What can
we say, they have been very busy!
The next project
for Blacktown is to go live with the Local History Photo collection
on Spydus and the library staff are looking forward to launching the
collection in August 2007.
Spydus 8 New Feature – Spydus Electronic Cash Drawer
Spydus
now provides libraries with the option of purchasing an electronic
cash drawer, which can be used in conjunction with the Spydus 8 Cash
Management Interface. The electronic cash drawer is a Posiflex low
profile cash drawer, which can be connected to your circulation
terminal or slip printer via USB connection.
The
drawer can be triggered either via the circulation payment facility
or via payments receipting. The electronic cash drawer installation
will include the drawer, internal cash tray and under counter
mounting bracket. The drawer also comes with a 12 month warranty.
For further information and pricing for the Cash Management
Interface and Electronic Cash Drawer please contact your Account
Manager.
Congratulations this month to Wattle Range Library Service in South
Australia on their recent Spydus 8 go live. Wattle Range officially
commenced using Spydus 8 in mid January.
The Spydus Z39.50 Web Gateway provides an easy-to-use
interface for searching other library catalogues. This facility can
either be enabled in the Spydus OPAC for patron searching or enabled
for the library staff to search and download records dynamically to
their Spydus database. There is no limit to the number of target
site’s you can maintain.
To amend or delete
details of an existing target library:
Click Operations (Staff Enquiry),
point to Z39.50 Configuration
Click Staff - Remote Servers
if you’re setting up details of a library that staffmembers can search or
Click OPAC - Remote Servers
if you’re setting up details of a library that OPAC Users can
search
Click the link
to the particular library you’re interested in. You can then
amend the details. To delete the library, scroll to the bottom
of the screen and click Delete.
To add details of a new target library :
Click Operations (Staff Enquiry),
point to Z39.50 Configuration
Click Staff - Remote Servers
if you’re setting up details of a library that staffmembers can search or
Click OPAC - Remote Servers
if you’re setting up details of a library that OPAC users can search
Scroll to the
bottom of the list and click the Add new site
hyperlink. You can now input the required details to enable
connectivity. The main components required are :
-The library’s NUC
code. If the library doesn’t have an NUC code then you can assign
one yourself.
We
have now added another Spydus 8 Fact Sheet to the Civica web page,
which provides an overview of the Spydus Collection Management
Unit. To access the latest Fact Sheets please go to
http://www.civica.com.au/ and select:
Spydus > Customer Services > Support Services > Factsheets > enter
the password
SA Advanced Reports Workshop – May 2007
We
can confirm that the next Spydus 8 Advanced Reports Workshop is to
be conducted in SA on 15 & 16 May. There are still a number of
places available in this session, if you are interested in
attending, please contact
Holley Dumble to confirm your attendance.
Hurstville
Public Library in NSW went live on Spydus recently and to celebrate
Hurstville Public Library held a well attended official launch of
Spydus on the 9th February 2007. The library held an
afternoon tea in the main library and the speakers in attendance
were Hurstville Mayor, Councillor Vince Badalati and State Librarian
and Chief Executive of the State Library of New South Wales, Regina
Sutton. Also officially present was Councillor Beverley Giegerl.
Library Manager
Jennifer Burrell welcomed everyone to the launch and Mayor Vince
Badalati gave a wonderfully insightful speech about the benefits
that the Hurstville Public Library acquired as a result of
implementing Spydus. He spoke of the many customer focused and
enriched features that are now available to the Hurstville
community. Ms Sutton also gave a speech on the social, cultural and
economic value of libraries to the community.
While Hurstville
Library was on Offline during their conversion process, they decided
to waive fines and provide their patrons with an amnesty on late
items and during this time 1700 items were returned. At the launch
a lucky prize was drawn from the patrons that participated in the
Amnesty and was won by a young 10 year old girl, who hopefully will
return her books on time from now on.
We
welcome James Foster to the Spydus Implementation Team. James is an
application specialist, with significant library experience and he
also holds a Diploma of Library and Information Science. His
particular strengths are in providing 2nd and 3rd level application
support, completing software upgrades, training and document
writing. James has worked in a variety of libraries in Australia as
well as abroad before joining Sirsi/Dynix in a support role, a
position he held for the last 3 years. In his spare time, James
enjoys eating, drinking, sleeping, undertaking home improvements and
gardening.
Bill Allwell
Bill
Allwell has joined Civica as a Developer/Programmer having completed
a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Victoria
University. Bill was previously employed with the Victorian
Government for 10 years where he worked in various IT related
analytical roles.
Shirley
Adams
Shirley joined Civica at the end of 2006 as a Library Consultant,
providing training and support to Spydus UK customers. Shirley has
previously worked for some of the world's leading library automation
companies, and is experienced in sales and product management as
well as training. Her hobbies include classical music, board games,
reading and … dragons!
Upcoming Events
SPUN User Group
Dates 2007
The following dates
have now been confirmed for the South Australian SPUN Meetings :
·February 26th – 4pm
@ State Library SA
·May 14th – venue
and time TBA
·August 7th - PLSA
Conference
·November 12th -
venue and time TBA
Industry Events
The
Information Online 2007 conference
and exhibition
was held
at Darling Harbour in Sydney from 30th January to 1st February 2007
and was very
successful
with more than 900 delegates in attendance.
The
Civica trade stand was kept very busy over the three days with many
delegates visiting the stand and entering the lottery to win a $250
Red Balloon Day Gift Voucher. Congratulations to all of our lucky
winners!
We
would also like to thank our customers who joined us for the Spydus
Customer dinner on Tuesday evening at The Malaya restaurant on the
picturesque King St Wharf overlooking Sydney’s Darling Harbour. Good
food, good wine and great company made for an excellent evening!
The library industry worldwide is moving and changing at a
rapid pace and this month we have news from around the globe of new
Spydus implementations, new Spydus customers, new products and new
people joining the ever-growing Spydus team. We are very pleased to
announce that Portsmouth City Council in the United Kingdom has
decided to implement Spydus as part of a complete modernisation of
its services becoming the third UK customer in the past six months
to choose Spydus. Our team in the UK continues to grow and we look
forward to bringing you a special profile on the UK team next month.
We are delighted to announce the first winner of the Spydus
Customer Service Innovation Award….read on to see which library will
be enjoying this great prize! Our Site of the Month for March is
Darebin Library Service in Melbourne and they share some creative
ideas for improving customer services and building community spirit.
We also bring you the latest product information on the
Extended Bookings Interface and a Hot Tip which this month is all
about how to set-up SMS Account Testing and Notices.
Ideas
for articles or Hot Tips for the Spydus Newsletter are always
welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Account
Manager.
Spydus wins third British library deal as Portsmouth opts to
transform services and open door to information portal
Civica
acquired its third major British customer within six months when
Portsmouth City Council’s Library Service signed up for it in March.
The library plans to set up web-based lending for its 380,000 books
and audio-visual items as part of a complete modernisation of its
services beginning this year.
In the longer term, Portsmouth envisages an integrated
information gateway to all its museums and archive collections and
online information. The department meets the needs of nearly 190,000
people, handling over 1.1 million customer visits each year.
The city aims to modernise its web-based lending platform
with 24/7 service availability and seeks to streamline
administration and give branches greater service flexibility.
Portsmouth City Council selected Civica because of the
company’s successful library management programs in the Asia Pacific
region and Australia. The department’s decision was also influenced
by Civica’s supply of software systems to a number of the council’s
departments in recent years.
Eleanor Scott, Executive Member for Culture & Leisure at
Portsmouth City Council, said: “Civica’s Spydus management system
and project consultancy are central to helping us deliver a step
change in Portsmouth’s library services.”
Recently Civica signed a five-year agreement with Hampshire
County Council Library and Information Services, which serves over
one million people and 300,000 regular borrowers. Its 54 branch
‘discovery centres’ and 19 mobile units are among the most advanced
and innovative sites in Britain. This follows a £1.5 million ($A3.71
million), five-year deal with South East Library Management Services
(SELMS), a consortium of six British public library authorities.
…and first UK library commences Spydus
training
The
first Spydus training sessions in the UK took place last month at
Wokingham
libraries, a member of the South Eastern Library Management System (SELMS)
consortia. Wokingham are
due to go live in May with the rest of the consortia to be rolled
out over the remaining year. Pictured are the staff at Wokingham
Library with Civica’s Spydus consultant Sarah Cavanagh.
Winners – Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award
We are delighted to announce the very first winner
of the quarterly
Customer innovation segment is ‘Beaumaris Library Bayside’ for their
Book Shop arrangement for Non Fiction system. Bayside were nominated
in our
November 2006
newsletter.
Congratulations
to the staff at Bayside who will receive a Gold Red
Balloon Days Gift Voucher valued at $1000
to redeem for their Team-building event of choice. This might be a
gourmet cooking class, a yacht charter, sea-kayaking
expedition or a drumming class, the choice is yours…. we will
however want to see all your photos!
To briefly recap, in 2005 Bayside Library service stopped
using Dewey numbers in the traditional sense to determine shelf
order in its newly re-developed Beaumaris branch. The result was six
new non-fiction collections which combine Dewey sequences within
subject areas that are meaningful to a contemporary Australian
audience.
The new collections are: Art and Craft;
Computers and Business; Countries; Health; House and Garden;
Leisure. These areas were chosen because they are popular with
adults and because Dewey separates similar subjects. The new
collections were not given any prefixes as it was felt that the
Dewey numbers function as a code to subject areas and therefore
other coded information should be avoided. The books are labelled
with coloured stickers with the name of the collection in large
white letters.
The results of
this new innovation saw items held in the new collections marching
off the shelves. Beaumaris is the 3rd smallest library in Bayside
but it has the hardest working collection and the majority of loans
have come from items held in the new collections.
If
your library service has an innovative service that you consider
falls under the ‘Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award’ category
please don’t be shy, let us know. We are very happy to work with you
to write your profile/customer innovation so that you can be in the
running to win a great prize. Please email
mhunter@civica.com.au
and Matthew will assist you in creating your profile.
Darebin
Libraries is approximately 11 kilometers north of Melbourne’s CBD
and has four branches in Fairfield, Northcote, Preston & Reservoir.
Darebin has been a Spydus customer for many years and was the first
Victorian library to implement and fully embrace Spydus 8.
Darebin Libraries was formed from the libraries of the former cities
of Northcote and Preston and has 76,000 members and in 2005/06
conducted 1.38 million loans and hosted 700,000 visits and 500,000
virtual visits through their website.
Darebin Libraries is noted for its high levels of customer service
and innovation and is committed to creating a safe and welcoming
space for its diverse demographic of customers to relax, read and
borrow from its extensive collections. To support this Darebin
Libraries has in recent years undertaken a refurbishment program at
all of its libraries as it firmly believes that its customers are
entitled to clean, contemporary facilities to use and enjoy.
Darebin Libraries events and activities program has been a huge hit
with customers who have enjoyed events ranging from; bikkies & book
days, an organic gardening presentation, author talks, flower
arranging, craft workshops, African music event, and much more. For
more information on Darebin Libraries events visit the library
website
http://www.darebinlibraries.vic.gov.au/
where you can download the latest events calendar.
Building on its commitment to the community Darebin Libraries also
offer three dedicated art spaces where members of the community can
display their wares for a small service charge. This opportunity is
open to all suitable artists or community groups and forms a unique
collaborative partnership.
Not
to be left behind in terms of technology, Darebin libraries now
offers free wireless Internet access at its Northcote, Reservoir and
Preston branches with a roll out to the Fairfield library in the
near future. This initiative allows library customers to use their
own laptop and browse the web from the comfort of an arm chair, desk
or bean bag when within the library building.
Building on its strong links with the past Darebin Libraries has
created its own Historical Encyclopedia website
http://dhe.darebin-libraries.vic.gov.au/
to digitally store scanned images and oral transcripts of the past,
including a data base of World War I Northcote soldier records and
provide access to digital copies of the Northcote Leader newspaper
from 1888 – 1908. The encyclopedia is very easy to use with a search
facility and links to other relevant databases like; Picture
Australia, Northcote Cable Tram and Darebin Ethnic Communities. The
Encyclopedia will continue to develop and grow as more records are
converted over to this digital format.
Spydus 8 New Feature – Extended Bookings Interface
The
Spydus 8 Extended Bookings Interface has been designed to provide
libraries with greater control in managing their public PC and
internet bookings that have been administered via the Spydus
Materials Booking module. This solution has been developed in
response to customer demand for implementing 3rd party
public PC management software, Spydus now provides it’s own
integrated solution.
Activating your booking session
Once you’ve catalogued your PC, specified the PC Lockout
configuration settings and set up the PC Lockout table parameters,
PC Lockout is operational.
To login, the users
enter their library card number and Personal Identification Number
(PIN) to commence their session
Once the user has logged in, they’ll see a Session Time dialog
box showing when the session started and the time remaining in their
session.
TheLock PC
feature allows library customers to suspend their session for a few
minutes, while they go to retrieve a reference book or seek staff
assistance at a customer service desk and then return to continue
their session.
You can click Log Off
when you’ve finished your session.
Click Close or to
reduce the
Session Time dialog to a taskbar button. If you rest the mouse over
the taskbar button you’ll see the time remaining in the session.
Double-click the taskbar button to display the Session Time dialog.
Warning period
Customers will be
sent a warning reminding them that their session time will expire in
X minutes and that they should save any work or data. The
notification screen time can be set accordingly to library
guidelines. In this example, the ‘Warning period’ is set to 300 then
a message will be displayed when there is 5 minutes (i.e. 300
seconds) remaining in the session.
Our
belated congratulations go to staff at Wanneroo Library Service in Western Australia this
month for their successful Spydus 8 implementation during the month
of December 2006.
Congratulations also to DSO (Defence Science Organisation),
Singapore on their successful Spydus 8 go live on 21 March. We have
libraries in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Singapore and the US
scheduled to complete their implementations in coming months and we
look forward to bringing you more news of those libraries as they go
live.
The
first step in the process of setup and testing of the Spydus SMS
notice facility is to investigate a telecommunications provider.
Spydus is able to accommodate any provider that you initiate a
business SMS account with. For example, we currently have customers
using SMS functionality with both Telstra and Optus.
You
can register a trial user account for testing purposes @
http://onlinesms.telstra.com/ : You will need to select the
Trial User Account button. Telstra charges around 20 - 25 cents per
SMS.
Once you register for an SMS business account, you will receive a
username, which is generally in the form of an email address. It is
this email address which is specified in your circulation notice
parameters and will be used to dispatch a return email that
specifies all SMS failures.
Step 2 - SMS Notice Template and Policy Commissioning
Once you have registered your account, you will need to have the
notices types to be dispatched by SMS mode commissioned by Spydus
Staff. Site’s will need to specify the text for each SMS notice
type. The notice text can be up to 160 characters. We will also
need to setup your circulation notice parameters with your SMS user
account details, return address and SMS cc address. In addition to
commissioning the notice types, you may also need to create notice
policies for your patrons that specify the SMS notice
characteristics e.g. who receives the notice, when the notice is
sent.
Step 3 - Borrower Mobile Telephone Details
In
order for SMS to be active on your system, all patrons will need to
have a mobile telephone number in their borrower record and the
notice delivery method set to SMS. Keep in mind that only notices
that have been hardcoded in table params (commissioned by Spydus
Staff) will be valid for dispatch via SMS, any other notices that
have not been configured will not be sent by this mode.
Step 4 - SMS Notice Transmission
Your notice transmission scheduled task will need to be updated to
include SMS notice dispatch. This will need to be configured to
transmit at a reasonable time that will not inconvenience the user
e.g. 8am daily. Once the transmission has occurred all SMS notices
identified for dispatch are sent to your provider in the form of an
email and then they will convert and send out via SMS. Any notices
which are rejected are then bundled and sent back to your nominated
email address for resolution by library staff.
For
more information on costs associated with implementing SMS Notice
Interface, please contact your Account Manager.
Future
Training – New Cataloguing Client
We
are now looking for expressions of interest for customers interested
in undertaking training in Spydus 8 New Cataloguing client. This
will be available for all customers currently operating server
release 8.2.5. Please contact your Account Manager for further
information or to discuss your training needs.
Did you know !!
The following client release is now available for download from the
Civica ftp site :
·Client Release
8.2.15b
In order to
download the client software from the Spydus FTP server, you will
need to input
ftp.spydus.com into your web browser.
Spydus and Windows Vista Operating System
Please note that Civica has not yet certified either the
Spydus clients or server software to run on the Windows Vista
Operating system. Our development team will fully assess the
ramifications of Vista on the Spydus applications and we will be
able to advise you of the outcomes in future newsletters.
If any customers have concerns or questions regarding Spydus
and Vista please contact your Account Manager.
Joining
the Spydus Training & Consulting Team is
Eleanor Hambleton. Eleanor is a qualified
librarian with a background in research, training, and intranet
development. Prior to joining Civica, Eleanor was employed at the
Victorian Parliamentary Library to provide research and training for
Members of Parliament. Before joining the library/information
industry, Eleanor dabbled in project management and cultural
heritage preservation. When not working, Eleanor enjoys watching
live bands, travelling, reading and catching up with friends.
Michael
Johnstonehas joined the
Spydus development team as an Analyst/ProgrammerMichael Johnstone. Michael originally worked as an
Electronics technician for 6 years then decided to move into
programming where he has been developing software for a little over
3½ years. His hobbies and interests include V8 super cars, guitar
playing and 3D graphics programming.
Joining
the Spydus implementation team is Jayson Emery.
Jason previously worked for Eastern Regional Libraries for 15 years,
with the last 8 years of these in IT Support. During this time he
had a finger in a few pies inlcuding web design, training, technical
support, and hardware/network/software troubleshooting and
installation. On a more personal note, he enjoys playing bass
guitar, dabbles in a little directing, and converts Super 8 films to
DVD in his spare time.
Craig Stevenson has joined the
Spydus team in the role of Business Development Manager for the
Western Australia, Northern Territory and New Zealand regions.
Craig has an
extensive sales background with experience across a range of
industries to both small and large organisations. Until recently
Craig was travelling extensively throughout Asia and he enjoys all
sports.
Michiel Ruighaver (pronounced Michael) has also joined the Spydus team
in the role of Business Development Manager and will be focussed on
the Queensland, New South Wales and ACT regions in Australia. Michiel previously worked for an
EDI solution provider delivering EDI messaging, integration,
scanpacking and cataloguing solutions to suppliers and retailers.
Michiel has a strong understanding of system integration and enjoys
playing guitar and indoor soccer.
Also joining the
sales team in our Melbourne office is Matthew Hunter
in a Sales support role. Matthew has worked at
Darebin Libraries since 1995, firstly doing homebound services and
in the last 6 years he has worked in numerous roles within the
Library marketing team. Matthew’s interests include swimming,
cycling, looking after his black Labrador dog ‘Sambo’ and renovating
having spent the last two years renovating a 50’s house with his
partner.
John Harris
has joined the Spydus Singapore team in the role of Director of
Operations. John has worked with Civica for more than eight years
and was previously Operations Director for Civica’s Australian Local
Government business based in the Newcastle office. John is very
excited to be re-locating to Singapore and taking on new challenges
as he assists Marc Nolan in managing the rapidly expanding Spydus
South-East Asia operations.
Upcoming Events
·
LIS Birmingham, UK 18-19 April
·
ALIA SA Library Week Trivia Night, 25 May
·
NSW CPLA, Merimbula 17-20 July
·
PLA, SA Adelaide 5-7 August
·
LIANZA Rotorua 9-12 September
Safe
and Happy Holidays
Last but not least…..we wish all of our customers a safe and
enjoyable Easter and ANZAC Remembrance Day holiday during April.
This month we are delighted to bring you details of another
nomination for the Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award, this
time from Darebin Libraries in Melbourne, Victoria. Darebin are
using wireless technology to deliver a new level of service to their
patrons. Our Site of the Month for April is Toowoomba Library in
Queensland, a progressive library now providing its community with a
‘new spin’ on the idea of a monthly ‘Book Club’ for readers.
If you are interested in providing enriched content for CD’s
and DVD’s don’t miss the article on Syndetics Solutions latest
enhancements and our Hot Tip this month is all about how to
automatically schedule your Spdyus 8 reports.
Ideas
for articles or Hot Tips for the Spydus Newsletter are always
welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Civica
Business Development Manager.
:April Nomination: Darebin Libraries- Wireless Internet Access
Darebin libraries is paving the way to make life simpler and easier
for its library customers and residents to access the Internet in
the Northern suburbs of Melbourne. It now offers free wireless
Internet access at its Northcote, Reservoir and Preston branches
with a roll out to the Fairfield library in May. This initiative
allows library customers to use their own laptop and browse the web
from the comfort of an arm chair, desk or bean bag within the
library building.
This initiative has enabled Darebin Libraries to increase Internet
resources without significant investment in hardware, software and
with little or no ongoing maintenance costs. It has also relieved
the pressure on staff to focus on service delivery and customer
interaction while still allowing customers who do not have a laptop
or PC at home to continue to book and access the Internet work
stations available at all libraries.
Library Manager, Katrina Knox said ‘Wireless has broadened the range
of users that can access free Internet, without the issues that
surround static terminals. It addresses the needs of a specific
user group not previously served by our Internet facilities and
structure whilst also acknowledging
that although PC ownership is increasing within the Darebin
community, not all residents can afford the cost of ongoing Internet
access.’
Since its introduction there has been an increased presence of the
generation Y customers using the library to log on to research,
surf, or work collectively on projects in a comfortable and
welcoming environment.
For
this project to be successful, Cisco wireless access points were
integrated into the existing network. Using virtual networks and
user authentication technology ensures security and isolation.
It
was also acknowledged that there was need to also register wireless
usage for reporting purposes. This has been achieved with all
customers wishing to access the wireless connection required to
obtain a username and password that changes weekly from the Customer
service desk. A trouble shooting guide for wireless users is also
provided to get them started.
Tom
Gray, Information Technology Manager for Darebin Libraries said “The
response from customers and staff has been very positive, with the
usage of the service growing from month to month. It is not
uncommon to see 5 or more customers accessing the internet
wirelessly from their laptops at Preston
Library. ”
Concerns
that the wireless connection could be accessed outside of the
library building were addressed
during the initial
set up and wireless
access is only available during the library opening hours.
We
hope that Beaumaris Library’s recent win for their ‘Book Shop
Arrangement’ last month has encouraged you all to send in your
customer innovation ideas or entries. The prizes on offer are
fantastic and we are looking forward to hearing what Karyn and her
team will be doing when they participate in their $1000 Gold Red
Balloon team building day in the near future.
If
your library service believes it has an innovative service that
falls under the ‘Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award’ category
please don’t be shy. Matthew working in sales support in our
Melbourne office will be very happy to work with you to write your
profile/customer innovation. To be in the running to win more of
these great prizes please email him at
mhunter@civica.com.au
as he’s very keen to assist you and spread your ideas to other
Spydus customers out there in library land.
The
City of Toowoomba, in Queensland, is well known for its exciting
history as well as its parks, gardens and scenic views. This
prosperous University City is set 700 metres above sea level, on the
edge of the Great Dividing Range. It is strategically located at
the junction of major highways from Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and
Darwin and is just 90 minutes drive from the state's capital,
Brisbane. There is so much to see and do in this thriving city of
more than 90,000 people, which is supported by a progressive library
service.
our TOOWOOMBA towards 2050
a vision for the future - a plan to
guide us
Toowoomba’s lending library was born from the School of Arts
Library which was constructed in 1876 on land donated by Arthur
Hodgson, a local pastoralist and M.L.A. A second, more substantial
building was constructed in 1877 but this was destroyed by fire in
1898. The library was then housed in the Town Hall, which was built
on the School of Arts site two years later in a large room at the
rear of the building.
By the 1930s, the School of Arts found it increasingly difficult to
maintain the Library and it was eventually taken over by the
Toowoomba City Council in 1950.
The Library remained at the Town Hall until 1951 when it was
relocated to premises on the corner of Russell and Victoria
Streets. Stock numbered 6,000 volumes, the bulk of which was
fiction. A library branch for children was opened in June 1956 in a
church hall at Harristown and was followed by another one in Newtown
Park in June 1958.
Today Toowoomba
City Library is
open 7 days a week and has been a Spydus customer for the
last 4½ years, recently upgrading to Spydus 8 and has over 200,000
items in its collection ranging from books, magazines to DVDs and
CD-Roms.
Toowoomba’s
Local History collection houses many valuable and treasured
resources ranging from Local newspapers dating back over 150 years
to a Picture collection with over 3500 images contained within which
are in the process of being digitized and stored on the Spydus
Pictures catalogue module.
Not to be stuck in the past, Toowoomba Library has a recently
created ‘Book Lovers Group’ that meets on the third Tuesday of each
month at 6pm to discuss not specifically any one publication, but to
actually discuss the different books that its library members choose
to read. The idea is more borne out of a love for literature and
the discussion of such material rather than comparisons of the same
publication. If you are ever in the area and have recently read
something worth discussing – drop on in! We would love to see you!
Syndetic Solutions is the leading supplier of descriptive
content designed exclusively for library catalogues. Syndetics'
services enable libraries to link to cover images and a variety of
data elements relating to more than 1,800,000 books published since
1985.
Syndetic Solutions has recently added a large quantity of
content for music and videos to its catalogue enhancement services
and will allow viewing of CD and DVD cover images and a summary
page.
How does it work ?
Spydus dynamically places the enriched content in the brief
and full record displays. This is achieved by executing a URL
containing UPC codes and OCLC numbers for AV or ISBNs for books, to
the Syndetic solutions server that contains the source information.
This interface will
be available in a future release and to purchase this additional
feature please speak to your Business Development Manager in your
region who
will be happy to provide further information.
Also congratulations to New Zealand Defence Headquarters
library in Wellington, New Zealand for their successful go live of
their special library. Visit New Zealand Defence Force website at
http://www.nzdf.mil.nz/default.htm
Welcome to Laidley Shire
Library Service located 85 kilometres west of
Brisbane in Queensland for their successful Spydus 8 implementation
and go live during April.
And congratulations and welcome to SAFTI (Singapore
Armed Forces Training Institute), in Singapore who
also went live at the end of March.
We have many libraries scheduled to complete their
implementations in coming months and we look forward to bringing you
news of these libraries as they go live.
Spydus now provides the facility for site’s to configure a
group of reports to run automatically at a nominated date and time,
as opposed to running reports manually from the Reports Interface.
This can be achieved via Windows Scheduled Tasks to run Spydus
reports in a batch configuration. The scheduler runs a batch file
created by the Reports module in which the batch file can call a
single report or, more typically, it can call a configuration file
which in turn calls several reports. This facility can accommodate
“canned” reports that you’ve created using the Reports module or for
reports created externally with Crystal Reports Developer.
Select the report that you wish to automate, right-click the new
report in the left pane of the Reports dialog.
ClickExport Batch Configuration
Specify the name of the output file and the configuration
type (either single or batch) If selecting batch configuration, then
you can continue to run through this process for each report you
need to add to this batch file.
Once we have
created our reports .bat config file, we can now setup a Microsoft
Windows scheduled task on the Spydus server and select the .bat
program to schedule. You can elect what time the task should be run
and how often it should run.
NB. This feature is available in the most current client
software release.
A
friendly reminder to help us help you, by following this checklist
before logging a Service Request (SR) or contacting the Help Desk.
Please ensure you have:
·
Checked all Spydus documentation first - training manuals and Spydus
online help?
·
Discussed your problem/issue with your library colleagues, who may
be able to resolve the issue with you?
·Have any changes
taken place on the systems or within your organisations ICT
infrastructure?
·
Have you tested the problem in-house?
·Can
it be reproduced more than once?
·
Most customers have a training system which can be used to carry out
their own testing. Many questions can be answered without the need
to consult the help desk or log an SR.
When Customers do need to log an SR, visit the Civica web page
http://www.civica.com.au/ and select Spydus> Customer Services>
Support Services> Service Request System. Then enter your user ID
and password and click ok.
·
Please ensure that all relevant detailed information is entered in
the service request, together with relevant examples and screen
shots
·Please provide an
explanation of the workflow that was taking place when the error
occurred
For further
information please refer to the Services Objectives document
available from your Business Development Manager.
Feeling a bit stuck or need answers to a system query that
you know you have read some information about in the past?
Remember to check out the Fact Sheets listing for Spydus 6 &
8 on the Civica website. Go to
http://www.civica.com.au/ Spydus>
Customer Services> Support Services>Fact Sheets. Then enter the
password to gain access and you can download or print the fact sheet
that is of interest. Some examples are: Creating canned searches in
Spydus 8 or Locking down OPAC PCs in Spydus 6.
Civica attended the
Local Government Librarians’ Association of Western Australia
Biennial Conference on the 2nd March. The theme of the
conference was ‘Shattering Stereotypes: changing the face and
perception of public libraries’. All sessions presented were very
customer service focused and provided discussion on the many issues
that impact the modern day public library such as Web 2.0, Blogs,
RSS, responding to the needs of the young people in the communities,
and much more.
Civica proudly
sponsored the session on ‘Local history connecting communities’.
Civica was very interested in supporting this particular session as
it focused on cataloguing local history collections. Civica is
proud that so many of our customers catalogue their local history
collections on to Spydus with attached images, this feature allows
these very interesting historical collections to be made accessible
to wider audience, and minimise the issues of preservation through
providing electronic access to the images.
A
big welcome to Elysia who has joined the Spydus Product Management
Team in Melbourne where her role will be in QA Testing. Elysia
recently worked for Swets (a subscription agent) initially in
Account Management, before moving onto their Helpdesk and then into
Business Development. In her spare time, Elysia enjoys watching
movies, craftwork, cooking and playing the piano.
Helen Hamilton
Helen
Hamilton has recently joined the UK team as a Trainer/Consultant and
has worked for system suppliers in the UK
library market for 13 years, both as a programmer and application
sales and support. Helen has a love of travel and is a keen amateur
photographer. In her more reckless past Helen has enjoyed skydiving,
gliding and abseiling, but now prefers to keep her feet more firmly
on the ground skiing, or underwater snorkeling! Helen is looking
forward to spreading the word of Spydus to the UK
market!
Delwyn Thomas
Delwyn
Thomas has recently joined the team as Library Support Consultant.
Delwyn previously works as a library analyst for Infor (formerly
Geac) for seven years. Delwyn's interests include working out,
reading African history, spending time with his wife and trying to
keep his two cats (Kailundo & Kebibi) under control!
This month we are delighted to
announce our very first Spydus customers in Scotland with Inverclyde
Council and Argyll and Bute Council choosing Civica as preferred
supplier for their new library management systems. Wokingham Borough
Council was our first UK Spydus site to go-live this month and as
momentum in the UK continues to build we also have news on the
recent LIS conference in Birmingham, which was attended by no less
than 1700 delegates.
Our Innovation Award nomination this
month comes from Queensland where Caboolture Library Service is
running the Caboolture Library Express for their local commuters. A
great customer service innovation that must be relevant to many
libraries in both city and regional areas. The May Site of the
Month is the New Zealand Defence Force Library, a very interesting
special library based in Wellington providing library services to
the armed forces personnel in New Zealand.
Our product information this month
has a strong customer service theme with our Hot Tip focussing on
how to send Welcome Emails to your new members and the Spydus 8
feature looks at providing patrons with the opportunity to Rate and
Review library items via the OPAC. Dates and locations for the 2007
SPUN Conference are announced in this issue so make sure you get
those dates into your schedule!
Ideas for articles or Hot Tips
for the Spydus Newsletter are always welcome. Please send any
suggestions or ideas to your Civica Business Development Manager.
Civica wins first Scottish
Library Customers
Following on the heels of recent
successes in the UK library market, we are delighted to announce
that Civica has been appointed preferred supplier of new automated
library management systems for Inverclyde Council and Argyll & Bute
Council in Scotland, our very first Scottish sites.
Inverclyde Council stretches along
the south bank of the magnificent estuary of the River Clyde and the
main towns of Greenock, Port Glasgow and Gourock sit along this
coastal strip. Shipbuilding, manufacturing and trading brought
prosperity to Inverclyde in the 19th and 20th centuries and many of
the historical attractions in Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow -
the museums and galleries, stately homes and castles - celebrate
Inverclyde's influential maritime history and industrial past.
Argyle & Bute Council covers the
second largest geographical area of any Scottish local authority,
stretching for over 100 miles from Appin in the north to Campbeltown
in the south and more than 80 miles across from the island of Tiree
in the west to Helensburgh in the east. It has six towns, 26
inhabited islands and over 2,700 miles of coastline.
You can visit the Argyll & Bute website
at http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/ for more information on Council
and its magnificent scenery and landscapes.
Civica’s Spydus library system will
help to transform local lending services, including more resources
for front desk customer service and greater operational efficiency,
which can also be integrated with consortium models envisaged in the
Scottish Library Information Council’s vision. The agreements also
allow for the authorities’ library services to be integrated with
the Scottish Citizens’ Account Smartcard, sponsored by the Scottish
Executive.
We look forward to bringing you more
details on our Scottish customers as their implementations progress.
Spydus Customer Service
Innovation Award
: April Nomination:
Caboolture Shire Libraries, Queensland
Everyone in libraries has heard of
the magical platform 9¾ in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of
books; well, a similar sort
of magic has arrived at the Caboolture Railway Station, in the form
of Library Express! Library Express is a ‘library rail stop’
operating at the Caboolture Railway Station in Queensland every
Tuesday morning from 5.30 am to 8.30 am allowing library customers
the opportunity to borrow and return books whilst commuting to and
from work.
A wonderful selection of paperbacks
covering a wide range of genres including fantasy, sagas, romance
and suspense, is available every Tuesday. New customers are
encouraged to join and can do so by providing photographic
identification and speaking to the Library assistant any Tuesday
morning at the station. The Library Express now has an online
connection to the Spydus library catalogue via a Citrix server,
which allows searches to be conducted and member details to be
updated in real time. There is even a slip printer set up so that
borrowers can receive a printed list of their current loans.
So the next time you are in the
Caboolture region catching the train check out Caboolture Shires
Library Express.
For more information regarding
Caboolture Shire Library Express please email Ann Clarkson clarksona@caboolture.qld.gov.au
If your library service believes it
has an innovative service that falls under the ‘Spydus Customer
Service Innovation Award’ category please don’t be shy. Matthew
working in sales support in our Melbourne office will be very happy
to work with you to write your profile/customer innovation. To be in
the running to win more of these great prizes please email him at
mhunter@civica.com.au as he’s very keen to assist you and spread
your ideas to other Spydus customers out there in library land.
Site of the Month: New
Zealand Defence Headquarters, Wellington
New Zealand Defence Headquarters is
located in Wellington, home to New Zealand's centre of government
and the world's southernmost capital city. The New Zealand
Defence Force (NZDF) comprises regular forces, territorial force
Service men and women and civilian staff across the armed services
of Navy, Army and Air Force, operating as Three Services – One
Force.
To support the "One Force" personnel
in their working environment the NZDF has a Defence Library at
Headquarters in Wellington. The main collection is strong in
military history, strategic and defence studies and other defence
related subject areas include military equipment, international
relations, international law and peacekeeping. The basic book
collection is mirrored by the serials collection which includes New
Zealand Statutes and Regulations and a range of military and
international relations titles.
The NZDF also has at least one
library on every New Zealand base and camp, and has other specialist
libraries such as the Map Library and the Kippenberger Military
Archives and Research Library at the Army Museum.
The Kippenberger Research Library has
an extensive collection covering a wide range of military subjects,
with an emphasis on all major wars involving New Zealanders. The
Kippenberger Collection was collected by Major General Sir Howard
Kippenberger from the age of twelve and he continued his passion
until his death in 1957. Many of the books have been annotated in
the margins by Kippenberger as he read them and gives an insight
into his thinking on military warfare and strategy. The collection
was purchased from the estate in 1957 by the New Zealand Army and
gifted to the Army Museum.
A Spydus customer for 18 years the
NZDF recently upgraded to Spydus 8, which is being delivered across
their intranet to the desktop.
The New Zealand Defence Force has a
proud tradition extending from service in the South African War over
100 years ago to the present and Peace support operations have been
a major element of operations in recent years. Their mission
is "to secure New Zealand against external threat, to protect our
sovereign interests, including the Exclusive Economic Zone, and to
take action to meet likely contingencies in New Zealand’s area of
strategic interest’.
Currently New Zealand Defence Force
personnel are serving 19 missions around the world, from Afghanistan
and the Gulf of Oman in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, to
logistical support in Antarctica and peace keeping in Timor Leste.
Check out The New Zealand Defence
Force main website at
www.nzdf.mil.nz
Spydus 8 New Feature – OPAC
Ratings and Review Release 8.3.2
OPAC Ratings and Reviews is a new
feature within Spydus release 8.3.2 that will allow library
customers to become reviewers in their own right, subject to
approval control by library staff.
Library customers can submit a brief
review of a book they have read, give it a star rating and send it
for posting on the OPAC. The reviews and comments feature is
strictly controlled by library staff, who have the option to
approve, delete or decline reviews prior to publishing on the OPAC
and anonymous reviews will not be accepted.
Customers also have the opportunity
to view recently added reviews on the OPAC by selecting the Recently
Available drop down menu on the library catalogue page. Library
customers searching for items on the OPAC can now read reviews by
other readers before they decide if they wish to borrow or locate
the book to read for themselves. This new feature in Spydus will
allows libraries to offer their readers a modern, electronic voice
whilst also providing additional services to the community.
Spydus Upgrade Projects
Congratulations to the following
libraries on their successful Spydus 8 implementations during May.
Moreland City Library and Bayside
Libraries in Melbourne, Mitchell Library Service located in Northern
Victoria and Bathurst City Council Library in New South Wales.
Congratulations also to special
libraries JACS and ACT Law Courts in the Australian Capital
Territory (ACT) who have successfully migrated to a Managed Service,
becoming our first ACT Managed Services customers.
Civica’s first UK customer
goes live at Wokingham Libraries
We
are very excited to announce that Civica’s first Spydus
implementation in the UK was successfully launched at Wokingham
Borough Council last week. Indeed Wokingham was so enthusiastic
about using the system that one branch went live ahead of the
official launch day.
Wokingham is a member of the South
East Library Management System (SELMS) consortium, for which
automated library administration is critical to achieving improved
customer service. Library patrons and professionals across Southern
England will be able to experience the new service at a public
launch on May 31 at the Lower Earley library.
Wokingham is a local government
district in Berkshire in the
south east of England, close to Reading and Bracknell and takes its
name after its main town. Historically the name Wokingham comes from
"Wocca's People's Home". Wocca was a Saxon
whose followers farmed much of the land in this area, notably also
Wokefield. The courts of Windsor Forest were held at Wokingham
and the town has remained a small market town all its life from
1219. From the 14th to the 16th centuries, it was well known
for its bell foundry which supplied many churches across the south
of England. Brickworks were once active southwest of the town,
but engineering and software development coupled with the service
industry are the main local economic activities today.
Helen Hamilton from
Civica & Joanne Briggs, Branch Supervisor, Woodley Library
…and we welcome Mallala
Library Service in South Australia
Mallala Library Services in South
Australia also completed their successful Spydus 8 implementation
during May and their website can be visited at
http://www.mallala.sa.gov.au.
Hot Tip #36 – Sending ‘Welcome
emails’ to new library members
Sending a welcome e-mail to your new
library members is a great opportunity to remind them of the
wonderful services and features that your library service offers and
demonstrates the Spydus library management system in action. Welcome
e‑mails are currently only available for borrowers that have
registered through the Spydus Circulation client. They are not
available for borrowers who have joined online, or have been
registered when Circulation is operating offline. Welcome e-mails
parameters are set up in your Spydus Circulation on the Properties
tab (Parameters > System Parameters tab) and an e-mail will be sent
to the library customer when the OK button is clicked on the
Borrower Registration dialog screen at the conclusion of the
registration process.
In this example the “welcome” e-mails
we send will be cc’ed to jsmith@civica.com.au, and will include an
e-mail attachment. If your library service is using the ‘welcome
e-mail’ function at the conclusion of the customer registration
process, when the OK button is clicked a prompt will then ask
whether to add the customer to an e-mail distribution list.
For example:
If you click Yes then another
e-mail will be sent to the cc address for welcome e-mails
If you click No then Spydus will
not send an e-mail to the cc address for welcome e-mails.
You can also send a “welcome” e-mail
at any time by clicking the Send E‑mail button on the borrower
registration screen dialog. Welcome e-mails parameters These
parameters when applied allow libraries to send “welcome” e-mails to
new borrowers:
Send welcome e-mails specifies
whether or not to send welcome e‑mails to new borrowers.
Cc address for welcome e-mails.
Welcome e-mails you send to new borrowers will be cc’d to this
address.
Path to welcome e-mail
attachments specifies the path to a file attachment for welcome
e-mails.
If the file type is .txt then
the text from the file will be included in the body of the
e-mail rather than as an attachment. Any other file type, for
example .pdf, and the file will be sent as an attachment.
Welcome e-mail text example:
Hi and welcome to the
Barossa Council Public Library. Thankyou for joining our library,
you can visit any branch in our library service to borrow your
favourite books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, or maybe ask for or find
information, use the internet on the library computers or attend one
of our library programmes or special events - and so much more!
The library is also
part of the LINK Library Network, so you can use your card at
libraries in Light and Clare & Gilbert Valleys Council areas as
well. We look forward to meeting you and hope you enjoy your library
experience. If we can be of any assistance "just ask @ your
library"!
For further
information and opening times, visit our website at http://www.barossa.sa.gov.au
- where you will also find a link to our online catalogue.
Regards Manager -
Library Services
Barossa Council
Public Library 10 Murray St Nuriootpa SA 5355 Phone:
08 85621107 Mobile: Fax: 08 85623230
Example supplied courtesy of Barossa
Council Public Library in South Australia
Announcing SPUN Conference
2007
The 2007 SPUN conference will be held
in Canberra from Wednesday 31 October till Friday 02 November 2007
at Rydges Lakeside, Canberra.
The National SPUN Executive is
currently moving into conference planning mode and they are asking
SPUN members for their input into the conference program. Please
email or phone Enzo Accadia with any ideas you have for
presentations or discussion panels. If you know of another
Spydus customer doing interesting things that you think others would
like to find out more about then please let him know. To find out
more information about the venue or the conference location visit
the following websites. *
Enzo Accadia President SPUN - Spydus
Users Network Inc. Web: www.spun.asn.au Email: enzo.accadia@chcc.nsw.gov.au
Tel: 02 6648 4129
Future Training – New
Cataloging Client
We are now looking for expressions of
interest for customers interested in undertaking training in the
Spydus 8 New Cataloguing client. This will be available for
customers currently operating server release 8.2.5. Please
contact your Business Development Manager in your region for further
information or to discuss your training needs.
Spydus 6 & 8 Fact Sheets
Feeling a bit stuck or need
answers to a system query that you know you have read some
information about in the past? Remember to check out the Fact Sheets
listing for both Spydus 6 & 8 on the Civica website. Go to http://www.civica.com.au/
Spydus> Customer Services> Support Services>Fact Sheets. Then enter
the password to gain access and you can download or print the fact
sheet that is of interest. There are two new fact sheets for Spydus
8 on Booking Events and Extended bookings – check them out!
Civica makes LIS Debut at
Birmingham, UK
Civica for the first time this year
exhibited at the Library and Information Show (LIS) a show that
caters for all sectors of the library profession by bringing the
library and information worlds together. The LIS has been
running annually for the last 18 years and it brings together
libraries to share key industry developments, the latest technology,
exchange ideas and opinions and debate current issues.
The exhibition was held on the 18 -19
April at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham and was
attended by around 1700 visitors with over 125 exhibitors displaying
their products and services. The Civica stand at the show was
one of the busiest where Chris Thewlis, Operations Manager, Library
Systems Civica UK spent both days continuously demonstrating the
magic of Spydus to interested UK Librarians. This took place
in a ‘semi lounge room’ environment where interested librarians and
managers could sit, relax and preview the functionality of the
Spydus product.
There was considerable interest in
this years show due to Civica’s
phenomenal entry into the UK market with twelve libraries having
purchased the Spydus Library Management System.
Chris Thewlis said “Because there has
been increasing pressure on
libraries to understand, anticipate and respond to the needs of
their users, it has become vital for library and information
professionals to keep up to date with all that is happening in this
ever evolving industry. This is where our Spydus Library Management
system steps in, offering the library professional a total solution,
allowing library staff to better serve their increasing diverse
range of library customers.”
…..and Spydus
Managed Services presented at Local Government Managers Australia
National Congress in Hobart
The Local Government Managers
Australia (LGMA) National Congress and Business Expo was held in
Hobart on the 29 April to 2 May and Civica was proud to be the
principal partner for this conference for the seventh year running.
This year the conference program
included a Process stream and three Civica customers were invited to
present papers on Managed Services as a effective software delivery
model. Karyn Siegmann, Manager Library Services at Bayside City
Council in Victoria presented a paper on the benefits of the Spydus
Managed Services at Bayside and Grant Humphries, Director of
Corporate Services at Mount Gambier in South Australia and Trevor
Smart, Deputy CEO, District Council of Ceduna in South Australia
presented papers on their decision to implement a Managed Service
for delivery of their Authority local government applications.
More than 50 delegates attended the
session and at the end of the presentations many questions followed,
proving that there is much interest in the benefits of Managed
Services. Karyn Siegmann said that presenting at this
session provided her with “a great opportunity to meet people
outside of the library environment, and learn how other council
workers worked with Managed Services”.
Spydus People
Joining the Spydus implementation team
in Melbourne is John Sun. John has previously worked at Deakin
University library in various positions, Mercury Computer systems as
a programmer and recently at Sirsi-Dynix as an application
specialist. His hobbies and interests include painting (oil
painting--portrait/landscape, Chinese brush painting/calligraphy),
and listening to classical music from his collection of CDs and
DVDs.
…and 25
years with Civica’s Frank Austin
Frank Austin, an Application Specialist
within the Spydus team has recently celebrated his 25 year
anniversary with Civica.
Frank joined the business on the 1st
April 1982 becoming the very first librarian to work in what was
then the ‘URICA’ Team. In a small cottage in the Adelaide suburb of
Fullarton, Frank set out to learn about the PICK operating
system, the McDonald Douglas mini computer and of course ‘URICA’.
During that time Frank produced the
first piece of system documentation - a one page description of the
cataloguing parameters, a page that has been heavily consulted over
the years!
Over the next 4 years, Frank was
involved in a number of projects, which culminated in the release of
URICA86. Frank wonders how many people can remember those
days.
We thank Frank for his commitment,
energy and enthusiasm over the last 25 years.
The month of May was a popular time
for official openings, with library staff at Victor Harbor and
Mallala, both in South Australia, officially opening the doors of
their new libraries. Our Customer Service Innovation Nomination for
June is Port Phillip with their Wheelbarrow Beach Service, a very
creative idea and one that will have many of us wishing for the
return of the summer months.
Porirua City Libraries in New
Zealand has invested considerable time and effort to converting
their Maori and Pacific
and Local History database from the Archives solution into MARC
records and into the main library database to provide easier access
for library patrons. Make sure you have a look at the article to see
the other plans they have to improve access to their vast
collection.
Product information
this month focus’s on the Translate Set function in Spydus 8.3.1,
which helps your staff and customers to access greater detail from
an enquiry and our Hot Tip covers what is usually a pretty ‘hot
topic’ for this time of year – Acquisitions Fund Rollover.
The dates for the 2007 SPUN Conference have been announced so
if you haven’t done so already, make sure you get those dates into
your schedule!
Ideas
for articles or Hot Tips for the Spydus Newsletter are always
welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Civica
Business Development Manager.
Victor
Harbor Public Library, South Australia Opens Doors to New Library
Victor Harbor is
South Australia's premier tourist resort and is just over an hours'
drive south
of Adelaide. On the 15th May, following some 15 years of
planning, the Victor Harbor Public Library finally moved out of
their Heritage Building location into a modern, light, airy (and
gorgeous) new building.
The Opening Day saw library staff disappearing under returns,
people joining in a constant stream all day, and most of the new
books disappearing into borrowers bags. ILL was recommenced after a
break of a year and it seems library customers have good memories
and brought their lists with them at the reservations counter.
Children sat reading using the wave chair, cushy couches and
cushions, while others snuggled up to Mum for a story. Waves of high
school students fronted up for computer use throughout the day and
were given permission forms to take home.
The official opening of the Civic Centre, which the library
is part of, was undertaken by the Governor of S.A., Her Excellency
Margery Jackson-Nelson. Present were numerous library guests and
dignitaries including local librarians and library borrowers who
came to view the new library. Also present was the building architect, Peter
Cittadini from Hardy Milazzo and builders, Matt and Ben from
Candetti Constructions.
The Library has
installed Civica’s Spydus RFID solution using Generation II tags,
readers and gates and a Self-service unit. At the time of writing
the library has radio tagged and successfully converted all their
Adult Non Fiction and about a third of their Adult Fiction.
Victor Harbor
reports that 3 weeks after Opening Day there is no sign of slowing
down with their statistics indicating almost as much work processed
in the first 2 weeks, that they would normally handle in 4 weeks.
Sue
Leonard, Victor Harbour Library Manager said, “Our staff and
customers are loving the new environment with its light and airy
feel overlooking the water…..it’s exciting to see so many new and
old faces in the new facility”.
On Friday May 25
The District Council of Mallala Library Services celebrated the
official opening of the Two Wells Public Library, and the launch of
Wireless @ Your Library and Spydus Online.
The opening of the
Two Wells Public Library during Library and
Information Week was very timely as this week provides the community
with a chance to find out about the wide range of services which
their local public library offer and the opportunity for all
libraries to introduce new services and professional skills to the
community.
The Two Wells
Public Library has been operating since February of this year, and
to date has received a very positive response from the local
community, especially in regard to its new location at the Two Wells
Institute, 62 Old Port Wakefield Road.
The District
Council of Mallala Library Services was also pleased to launch their
new Spydus library management system and their ‘Wireless @ Your
Library’ system simultaneously. Spydus will mean great benefits for
the library members, and provide many customer focused features
previously unavailable, including access to an online catalogue that
will be easier to search resulting in library users finding exactly
what they are looking for, and the ability to reserve and renew
items online.
Library Manager,
Kimberley Hargrave says “Library staff always look forward to
participating in such a special Library and Information Week event.
This is an important opportunity to recognise the support that we
have received to date and welcome visitors to the library and the
Two Wells Institute. I am sure that the new services that Spydus and
Wireless @ Your Library will provide to library members will be well
received.”
Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award
: June Nomination: City of Port Phillip Library Service, Victoria
Beachgoers soaking up the sun on Port Phillip beaches this summer
were also able to improve their minds as well as
their tans!
Port Philip Library Service decided that if the borrowers won’t or
can’t come to the library in summer, then they will bring a barrow
load of books to them!
“Our bright orange wheelbarrow is pretty hard to miss,” says library
spokesperson Rose Nolan. “It’s decked out with bells, streamers, an
orange safety flag and of course, the council logo on the side. St
Kilda Beach becomes packed with backpackers and travel guides went
like cold drinks,” she said.
The trusty Ozzie barrow is able to take its
cargo of books to sunbathers, paddlers and beach walkers, with the
all-terrain wheelbarrow skimming along the sand like a jet powered
hovercraft!
Beach goers of all persuasions over the recent
2007 hot summer on the City of Port Phillip's foreshore were invited
to rummage through the orange barrow and select a book to read and
enjoy. The wheelbarrow collection included crime novels, romance,
Victorian gothic, sci-fi, history, travel books and capital 'L'
Literary fiction as well as picture books for the beach kids.
Port Philip Library Service has found a useful way to allow beach
goers the opportunity to enjoy reading on the sand by providing them
with some older stock withdrawn from its shelves. The best news is
the library service doesn’t need the books back.
“When people have finished with them, we're
simply asking readers to pass them on to another reader or a
suitable home,” said Coordinator Libraries, Damian Tyquin.
All the books given out on the beach include a
sticker saying: “This book began its journey in a wheelbarrow
library on a beach in Melbourne as part of the Port Phillip Library
Service. It wants to travel - so please read, enjoy and pass on.”
The sticker provides room for future readers to add their names and
locations, so the book’s travel history can be traced.
Port Philip Library Service wanted to think
outside the square in terms of being part of the summer scene at the
local beach and to also ensure that books continue to have a life
beyond the walls of a library branch. As the library continues to
update its collection with glorious new books they also need to make
room for them by removing some of the older stock. This is part of
the normal life-cycle of any library collection. The beach library
service is a great way to pass on books no longer needed in the
collection but still with a lot of joy to offer readers.
It's fun for staff to head down to the beach
with their wheelbarrow and exciting for the beach goer to find a
little gem of a read as they enjoy their day at the beach.
“The wheelbarrow library has offered us a great
way to spread the word about the Port Phillip Library Service and
all the great services we offer,” said Coordinator Libraries, Damian
Tyquin. “We received a lot of media attention via newspapers and
television and people have also called us interested in accessing
some of these withdrawn resources for special–needs schools, which
is an excellent outcome.”
Look out for the
wheel barrow express next summer for as long as it’s a warm and
sunny day, and there are staff available, the bright orange craft
will be down at the beach being pushed around giving away books. So
if you're down at one of the City of Port Phillip's beaches over the
next summer, just keep an eye out for the friendly staff from your
local library.
Photos courtesy of Carmel Shute.
If
your library service believes it has an innovative service that
falls under the ‘Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award’ category
please don’t be shy. Matthew working in sales support in our
Melbourne office will be very happy to work with you to write your
profile/customer innovation. To be in the running to win more of
these great prizes please email him at
mhunter@civica.com.au
as he’s very keen to assist you and spread your ideas to other
Spydus customers out there in library land.
Porirua,
meaning two rising tides,
is located just 20 minutes north of Wellington, New Zealand’s
capital in the North Island and extends from Kenepuru Drive in the
south to Pukerua Bay in the north, from Titahi Bay on the coast, to
Judgeford in the east.
The city is the hometown of many well-known New
Zealand sports men and women, famous writers and painters,
film-makers, poets, singers and actors. Think of golfer
Michael Campbell,
yachtie
Russell Coutts,
film-maker
Peter Jackson
(Lord of the Rings movies) , writer
Patricia Grace
and entertainer
Gary McCormick.
Porirua has
more than 56 kilometers of picturesque coastline, allowing its
residents and visitors the opportunity to enjoy this aquatic
paradise – offering fishing, boating, windsurfing, scuba diving,
swimming or relaxation on the beach soaking up the sunshine.
For those residents that enjoy a quieter, less
physical lifestyle, Porirua City Libraries has six (6) libraries
providing access to up to date information and research services for
its residents.
Brian
Anderson and his team of dedicated professionals are very happy to
offer assistance to customers whether it be recommending novels for
their recreational pleasure or pointing them in the direction of the
‘Knowledge Centre’ where they can search across thousands of
articles on a range of topics, browse online magazines and
newspapers or link to other useful sites.
Porirua Library recently converted their Maori and Pacific
and Local History database from the Archives solution into MARC
records and into the main library database. Some very exciting and
interesting mapping of fields was undertaken by Civica’s staff and
the Local History database was converted into Newspaper Index. The
converted databases are now available off the main OPAC as filtered
searches and allow a great deal of local information to be accessed
without bloating out the catalogue with a huge number of hits with
no holdings.
A second project is now underway to convert the Porirua
Museum database into MARC records to make the museum collections
information available via the library OPAC. The Library has also
launched the Requests module on the Library Catalogue and has been
receiving good customer response.
Check out Porirua City website at http://www.pcc.govt.nz/
and surf through to the library page to explore the library
catalogue.
Spydus 8 New Feature - Translate Set feature now available in
Spydus 8.3.1
TheTranslate
Set feature allows you to display records that are linked to the
current set of records in some way providing staff and library
customers with greater access to information from an initial
enquiry.
For example you can use the options on the ‘translate set’
page to display the current loans linked to borrowers, the overdue
loans linked to these borrowers, etc.
In the following example an enquiry search for ‘dogs’ has
displayed 74 records, but we want to know if there are any books on
order about dogs as we have read most of these items in the
catalogue
By clicking on the ‘translate set’ button and selecting ‘Orders
linked to these bibliographic records’ option we discover
that there are six (6) orders on the system for ‘dogs’.
Results page - search for books on ‘Dogs’ Click on ‘translate set’
menu
Translate Set
screen – allows selection of the type of translation.
In this example ‘Orders linked to these bibliographic records’ has
been selected and then click on translate set button.
Results page that
shows there are 6 orders on the system for dog
¨
And congratulations to everyone at
Mid-Western Regional Council Library Service who successfully
migrated to a Spydus Managed Service during June
–
visit their website at
http://midwestern.local-e.nsw.gov.au/library.html
Civica’s hosts inaugural UK User Group Meeting
The
inaugural Spydus UK user group meeting was held at Civica’s Bath
office this month, with 19 representatives attending from the 11 new
library authorities.
As
reported last month Wokingham Libraries are now live with Spydus and
you can check out their Catalogue at
http://wokingham.spydus.co.uk/
As the June/July period approaches each year, the Spydus
Helpdesk receives quite a few enquiries about fund rollover and how
to use this functionality in Spydus as often it is a feature that is
used only once a year.
The process for Acquisitions Fund Rollover involves four
steps and varies slightly dependent upon the version of Spydus your
library is running.
To ensure everyone has access to the relevant information for
their library we have provided a detailed overview of the process on
our website which can be downloaded at:
http://www.spydus.civica.com.au/Spydus/Fact_Sheet.htm
The
2007 SPUN conference will be held in Canberra from Wednesday 31
October till Friday 02 November 2007 at Rydges Lakeside, Canberra.
The National SPUN Executive is currently moving into conference
planning mode and they are asking SPUN members for their input into
the conference program.
Please email or phone Enzo Accadia with any ideas you have for
presentations or discussion panels. If you know of another Spydus
customer doing interesting things that you think others would like
to find out more about then please let him know.
To
find out more information about the venue or the conference location
visit the following websites.
As many rural
areas throughout Australia continue to experience the worst drought
on record, calls for
assistance from horse owners and concerned members of the public to
Project Hope Horse Welfare Victoria Inc (PHHWV) are at record
numbers since the organisations conception over 34 years ago.
PHHWV is a non-profit organisation relying solely on memberships and
donations to undertake the task of rehabilitating neglected horses
and Civica is very pleased to be able to support the dedicated team
of volunteers at PHHWV with a generous donation.
The major goals of the organisation are to:
• assist owners
through education, assistance and advice to rehabilitate their own
horses
• provide emergency care, treatment and assistance to horses
• rescue and rehabilitate any horse found abandoned, sick, injured
or mistreated
• educate the community on the plight of neglected horses
• contribute to the development of improved government legislation
and policy
Samantha Forrest a spokesperson for PHHWV believes the public would
be shocked to know the extent of the problem.
“Even the horse owning community doesn’t realise its magnitude, “she
said. “Unfortunately it can be easy for owners to leave retired
horses to roam huge properties and forget that their once adequate
dams and grazing land just isn’t enough to sustain them.”
Anita Bezuch Civica’s Victorian Account Manager with Samantha
Forrest
and a horse re-habilitated by the Project Hope volunteers
If
you would like to find out more about the work of the PHHWV team or
make a much needed tax deductible donation please visit their
website at www.phhwv.org.auor
call 1300 881 606.
Civica launched a brand new website this month which can be
viewed at
www.civica.com.au . Please note you will now find the Spydus
Customer Services site at
www.spydus.civica.com.auso to ensure that you have access to our help desk
facilities please follow the link and update your ‘browsers
favourites’ for future use:
Should you experience any difficulties accessing the Help
desk via the new website please contact the helpdesk via telephone
on +61 3 8676 4415
3rd Annual ALIA South Australia Trivia Night a great
success
The
3rd Annual ALIA South Australia Trivia Night was held on Friday 25
May at the Unley Civic Centre in Adelaide and Civica was delighted
to be the main sponsor for the night, wh
ich
was planned
to coincide with rounding off Library Week activities in South
Australia and to celebrate ALIA’s 70th birthday in 2007.
This is the 3rd year Civica has sponsored the ALIA SA
Trivia Night which has become a very popular event with numbers
growing every year. Once again, the event was a fun and lively
social evening and a 70’s theme saw many of the 140 people in
colourful costumes and parading creative table decorations.
Spydus Customer Dinner NSW CPLA, Merimbula Tuesday 17 July
Civica will be hosting a Customer Dinner on the first night of the
NSW CPLA
Conference in Merimbula at ‘Cantina’s Tapas Bar’ on Tuesday evening
at 7:30 pm following the Welcome Reception.
If you are attending the conference we hope you will be able to join
us. Invitations
are being sent to all of our customers or you can RSVP by simply
emailing Matthew at
mhunter@civica.com.au or calling him on (03) 8676 4400.
This month in the Spydus Newsletter we are delighted
to introduce our new customer Liverpool City Libraries in Sydney.
Thank you to everyone who voted for the Spydus Customer Innovation
Award. We are pleased to announce the winner for this quarter is
City of Port Philip for their Wheelbarrow Library Service.
Porirua Library in New Zealand has been nominated
this month for their use of ‘LibraryElf’ as a way to improve their
customer relationships.
The July Site of the Month is Cockburn City
Libraries in Perth, Western Australia and our Spydus 8 feature is
all about how you can easily add your customers to email
distribution lists.
And don’t forget to read the
July Hot Tip, which shows you a quick
and easy way to renew children’s loans from the parent record
minimising the risk of overdues and or fines for your customers.
Remember, to access the PDF document of the Spydus
Newsletter simply click on the link above or go directly to our
website.
Please send your suggestions and ideas for
newsletter articles to Matthew Hunter . You can email me at
mhunter@civica.com.au or call me on + 61
3 8676 4400.
Liverpool City Library chooses Civica for new
technology partnership
Progressive and fast-expanding Liverpool City
Library, which sought a technology partner rather than simply a
library management solution, has selected Civica to accommodate its
wide-ranging needs.
The library is located in a rapidly growing Sydney
metropolitan area 25km south-west of Sydney CBD and is a large,
modern library service with a strong focus on education and
information, as well as being a venue for social and cultural
interaction.
The Liverpool Library Service has five locations:
headquarters at Liverpool City Library, plus Moorebank Library,
Casula Library, Green Valley Library, and Miller Library. Spydus
will deliver functionality that makes life easier for staff, as well
as integrating with the library’s booking system, self-checking
machines, RFID and cashless system.
Karen Selona, Co-ordinator of Library Operations
says the Civica solution will benefit library staff by streamlining
workflows, making cataloguing work in particular much smoother, more
sophisticated and faster. As well as giving more choice and
flexibility in cataloguing, Spydus will increase staff’s ability to
locate resources and information.
Spydus will also enable the library to introduce a
blog, allow the Children’s section to have its own web page, and
deliver better services to Liverpool’s ‘virtual’ library.
“We have about 4,000 virtual members who don’t set
foot in the library,” says Karen. “Spydus will allow us to redesign
our web site, give a much better look and feel, introduce
discussion forums, add a phone database and index our newspapers
online.”
She says the Civica solution will yield financial
benefits by allowing the Library to install the Pharaos Uniprint
cashless system. This will result in the library becoming an almost
cashless environment, reducing the time staff spend counting money
and delivering it to Council.
Library management are confident that the Spydus
solution will permit the introduction of new initiatives as they
arise. Already Liverpool City Library has an online language
learning centre currently accommodating six languages, and recently
introduced wireless hot spots which give customers free online
access to their notebook computers and PDAs.
Spydus Training & Consulting Services
Do your staff ask you for advanced reports training
or are you moving to the new cataloguing client? Then it’s important
that you contact your Business Development Manager in your region
for further information or to discuss your training needs. Our team
of Spydus trainers, who are all librarians, are happy to help.
Mt Gambier Public Library in South Australia
recently completed their Spydus 8 Upgrade Training with Spydus
Training/Consultant Eleanor Hambleton.
The first week of training saw library staff members
working through Web Enquiry, Circulation, System Supervisor, Reports
and Circulation Supervisor and the following week they covered two
more days of Cataloguing training.
Eleanor will visit Mount Gambier again in September
for further training in Acquisitions, Serials and Requests.
New Civica Website for Australasia & South East Asia
Civica launched a brand new website in June which
can be viewed at www.civica.com.au
To ensure that you have access to our Help Desk
'Support Services' please follow the link http://www.spydus.civica.com.au
and update your ‘browsers favourites' for future use.
Should you experience any difficulties accessing the
Help desk via the new website please contact the helpdesk via
telephone on +61 3 8676 4415.
Port
Phillip - Winners Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award
We are delighted to announce the second winner of
the quarterly Spydus Customer Innovation Award is City of Port
Phillip for their Wheel Barrow Library service, which was nominated
in our June newsletter. Congratulations to the staff at City of Port
Phillip Libraries who will receive a Gold Red Balloon Days Gift
Voucher valued at $1000 to redeem for the Team building event of
their choice. This might be gourmet cooking, a yacht charter, sea
kayaking expedition or a drumming class the choice is theirs… and we
look forward to seeing all the photos!
To briefly recap, during the 2007 hot summer, Port
Philip Library Service found a useful way to allow beach goers the
opportunity to enjoy reading on the sand by providing them with some
older stock withdrawn from its shelves. ‘When people have finished
with them, we're simply asking readers to pass them on to another
reader or a suitable home’ said Coordinator, Libraries - Damian
Tyquin.
All the books given out on the beach include a
sticker saying: “This book began its journey in a wheelbarrow
library on a beach in Melbourne as part of the Port Phillip Library
Service. It wants to travel - so please read, enjoy and pass on.” If
your library service has introduced an interesting customer service
innovation please don’t be shy, let us know. We are very happy to
help you so that your library team can be in the running to win a
great prize. Please email
mhunter@civica.com.au
for assistance in writing your
profile.
Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award - Library
Elf
July Nomination: Porirua Library Service
Help from the Library Elf
Everyone has heard of the little fairies living at
the end of the garden, however did you know there is quite possibly
a magical Elf visiting your Library Management system quietly
reminding library customers to renew their books?
Porirua Library service located in the Wellington
region of New Zealand have discovered that one of the more common
requests and responses from its customers after they have received
an overdue charge is “why don’t you warn us that our library item is
about to go overdue?”
Library Manager Brian Anderson said his staff were
alerted to the presence of the LibraryElf system after a ‘rather
more tech savvy borrower than usual’ bought it to their attention.
The LibraryElf service is an American based website
and is a free service that allows a borrower to register their
library card number and PIN number linked to any LibraryElf member
library. LibraryElf then checks the relevant card once a day and
sends the borrower an email if items are about to be overdue, lists
items on loan and lists reservations ready for collection.
The main purpose of the system is to let customers
know that they have imminent overdue items and to contact their
library directly and renew or return their items.
Library Elf does not have a renewal feature, however
it will direct customers to their library’s login page if they click
on the due date in the reminder email notice.
Brian Anderson said “It is not for every borrower,
but we have found it a good option for many and we’re actively
encouraging its use. We think it has potential to significantly
improve customer relations!”
So if you hear your customers talking about
LibraryElf…. no they haven’t been reading too many Tolkien or Harry
Potter books…. they more than likely just want to renew or return
their library books on time!
Check out www.libraryelf.com for a tour or to see if
your Spydus library is already registered! And don't forget you can
vote for the next quarterly Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award
by simply clicking on the Vote Here button below.
Site of the Month - Cockburn Libraries
Cockburn (pronounced co - burn) is a major coastal
city in Western Australia located just 22km south of the state’s
capital, Perth and 8km south of Fremantle, the state’s major port
and once the home of the "America's Cup" in the 1980's. Cockburn's
population is estimated to be just over 79,000 people and is
continuing to grow at a steady rate as people are attracted to this
coastal city, which is renowned for its historical and tourism
features.
There is a strong Aboriginal history in Cockburn and
sixteen Aboriginal campsites have been found, most of them on the
fringes of North and Bibra Lakes. Cockburn Libraries has used the
Spydus library management system to deliver a full range of services
since 1992 and last year they successfully upgraded to Spydus 8.
Cockburn has three branches at Spearwood, Coolbellup
and the Success (Shopfront) library which will soon metamorphose
into the new 2000m² Cockburn Central Public Library. The new library
will be some 50 metres from the main entrance to the Cockburn
Central Railway Station on the new high speed Southern Suburbs
Railway. The line is scheduled to be operational by late 2007 with
the new library providing a very convenient service for commuters.
The Azelia Ley Museum in Spearwood represents much
of the cultural and historical heritage of the City of Cockburn and
has a large artefact and photographic collection that can be
accessed via the library’s website at
http://library.cockburn.wa.gov.au. The museum focuses on a
family experience in conjunction with the open park area and a
heritage trail leads from the museum to three lookout points that
command magnificent views of Cockburn, the offshore islands and the
Indian Ocean.
Spydus 8 New Feature - Subscribing to an e-mail
distribution list
Did you know your customers can now subscribe to an
email distribution list and receive promotional material as well as
their regular customer service information notices?
It only takes a few moments for library staff to add
a customer to an e-mail list and this new feature can be set up for
customers as part of their registration process or can be completed
at a later time.
To add a customer you simply click on the Subscribe
button in the borrower’s registration details. Spydus will then send
an email to the library address specified in Parameters > System
Parameters tab.
A staff member will then read this email and add the
borrower to a distribution list. The borrower’s e-mail address is
used as the Subject line and the body of the e-mail is specified by
Spydus support staff as part of commissioning.
For example:
From: Andrew Sanderson To: John Smith
Subject: asanderson@yahoo7.com au Cc:
Please add this borrower to the distribution list
for our library news letter.
Spydus 8 Upgrade Projects
Congratulations to the following libraries who
completed upgrades recently:
Tiffin-Seneca public library in Ohio, USA
recently completed their upgrade to Spydus 8 – visit their
website at
http://tiffinsen.spydus.com/
Toledo Museum of Art also in Ohio, USA have also
completed their upgrade to Spydus 8 – visit their website at
http://www.toledomuseum.org/ContactUs.htm
Maribyrnong Library Service in Victoria upgraded
to Spydus 8.3.1 – visit their website at
http://maribyrnong.spydus.com/
Mount Gambier a Managed Service Customer
upgraded to Spydus 8.3.1 – visit their website at
Last month we reported that Western Sydney Health, a
specialised medical library had completed their upgrade to Spydus 8,
when in fact the Area Health Service is now called Sydney West Area
Health Service. A network of nine medical libraries, Sydney West
Area Health Service now includes the old West Sydney Area Health
Service and Wentworth Area Health Service.
Library manager, Sue Grimes said “Those of us who
were Wentworth Area Health Service previously used DB/TextWorks and
now we have joined the upgraded Spydus service we are slowly finding
our way with the new integrated service which will be an invaluable
information resource for all health workers within the area and the
broader community”.
HOT TIP # 38 - Renewing children's loans from parent
record
Showing the linkage between a parent and child’s
membership record gives library staff a quick and easy way to renew
the loans forall the family members therefore minimising the risk of
overdues and or fines. As part of commissioning, Spydus can set up
the borrower registration pane so that links to the parent or
children are displayed.
Spydus People
Annemarie
Bowman has joined the Spydus team in a Systems
Support role. Annemarie has worked at Curtin University for the past
7 years and has experience in various departments within an academic
library. In her spare time she enjoys watching live bands, rock n
roll dancing and playing the double bass.
Joining
the development team is our new Web Designer
Claire McBride. Claire worked for a
web design company for 2 ½ years where she designed and manipulated
e-commerce shopping systems, trained her clients on completion of
the projects and worked in the sales department. She enjoys playing
basketball, spending time with friends and going to the beach in
summer.
We
welcome Joy Sever to the Spydus
team as a trainer/consultant. Joy has 20 years experience in public
libraries with specialised cataloguing knowledge. Her most recent
role was as Team Leader of the Technical Services division of DA
Information Services. Joy's interests include Latin dancing and a
recent yen to play golf, which she admits she does very badly… but
enjoys.
Reminder SPUN Conference 2007
The 2007 SPUN conference will be held in Canberra
from Wednesday 31 October to Friday 02 November 2007 at Rydges
Lakeside, Canberra. The National SPUN executive are currently moving
into conference planning mode and are requesting that all SPUN
members provide their input for the conference programme.
Please email or phone Enzo Accadia with any ideas
you have for presentations or discussion panels. If you know of
another Spydus site that is doing interesting things that would be
valuable to share with other libraries please let Enzo know. To find
out more information about the venue or the conference location
visit the following websites.
•
Canberra Tourism:
www.visitcanberra.com.au
•
Rydges Lakeside Canberra:
www.rydges.com
Enzo Accadia
President
SPUN - Spydus Users Network Inc.
Web: www.spun.asn.au
Email: enzo.accadia@chcc.nsw.gov.au
Tel: 02 6648 4129
Upcoming Events
PLA South Australia,
Adelaide, 5 - 7 August
LIANZA Rotorua, New
Zealand, 9 - 12 September
SPUN Conference, ACT,
Canberra, 31 October - 2 November
This month in the Spydus Newsletter we are delighted
to announce the successful implementation of Spydus at HuttLibraries in the Wellington region of New Zealand.
We also have an update from Maroochy Library in
Queensland and the LINK Consortium in South Australia who
share their Spydus Managed Services experiences and the benefits
their staff are seeing across the libraries daily operations.
The August Customer Innovation Award Nominee is Dalby Libraries in
Queensland for their 'Launch Pad - Media Lounge', an
interesting and innovative way to reach out to the youth in
the community...and the August Site of the Month is
Wollongong Libraries in southern NSW.
This month the Spydus 8 feature is all about
stock rotation against individual items. A number of new Fact
Sheets, including one on Stock Rotation have been posted to the
website this month, so make sure you check the links below for the
latest downloads.
And finally, don’t forget to read the August Hot
Tip, which outlines how you can create and approve invoices to
ensure the annual fund rollover will work correctly.
Remember, to access the PDF document of the Spydus
Newsletter simply click on the link above or go directly to our
website.
Please send your suggestions and ideas for newsletter articles to
Matthew Hunter. You can email Matthew at
mhunter@civica.com.au or call him on + 61 3 8676
4400.
Hutt City Libraries in Wellington Go-live
We
are delighted to welcome Hutt City Libraries in Wellington, New
Zealand to the library world of Spydus with their successful go live
on 26 July 2007. Hutt City comprises eight community libraries,
with 57,000 borrowers and 304,000 collection items, including
specialist Maori heritage and family collections.
Hutt City Libraries joins Porirua and the Wellington Institute of
Technology in the Wellington region who have both been using Spydus
to successfully serve their customers and community for a number of
years.
According to Civica's Sales Manager Ruza Obradovic Hutt City library
staff have been extremely positive and enthusiastic and have
embraced their new Library Management System with a ‘can do
attitude’ that flows through and is reflected in the high levels of
service they offer their community.
“We are looking forward to a system that supports our
new Library service efficiently and flexibly, allowing us to adapt
out service to fit customer requirements along the way. We see
Spydus as a modern system offering electronic service delivery while
allowing the libraries to maintain high standards in traditional
service delivery.”
Sandra Mann, Hutt City Libraries Manager
Spydus Customer Service
Innovation Award - Vote for Dalby
August
Nomination - Dalby Public Library, Queensland
Dalby is located in the
Darling Downs region of Queensland, approximately 210 kilometres
west of the state capital, Brisbane and the library is always
looking for interesting and innovative ways to reach out to its
community and support their learning and leisure lifestyle options.
Dalby’s most recent initiative has been made possible by a $40,000
grant from the Australian Youth Foundation – resulting in the
awesome Launch Pad Project!
The library is acting as the umbrella organisation for a group of
young people aged
15-25, who have initiated this project to benefit the youth of the
region and the community in general. The youthful library staffers
at Dalby were the ring leaders pulling together experts in planning
and design and community mapping and visioning, to create an
innovative project that will deliver tangible benefits to the
community.
Sylvia said “We sent in our application via My Space, we figured why
not use the media that’s preferred by our target demographic. The
funding provider declared they hadn’t received an application like
it before!”
Check out the My Space website at
http://www.myspace.com/dalbylaunchpad
So what exactly is the Launch Pad? ... Well it’s a media lounge – a
custom built room complete with cool furniture, a huge LCD TV, a PS3
and a wide-dispersal sound dome.
How will it be used – the list is very long!
For activities such as cultural introductions (where community
members can present a media show of their travels and interested
patrons can book-in to their sessions of choice), workshops, virtual
book clubs, pod casting, foreign film sessions, media tutorials,
group game playing – and the list goes on.
Dalby library staff are very excited to be able to offer these
enhanced facilities, and the services that they will enable, free of
charge to the community.
Library Manager Sylvia Marshall said “We may be small – but that
doesn’t mean we can’t strive to be the best. Being a relatively
small service we are able to respond to change quickly, we target
emerging trends and technology to enhance the experience of visiting
our library and to enrich the content of our catalogue,” she said.
Dalby library staff provide plenty of opportunities for customers to
contribute content and to help shape the library service to meet
their needs. Blogging, IM, online survey’s and photo slideshows are
just a few ways for Dalby residents to connect with each other
through the library.
If your library service has introduced an interesting customer
service innovation please don’t be shy, let us know. We are very
happy to help you so that your library team can be in the running to
win a great prize. Please email
mhunter@civica.com.au for assistance in writing your profile.
And don't forget if you would like to vote for Dalby's 'Launch Pad'
innovation simply click on the 'Vote Here' button below. Thank you.
Brunei Ministry of Education visits Sydney
Libraries
In July a group of
delegates from the Virtual Library Information System (ViLIS) of the
Brunei Ministry of Education visited Blacktown Library in Sydney’s
west and Hurstville Library south of Sydney, to see first hand how
Civica delivers its innovative Spydus solution.
Our thanks go to the
staff at Blacktown and Hurstville Libraries who kindly
hosted our visitors from Brunei providing an opportunity for them to
take a look behind the scenes at the daily operations of
contemporary Australian public libraries.
ViLIS delegates visiting Blacktown Library
Successful
NSW CPLA in Merimbula, NSW
The
NSW Country Public Libraries Association conference was hosted on
the Sapphire Coast at Pambula Merimbula Golf Club in mid July.
Civica hosted a customer dinner on the first night at Catina’s Tapas
Bar where a fun, enjoyable night was had by everyone before the
Conference presentations and activities began the next day.
As a sponsor of the NSW Marketing Awards, Civica presented an award
to Narelle Reichert, Manager Library, Leisure & Cultural Services,
Lake Macquarie for their Read and Rhyme Time program, an early
literacy program to encourage a love of reading & books.
Congratulations to Kate
Nalder at Tamworth Regional Council, winner of the Civica Lucky
Business Card Draw Red Balloon Gift voucher, pictured above with
Ruza Obradovic receiving her prize.
Public
Libraries Australia (PLA) Conference - South Australia
Spydus was on display
at the Public Libraries Australia Conference held in Adelaide in
early August under the theme of Public Libraries Building Balance.
The conference was held at the Adelaide Convention Centre in South
Australia and focused on strategies and skills for achieving balance
in all aspects of library management and leadership, ensuring
libraries provide workplace and development opportunities for staff,
and that libraries continue to understand community needs in order
to provide relevant public library service and program development.
Civica’s Sales Manager, Ruza Obradovic and Business Development
Manager Holley Dumble attended the conference and hosted a customer
dinner at The Queen’s Head Hotel, where many stories were shared
amongst good food, good wine and good company.
ALIA
South Australia Library Award
An
evening to celebrate South Australian Libraries was held at
Treasures Wall, State Library of South Australia. The night saw the
presentation of five (5) ALIA Silver Pins, two (2) ALIA student
awards and an opportunity to celebrate ALIA's 70th anniversary.
A special congratulations to Dee O'Loughlan, Adelaide Hills Library
Manager, for receiving runner-up in the South Australian Library
Achiever of the Year Award for 2007.
Pictured Kimberley
Hargrave, Dee O'Loughlan and Holley Dumble at the Awards Night
Wollongong
is located on the south coast of New South Wales on a narrow coastal
strip bordered by the Royal National Park to the north, Lake
Illawarra to the south, the Tasman Sea to the east and the Illawarra
Escarpment to the west. The name Wollongong is believed to originate
from the Aboriginal word woolyungah meaning ‘five islands’.
Wollongong Library service enjoys a strong reputation for innovative
and customer focused service delivery and is currently well
resourced, well used and well regarded in the community.
Recent developments and
innovations include:
• Re-organisation and refurbishment of the Central Library to update
the image of the library in the community
• Collaboration with government agencies in the Bundaleer project,
taking storytelling to the housing estates of Berkeley
• Implementation of a new Internet booking system
Areas for growth which will be targeted in 2007-2008 include:
• Construction of a new Thirroul Community Centre and Library
• Investigating an auto-sorter for the Central Library to reduce
materials handling by staff
Wollongong is a
progressive library service that endeavours to look forward,
embracing technology for the benefit of its library customers. Some
future enhancements are the construction of a new Thirroul Community
Centre and Library and the investigation of an auto sorter to reduce
materials handling. The library
is also looking at re-development of their website to provide
greater access to electronic resources, make local resources more
widely available and implement emerging technologies to enable
customer interaction from remote locations.
Wollongong has been using the Spydus Library Management system since
2005 and has a strong focus on customer service, innovation and
continuous improvement. It is well positioned to continue to deliver
high quality service aligned with customer needs in these
interesting times.
Spydus
Managed Services a success at Maroochy and LINK
Spydus customers,
Maroochy Shire Library in Queensland and the LINK Consortium in
South Australia have been running their Spydus systems via a Managed
Service for 12 months now and staff at both libraries are now
enjoying the convenience and benefits of the service.
Maroochy Shire Library’s verdict on Civica’s managed services:
‘Absolutely fabulous!’
Last year Maroochy Libraries adopted a managed services approach for
delivery of their library management systems to overcome technical
limitations. Today librarians remain enthusiastic about the
day-to-day benefits.
“We are extremely pleased with the service, especially with Civica’s
constant watch over our facility,” says Systems Librarian Clare Fry.
A user of Civica’s Spydus library management system since 1990, the
library found that when Council introduced stringent security
measures these impacted on the library’s ability to run
Internet-based services and third party software programs for its
customers.
“We could see major advantages in a Managed Service because it
provided us with a server outside our firewall” said Clare. “Now our
management systems run on servers at Civica’s data centre and
customers and staff are benefiting from a faster connection and no
firewall restrictions.
....and
for Amanda Cook, Manager, Library Services for Light Regional
Council and Chairperson of the LINK committee “It’s been a fantastic
result”.
In South Australia the
library services at Barossa, Clare & Gilbert Valleys and Light have
discovered Managed Services is the most efficient and cost-effective
way to run their Spydus library management systems.
The librarians might spend a little time updating their web sites,
but no longer have to concern themselves with performing backups,
software upgrades or other technical operations.
Amanda says: “Staff love it. Now they spend their time helping
customers instead of doing nuisance jobs related to the computer
system.”
“It’s been a fantastic
result,” says Amanda Cook, Manager, Library Services for Light
Regional Council and Chairperson of the LINK committee. “None of us
have had to employ a systems person since going live with Civica,
and the only support phone call we have made in 12 months turned out
to be a communications issue that was not related to the managed
services setup.”
Spydus
8 New Feature - Stock Rotation
Version 8.4.0 of the
Spydus system includes a stock rotation plan feature against
individual items.
This is useful when your library staff want to rotate items to other
locations based on the title, rather than on the Collection. Stock
may also be rotated to sub locations.
To obtain a copy of the Stock Rotation Plan Fact Sheet
please click here.
New
Spydus 8 Client Releases now available for download
Customers running Spydus Clients 8.2.15 or less should upgrade to
8.2.17, whilst those on Spydus Clients 8.2.16 should upgrade to
8.2.18.
We highly recommend upgrading to the latest appropriate version as
noted above as many new bug fixes and enhancements have been
included since the last release.
If you have forgotten
your login details or require the latest password please contact the
Help Desk on (03) 8676 4415.
To ensure you are
advised of Spydus Client Releases as they become available you can
subscribe to the Spydus Client Release Database. Simply email
Matthew Hunter your name, email address and the name of your
organisation.
Please include in the subject heading the title ‘Subscribe to Spydus
Client Release Database’
New
Fact Sheets Available
Four new fact sheets
are now available for you to download on Spydus 8 for:
• Ratings & Comments
• Translate Set
• Bookings
• Stock Rotation
South Australian Spydus customers should also check out Fact Sheet
#814 which relates specifically to Loading, Validating & Editing
PLAIN records in South Australia.
Some
Spydus customers are experiencing difficulties with commitments not
going to "0" which can present in a couple of different scenarios.
For example
A. Invoices have not been created at all
B. Invoices have been created, but not approved
Run the following Boolean Search to bring up a list of items that
have been accessioned (filled), but commitment does not go to "0"
which may be a result of invoices that have not been created or
invoices that have not been approved.
FORMAT: LI + PST01\F
INNER JOIN CET ON #TBLID.IRN = CET.IRN WHERE CET.CMT > 0
After obtaining results list from the Boolean query, examine and fix
each record one by one.
1. In the situation where invoices have been created, but not
approved:
Using the Acquisition module bring up the invoice and click
"Approve"
2. In the case where invoices have not been created:
Bring up an order, right click on a line item, then create an
invoice.
There are some instances when an order is for more then one copy,
but the invoice has been created for only one copy. In this
instance, another invoice needs to be created as in 2 above.
All other scenarios
should be looked at by the Civica Help desk. You can contact them
via the SR system or on (03) 8676 4415.
Reminder
SPUN Conference 2007
The 2007 SPUN
conference will be held in Canberra from Wednesday 31 October to
Friday 02 November 2007 at Rydges Lakeside, Canberra. The National
SPUN executive are currently moving into conference planning mode
and are requesting that all SPUN members provide their input for the
conference programme.
Please email or phone Enzo Accadia with any ideas you have for
presentations or discussion panels. If you know of another Spydus
site that is doing interesting things that would be valuable to
share with other libraries please let Enzo know. To find out more
information about the venue or the conference location visit the
following websites.
To ensure that you have access to our Help Desk 'Support
Services' please follow the link
http://www.spydus.civica.com.au and update your ‘browsers
favourites' for future use.
Should you experience any difficulties accessing the Help desk via
the new website please contact the helpdesk via telephone on +61 3
8676 4415.
Spydus
People
Ross
Barbaressos The newest
member of the Technical Support team is Ross Barbaressos. Ross has
been in Technical Support roles for the last 15 Years with
organizations such as Commonwealth Bank, Telstra and AGL. He
recently was Managing his own PC Support business, but thought it
was time to re-join the regular workforce. He is the Team Manager of
his son’s Soccer Team in Hampton Park, and on Friday and Saturday
nights, becomes the Karaoke DJ and hosts the Karaoke show at the
Seaford Hotel!
Jimmy Ward Jimmy worked
in technical support and network administration for a number of
schools in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, before moving to
Melbourne last year. His interests - computers aside - include
reading, astronomy and geocaching – (Geocaching is a treasure
hunting game where you use a GPS to hide and seek). He is also
heavily into music, be it playing, composing or just listening.
Shruthi
Krishna
We also welcome Shruthi Krishna who is joining the Spydus
development team as a Web Developer. Shruthi has 2 years of
experience using web design software. Her interests include watching
movies, traveling and shopping.
Upcoming Events
LIANZA Rotorua, New
Zealand, 9 - 12 September
QPLA Ipswich,
Queensland 16-19 September
ASLA XX, Adelaide
2-5 October
ALIA Top End
Symposium, Darwin 5-6 October
SPUN Conference,
ACT, Canberra, 31 October - 2 November
This month in the Spydus
Newsletter we are
delighted to bring you
an article by Karyn
Siegmann, from Bayside
Libraries in Victoria as
she journeyed to Papua
New Guinea as a
volunteer for eight
weeks... read
Karyn's intrepid
librarian adventures...
The September Customer
Innovation Award Nominee
is Darebin Libraries in
Victoria for their
Sponge Club,
an interesting and
innovative way to reach
out to the children aged
7 -12 years of age and
encourage them to use
the services of their
local libraries....and
the September Site of
the Month is
Pentleigh & Essendon
Grammar School in
metropolitan Melbourne.
This month the Spydus
8 feature is
all about the new
features that will be
available in Spydus
release 8.4.x.
And finally, don’t
forget to read the September
Hot Tip, which
outlines how you can
ensure your customers
have full access to your
Syndetics subscription
by ensuring the settings
on your OPAC PCs allow
pop-ups or windows to
appear and display book
covers, annotations and
other enriched content
elements.
Also it is last call
for registrations for
the SPUN
conference
being held in Canberra
late October early
November.
Remember, to access the
PDF document of the
Spydus Newsletter simply
click on the link above
or go directly to our
website.
Please send your
suggestions and ideas
for newsletter articles
to Matthew Hunter. You
can email Matthew at
mhunter@civica.com.au
or call him on + 61 3
8676 4400.
In late 2006 Karyn
Siegmann, Library
Manager at Bayside
Library Service in
Melbourne put her hand
up to be a volunteer
with Australian Business
Volunteers (ABV). In
April this year Karyn
was offered the
opportunity to volunteer
for an 8 week project in
Papua New Guinea (PNG)
and in early June she
departed for the Church
of the Nazarene Bible
and Teacher Training
College. A small library
with untrained library
staff, Karyn’s job was
to provide training,
develop training manuals
and also to advise on IT
solutions for managing
the collection. The
college is located in
the Western Highlands
about a ½ hour drive
from Mt Hagen, PNG’s
third largest city.
Continue
here to read about
Karyn’s project in more
detail and below she
shares with us some
things learnt along the
way.
• I have a very
privileged life in
Australia and am very
lucky to have been born
into the life I have.
• There are still many,
many people in this
world who live in
poverty and have to
fight for even the
basics of human
existence.
• Education is one of
the most important
things we can provide
and libraries are very
important in helping
with this.
• Too often we seem to
concentrate on what our
differences are, it
seems to me, these
differences are a very
small component of what
makes us human beings
and we are more alike
than we are different.
• If you are donating
books for a worthy cause
please take the time to
consider whether they
are in good condition
and the information is
still useful!!
Spydus Customer Service
Innovation Award - Vote for
Darebin
September Nomination
- Darebin
Libraries, Victoria
Darebin Libraries Sponge
Club is the direct
result of research and
consultation with the
local community to
develop a children’s
identity for the local
library service. The
introduction of the
Sponge Club has resulted
in the development of a
fun interactive program
for children aged 7-12
years to share ideas,
learn and develop their
literacy skills.
Sponge Club centres on
eight characters, four
children and four
mythical characters, who
come to life when they
are released from the
books in the library.
Together they embark on
a series of exciting
adventures that
encourage them to
explore places and new
ideas.
The full story and
additional adventures
can be obtained by
logging onto their
website at
http://www.spongeclub.com
and downloading the
story.
Sponge Club has allowed
Darebin Libraries junior
members to develop a
greater sense of
ownership of their
library service and at
the same time provide
opportunities for
children to meet and
develop their social and
learning skills,
particularity those
skills relating to
homework and using
services within the
library.
Sponge Club allows
Darebin Libraries to
promote itself as a fun
and exciting place to be
and be seen. Engaging
young people early on
and building an
awareness of what is
available via our
libraries and website
encourages young people
to continue to use the
library through their
secondary school and
beyond.
Sponge Club members
first met in June 2003
and continue to meet
once a month after
school at all Darebin
Libraries outlets
throughout the year.
Children have had the
opportunity to meet
special guest authors,
illustrators, and
contribute to the Sponge
Club website.
Caz Smith, Manager
Children’s & Teenager
said that “Sponge Club
continues to grow and
evolve over time in
order to stay relevant
to the needs of our
junior members. Sponge
Club members currently
total 1500 and
membership continues to
grow annually.
How to submit a
Customer Service
Innovation profile?
Ever wanted to submit a
Customer innovation
Profile!
If your library service
has introduced an
interesting customer
service innovation
please don’t be shy, let
us know. We are very
happy to help you so
that your library team
can be in the running to
win a great prize.
Please email
mhunter@civica.com.au
for assistance in
writing your profile.
And don't forget if
you would like to vote
for Darebin's 'Sponge
Club' innovation simply
click on the 'Vote Here'
button below. Thank you.
It’s time to vote for
your favourite Spydus
Customer Innovation
Nominee!
Each quarter one lucky
Spydus library team has
a chance to win a $1000
Team Building experience
of their choice with
Red Balloon Days.
And the nominees for
this quarter are……
Porirua –
Library Elf - Porirua
Library are successfully
using the Library Elf
website to alert
borrowers to when their
items are about to
become overdue …more
info
Dalby -
Launch Pad Project -
Dalby Library Service
have created a media
lounge – a custom built
room complete with cool
furniture, a huge LCD
TV, a PS3 and a
wide-dispersal sound
dome to be used for
activities such as
cultural introductions,
workshops, virtual book
clubs, pod casting,
foreign film sessions,
media tutorials, group
game playing – and the
list goes on.…more
info
Darebin Libraries
- Sponge Club – see
Darebin’s profile in
this month’s newsletter.
Voting Any library
staff member can vote,
all they have to do is
be a
current recipient of the
Spydus Newsletter or
they can simply
subscribe
today! Remember to
include your name, email
address and the name of
your organisation.
To vote for your
favourite simply click
on the library name
above or send an email
with the library’s name
in the subject heading
to Matthew at
mhunter@civica.com.au
Voting closes
Wednesday 24 October
so make sure you get
your vote in today!
We welcome nominations
for the Spydus Customer
Service Innovation Award
and it’s very easy to
enter! Just send Matthew
an
email and he’ll call
you to assist in writing
your nomination.
Site of the Month -
Pentliegh & Essendon Grammar
School - Victoria
Penleigh and Essendon
Grammar in Melbourne’s
inner North West is a
Uniting Church School
for boys and girls. The
product of a happy
amalgamation in 1977 of
two schools, Penleigh
Presbyterian Ladies'
College and Essendon
Grammar School, the
school now has four
campuses located in
Essendon, Moonee Ponds
and Keilor East.
Penleigh and Essendon
Grammar school has
continued to grow and
develop over the years
with its reputation for
the provision of a
strong and successful
academic programme being
the envy of many schools
of the same size. The
school offers a complete
educational programme
for children from
kindergarten through to
year 12 offering a
unique blend of single
sex and coeducational
experiences to over 2000
students.
To support the students
through their studies at
Penleigh and Essendon
Grammar campuses the
school libraries operate
the Spydus library
management system using
a Managed Service
approach to look after
over 50,000 items in
it's collection. Since
October 2005 PEGS has
been using a Spydus
Managed Services Schools
Consortia model sharing
a bibliographic
database, with separate
holdings. This approach
was chosen as the system
management is undertaken
by Civica technical
staff, thus providing
optimum performance with
costs set in advance,
freeing Pentleigh
Grammars library staff
to focus on providing
information and services
from their collections
for their students.
The school has four
libraries: a central
library at the Middle
School (Boys) on the
Keilor East Campus and
branch libraries at the
Essendon Campus, the
Moonee Ponds Campus and
at McNab House. Spydus
networks the four
libraries providing
students with access to
the resources of the
entire school.
At all levels, students
are guided by the
library staff in the
effective use of their
library and its
resources, including the
development of good
study habits and
information researching
skills.
The school library
provides all students
with the materials and
services that they
require for both their
educational and
recreational needs,
including books,
magazines, newspapers,
computer software, audio
cassettes and CDs, VHS
and DVD resources, board
games and various
educational packages and
websites.
Some of the new features
available in Spydus
release 8.4.x are
described in Fact sheet
840. The fact sheet
covers the new
Acquisitions module
which has been
completely redeveloped,
stock rotation plans,
user groups and user
accounts, PIN rules, and
changes to borrower
registration to name a
few of the new features
that will be available
in this future release.
Customers running
Spydus Clients 8.2.15 or
less should upgrade to
8.2.17a, whilst those on
Spydus Clients 8.2.16
should upgrade to
8.2.18a.
Current
Client Version..
Upgrade
Version..
8.2.15
or less
Upgrade to
8.2.17a
8.2.16
Upgrade
to 8.2.18a
Alternatively, if 8.2.17
or 8.2.18 is already
installed on your Spydus
PC you can simply update
to 8.2.17a or 8.2.18a
respectively by running
the appropriate patch
which is available from
the ftp server.
Current
Client Version..
Patch
required to
upgrade..
8.2.17
Run patch
17a
8.2.18
Run patch
18a
Patches are
significantly smaller
than the full install of
the Spydus Clients and
are quick to download.
If you have forgotten
your login details or
require the latest
password please contact
the Help Desk on (03)
8676 4415.
To ensure you are
advised of Spydus Client
Releases as they become
available you can
subscribe to the Spydus
Client Release Database.
Simply email
Matthew Hunter your
name, email address and
the name of your
organisation.
Please include in the
subject heading the
title ‘Subscribe to
Spydus Client Release
Database’
Have you ever had
customers complain that
the Syndetic features on
your OPAC are not
opening correctly or at
all? This could be a
result of your OPAC PC
settings not allowing
pop-ups or new windows
to display correctly.
This month’s hot tip
will show you how to
easily alter these
settings on your OPAC PC
to allow the additional
Syndetic features to
display.
The 2007 SPUN conference
will be held in Canberra
from Wednesday 31
October to Friday 02
November 2007 at Rydges
Lakeside, Canberra.
All late
Registrations are
required by close of
business on Friday 28
September.
To register or find
out more information
about the conference
please visit the
SPUN website
or if you
have specific questions
please contact
Kate Nalder
directly.
The following websites
will assist with
accommodation and venue
information.
To ensure that you
have access to our Help
Desk 'Support Services'
please follow the link
http://www.spydus.civica.com.au
and update your
‘browsers favourites'
for future use.
Should you experience
any difficulties
accessing the Help desk
via the new website
please contact the
helpdesk via telephone
on +61 3 8676 4415.
Libraries
& Information Association of New
Zealand Aotearoa - Rotorua
Spydus was on display
this month at the LIANZA
(Libraries & Information
Association of New
Zealand Aotearoa)
Conference that was held
in the geothermal city
of Rotorua in the North
Island of New Zealand.
The conference was held
at the brand new Energy
Events Centre in the
heritage gardens behind
the Arts Museum and the
theme for the three day
event was ‘Transforming
the Future'.
Amanda Norton
We
welcome Amanda Norton to
the Spydus team in a
Training Consultant
role. Amanda originally
started her career as a
primary school teacher
where she taught in
Bendigo and Melbourne
for 5 years. Amanda has
since commenced her
Graduate Diploma in
Information and
Knowledge Management
where she has completed
half of the post
graduate degree and her
interests include
swimming, reading,
spending time with
friends and family and
gardening.
Fiona Downie We
also welcome Fiona
Downie to the team as a
Training
Consultant.Fiona has
worked at the State
Library of Victoria in
Document Supply and at
Eastern Regional
Libraries as
Interlibrary Loans
Officer. Fiona is
currently studying by
distance to become an
‘official’ librarian
through Charles Sturt
University and her
interests include
running/walking and
swimming, watching
movies, shopping and
facials.
This
month in the Spydus Newsletter we
are delighted to bring you an
article on the successful go-live at
Liverpool City Library in Sydney,
one of the biggest public libraries
in the Southern Hemisphere.
Thank
you to everyone who voted for the
Spydus Customer Innovation
Award and we are very
pleased to announce the winner for
this quarter is Darebin Libraries in
Victoria for their Sponge Club
innovation.
This month we have a profile from
Cockburn Libraries in Western
Australia who have nominated their
use of a multi-screen,
in-house Television Communication
system.
Our
October Site of the Month is
Coffs Harbour in New South Wales
and make sure you check out their
"Voice of Time" online, Oral History
project.
This month the Spydus 8.4 .x
feature is highlighting
Auto Generation of PIN within a
borrower registration screen and
finally, don’t forget to read the October
Hot Tip, which outlines
how you can Validate & Edit
Errors in MARC Record Files.
Remember, to access the PDF document
of the Spydus Newsletter simply
click on the link above or go
directly to our website.
Please send your suggestions and
ideas for newsletter articles to
Matthew Hunter. You can
email Matthew at
mhunter@civica.com.au
or call him on + 61 3 8676 4400.
We
are delighted to announce that our
latest New South Wales customer to
embrace Spydus, Liverpool City
Library, in Sydney has gone live on
version 8.3.2 on Monday 15 October.
We welcome Liverpool library staff
and their customers to the Spydus
fold. Liverpool is a very innovative
library service that had been
looking for a “technology partner”
to work with in providing
streamlined services to their
customer
base across its five (5) branches.
Currently Liverpool are
investigating implementing digital
signature pads for borrower
registration, to use in conjunction
with the Spydus “borrower image”
view that appears in the Circulation
client.
Library customers can submit a brief
review of a book they have read,
give it a star rating and send it
for posting on the OPAC.
The Liverpool City Library in terms
of space is one of the biggest
public libraries in the Southern
Hemisphere, with 95 % of the issue
transactions running through ‘Self
Check’ units.
Continue here for more
information on Liverpool City
Library or visit their
website.
The votes have been counted and
we are pleased to announce the third
winner of the Spydus Customer
Innovation Award is Darebin
Libraries for their Sponge Club,
which was nominated in our September
newsletter.
Congratulations to the staff at
Darebin Libraries who will receive a
Gold Red Balloon Day Gift Voucher
valued at $1000 to redeem for a Team
Building event of their choice. This
might be gourmet cooking, a yacht
charter, sea kayaking, the choice is
theirs... and as always we
definitely look forward to seeing
the photos.
To briefly recap Darebin
Libraries created a Sponge Club
which centres on eight characters,
four children and four mythical
characters, who come to life when
they are released from the books in
the library. Together they embark on
a series of exciting adventures that
encourage library Sponge Club
members to explore places and new
ideas.
The introduction of the Sponge
Club has resulted in the development
of a fun interactive program for
children aged 7-12 years at Darebin
Libraries to share ideas, learn and
develop their literacy skills.
Caz Smith, Manager Children’s &
Teenager said that “Sponge Club
continues to grow and evolve over
time in order to stay relevant to
the needs of our junior members.
Sponge Club members currently total
1500 and membership continues to
grow annually."
Have a look at the drumming day
article and photos in this edition
of the Spydus newsletter of the team
from Bayside libraries who redeemed
their Red balloon Day voucher
recently!
Each quarter one lucky Spydus
library team has a chance to win a
$1000 Team Building experience of
their choice with
Red Balloon
Days.
We welcome nominations for the
Spydus Customer Service Innovation
Award and it’s very easy to enter!
Just send Matthew an
email and he’ll call you and
assist in writing your nomination.
Bayside Libraries won the
Customer Service Innovation award
earlier this year for their Book
Shop Profile and early this month
they held their chosen “Red Balloon
Days” Team Building activity.
Bayside staff chose a Drumming team
building exercise where they were
introduced to drums and given a
basic once over on how to play them.
Then the fun really began as they
were divided into sub-groups with
each group being taught small
rhythmic parts.
The group worked together to
combine their beats with the
exciting Latin and African beats
produced by the Master Drummer
running the session.
According to Library Manager Karyn
Siegmann they had a great time. ‘We
had a fantastic session with
Drumfire and the staff really
enjoyed the whole thing. It's a
program I would recommend to any
team.......great fun, laughs and you
get to see who has no rhythm at
all!!!!’ said Karyn.
If you would like your library team
to have the opportunity to win a
‘Red Balloon Day' team building
event, don’t forget to send your
Customer Innovation award profile to
Matthew Hunter for inclusion in
a future newsletter.
Have you ever been stuck in a
supermarket or queue at the airport
as you mindlessly while away the
minutes before it’s your turn to be
served?
Well Cockburn Libraries in Western
Australia has come up with an
innovative way to keep their
customers entertained while waiting
to be served by using a multi-
screen, in-house Television
Communication System.
So how does the multi-screen,
in-house Television Communication
system work?
A Television screen is mounted above
the circulation desk and is used to
run slides of advertising to promote
Library collections, events and
other Community Information to
library customers as they are
waiting to be served. Cockburn has
had the multi-screen system
installed for the last 12 months
with Cockburn’s library customers
providing positive feedback during
this time.
Linda Seymour, Library Technology
Coordinator for Cockburn said ‘The
scheduling is what we like the most.
You can choose when and how often to
run slides in advance.”
“We feel that it has been worthwhile
as most people who use the library
see it and it also serves the
purpose of giving customers
something to watch as they wait to
be attended to,” she said.
A multimedia presentation of the
system that Cockburn uses is
available on
youtube
Check out the youtube website and if
you would like some more information
on the Multi- screen, in-house
Television Communication System
please contact
Linda Seymour at Cockburn
libraries
How to
submit a Customer Service Innovation
profile?
Ever
wanted to submit a Customer
innovation
Profile!
If
your library service has introduced
an interesting customer service
innovation please don’t be shy, let
us know. We are very happy to help
you so that your library team can be
in the running to win a great prize.
Please email
mhunter@civica.com.au
for assistance in writing your
profile.
And don't forget if you would like
to vote
for Cockburn's 'Multi-screen,
in-house Television Communication
system' innovation simply click on
the 'Vote Here' button below. Thank
you.
Coffs Harbour
in northern New South Wales, located
about halfway between the major
cities of Sydney and Brisbane,
prides itself on its many
attractions, natural beauty and
quality of services. The city has
previously won the accolade ‘World's
Most Liveable City’ with its quality
infrastructure enhanced by the
coastal and mountain lifestyles it
offers.
Coffs Harbour City Library and
Information Service is located in a
high-growth coastal region. The
library service provides its
customers with progressive services
and facilities, using a combination
of technology and customer-focused
staff to service the local community
across its 3 branches.
Coffs Harbour uses the Spydus
Library Management System to store
its oral history database, which
contains interviews of the 'Voice of
Time' Coffs Harbour Oral History
Project produced for the 1988
Australian Bicentenary. The
interview summaries are reproduced
in full along with copies of
photographs of interviewees and
selected audio snippets in MP3
format. The completed digitisation
project was officially launched in
September 2007 – you can check out
this very interesting
collection.
The Spydus
newspaper indexing functionality is
also used to store local article
citations from the Coffs Coast
Advocate between 1993 and 2004.
Coffs Harbour Library has also
formed partnerships with UnitingCare
Burnside and other local
organisations to develop and present
a successful early childhood reading
program ‘Let's Read’ to its young
residents aged 0-5 years in the
community.
And students from Years 4 – 12 are
also catered for with access to a
homework help and on-line tutoring
service called ‘yourtutor’ which is
available from the Coffs Harbour
library website between the hours of
4 pm – 8 pm Monday to Friday.
Students enter the Online Classroom
where they are connected to a live
tutor who works with the student to
find suitable answers to their
questions.
Coffs Harbour will be moving to
Spydus version 8.3.2 in mid-October
and Librarian, Enzo Accadia is
looking forward to making the new
‘Ratings & Reviews’ functionality in
the Spydus OPAC available.
“This is another way for us to
provide customers with further
interaction and engagement with our
library services and it promotes
reading through a simple automated
system,” said Enzo.
Visit the library
website
and if you are
in the area remember to take time
out and enjoy what the region has to
offer.
One of the new features available in
Spydus release 8.4.x is the ability
of the system to generate a PIN
automatically. This takes place in
the Borrower Registration screen and
is generated by the library staff
when registering a new
borrower, according to PIN rules
that are pre-determined by each
library.
Customers running Spydus Clients
8.2.15 or less should upgrade to
8.2.17a, whilst those on
Spydus Clients 8.2.16 should upgrade
to 8.2.18a.
Current Client Version..
Upgrade Version..
8.2.15
or less
Upgrade
to 8.2.17a
8.2.16
Upgrade
to 8.2.18a
Alternatively, if 8.2.17 or 8.2.18
is already installed on your
Spydus PC you can simply update to
8.2.17a or 8.2.18a respectively by
running the appropriate patch
which is available from the ftp
server.
Current
Client Version..
Patch required to upgrade..
8.2.17
Run patch
17a
8.2.18
Run patch
18a
Patches are significantly smaller
than the full install of the Spydus
Clients and are quick to download.
If you have forgotten your login
details or require the latest
password please contact the Help
Desk on (03) 8676 4415.
To
ensure you are advised of Spydus
Client Releases as they become
available you can subscribe to the
Spydus Client Release Database.
Simply email
Matthew Hunter your name, email
address and the name of your
organisation.
Please include in the subject
heading the title ‘Subscribe to
Spydus Client Release Database’
This
months Hot Tip provides information
and a suggested workflow for
Validating & Editing errors in MARC
record files. The suggested workflow
describes how library staff can view
and correct a particular error that
occurs multiple times within a batch
of records, without having to look
at each record individually.
Spydus was on display in Adelaide,
South Australia earlier this month
at the Australian School Library
Association (ASLA) XX Biennial
Conference.
The conference theme was ‘Hearts on
fire – sharing the passion’ and was
organised around three strands:
Literature, Learning and Literacies
and was supported by a strong line
up of guest and keynote speakers.
ALIA Top End Symposium,
Darwin
Spydus was also a Platinum Sponsor
at ALIA’s Top End Symposium in
Darwin in early October with the
theme of "e-volving education". This
theme focused on the changing ways
in which the library and information
industry promotes learning and the
evolution of how the library
industry maintains its own
"education" in ensuring that its
professionals stay on top of
information trends.
To
encourage interaction between the
various teams working on the Spydus
product at Civica, team building
exercises are hosted by an appointed
staff member 2-3 times per month.
Events have ranged from board games,
soccer, making stress balls, hang
man, quiz’s and cookery to name but
a few.
Paul, Johnathan and Jimmy
are pictured here working together
as they make 'chocolate rum balls'
after being supplied with a recipe
and the necessary ingredients. The
teams task was to determine what
quantities of ingredients were
needed to create a suitable number
of rum balls that not only tasted
good but also looked good!
The Team building sessions provide
the staff with an opportunity to
meet and build relationships outside
of the scope of the day to day job.
The sessions are not designed to be
competitive, however it’s
interesting to see people’s
personalities grow and change during
these fun and creative events.
Maroochy
Libraries on the Queensland Sunshine
coast fell victim to flooding
recently as the parts of the state
were hit by high winds and rain.
Being battlers through and through
the librarians at the local library
took it all in their stride however
were surprised to discover that
after the wind and rain had abated
that living in a cavity of a damaged
window section of the library
offices was a water dragon!
Clare Fry the Systems Librarian said
‘We are in the process of upgrading
to Spydus 8.3.2 and very pleased
that the storms and water damage are
behind us. My desk is only 1.5
metres from the window where our new
water dragon friend has decided to
make its home!’
To ensure that you have access
to our Help Desk 'Support Services'
please follow the link
http://www.spydus.civica.com.au
and update your ‘browsers
favourites' for future use.
Should you experience any
difficulties accessing the Help desk
via the new website please contact
the helpdesk via telephone on +61 3
8676 4415.
We
look forward to seeing you at the
2007 SPUN conference being held in
Canberra from Wednesday 31 October
to Friday 02 November 2007 at Rydges
Lakeside, Canberra.
To find out last minute
information about the conference
please visit the
SPUN website
or if you have specific questions
please contact
Kate Nalder directly.
Recently
joining Spydus in our Melbourne
office is Nigel Wing. As the new
Product Manager, Nigel is looking
after the Australian Help Desk,
Quality Assurance, Documentation and
the Planning and Scheduling for
software releases. Nigel has
previously worked for public sector
software product companies and
system integration companies in
senior roles.
Corbit Harrison (USA)
Corbit
Harrison has joined the Spydus team
as a Business Development Manager
based in our Ohio, North America
office. With over a decade of sales,
business development and management
experience, Corbit has served in
various capacities with HarvestINFO
Inc., Gannett Media Technologies
International and ATX Communications
where his primary focus has been in
software and ecommerce solutions. In
his free time, Corbit enjoys golfing
and spending time with his family.
Joe Keller (USA)
Joe
Keller has also joined the Spydus
team as a Business Development
Manager based in our Ohio office.
Joe has three sons and they keep him
very busy with coaching and watching
their sports. Joe also enjoys a
round of golf and spending time with
his family.
This month in the Spydus
Newsletter we are
delighted to bring you
an article on the
South Australian
Regional Libraries
Consortium and
we are pleased to
welcome two new Spydus
libraries Kangaroo
Island Public Library
and Renmark Paringa
Public Library. Together
with District Council of
Mallala public library
the trio will enjoy the
benefits of a managed
service using a shared
database.
Mid-Western Regional
Libary Service in NSW
are this months
nominees for the
November
Customer Service
Innovation Award
for their Audio
Navigator for
customers suffering from
Macular Degeneration.
November's Site
of the Month is
Timaru District
Libraries in
the South Island of New
Zealand.
Two great new
Spydus
8.4.x Release
features are profiled
this month
Renewal Type & Forgotten
PIN ....make
sure you check out how
these features can save
time for your staff and
customers.
And finally, don’t
forget to read the November
Hot Tip, which
outlines how you can
catalogue your DVDs &
CDs so that the Syndetic
Enriched Content
features will display in
the OPAC.
Remember, to access the
PDF document of the
Spydus Newsletter simply
click on the link above
or go directly to our
website.
Please send your
suggestions and ideas
for newsletter articles
to Matthew Hunter. You
can email Matthew at
mhunter@civica.com.au
or call him on + 61 3
8676 4400.
Three South Australian
public libraries have
signed up for Civica’s
SA Regional Libraries
Consortium, to enjoy the
benefits of a managed
service using a shared
database based on the
Spydus software.
The newly created
District Council of
Mallala Library Service
went live with the new
service in May, while
Kangaroo Island Public
Library is scheduled to
start in December,
followed by Renmark
Paringa Public Library
in early 2008.
“The new consortium
gives us the benefits of
a managed service and
has saved us significant
infrastructure costs,”
says Kimberley Hargrave,
Library Manager at Two
Wells. “It’s such a
relief to know that
backups and software
upgrades are done for
us, and there has been
an enormous decrease in
our workload."
Sharon Gullickson,
Library Manager at
Kangaroo Island Public
Library believes the
consortium represents
excellent value and
offers everything they
sought in a regional
library service,
including support which
was critical.
“There will be benefits
in allowing people to
reserve items for the
first time, and we have
no OPAC at present. It
will be like going from
a push-bike to a racing
car, delivering
tremendous gains in
cataloguing efficiency
and service provision,”
said Sharon. “Being able
to do everything from
one screen will be of
tremendous importance.”
Library Manager at
Renmark Paringa, Maxine
Hodgson wanted a managed
service to address their
lack of IT
resources. “We are just
glad that we can focus
on providing the
services that people
expect, such as online
catalogue borrowing,
reservations, etc,” she
said.
Read
more
about Civica's South
Australian Managed
Services Consortium.
Mid-Western Regional
Council Library Service
NSW Audio Navigator
In September 2007
Mid–Western Regional
Council Library was
successful in receiving
a grant from the Macular
Degeneration Foundation
to provide portable
hand-held Audio-Read
Navigators for nominated
library clients
suffering from the eye
disease, as part of the
Foundation’s Navigator
Library Access Project (NLAP).
Macular Degeneration
(MD) is the name given
to a group of
degenerative diseases of
the retina that cause
progressive, painless
loss of central vision,
affecting the ability to
see fine detail, drive,
read and recognise
faces.
The Audio-Read Navigator
is a hand-held, portable
device with powerful
navigational functions,
developed by Australian
company Audio-Read,
which reads books,
magazines and newspapers
out loud. The range of
books, magazines and
newspapers available for
the Navigator device
changes every few
months, providing vision
impaired residents with
a wider selection of
material.
The catalogue of titles
is maintained at the
library and books are
downloaded to each audio
navigator. The catalogue
is stored on a USB hard
drive commonly called
‘library in a box or
digital audio book
vault’ which is a large
storage device holding
approx. 1,000 titles.
Depending on the size of
books, library clients
generally download 4 - 5
books of their choice.
Pictured is Edwina
Matheson-Gaylord signing
up a library member and
explaining the benefits
and features of the
Audio Navigator.
"Up until now, vision
impaired Australians
have only had access to
cassette-style talking
books or CD libraries,"
said Eilagh Rurenga,
Library Service
Co-ordinator at the
Mudgee Library.
"Initially there was
some concern about the
impact on staff’s time
on the circulation desk
to download the various
books, however staff
have adapted well and
the clients using the
Audio navigators love
them!"
"It has been a real
community project with
ladies from the local
CWA (Country Women’s
Association) purchasing
and providing protective
pouches that the audio
navigators can be
carried and stored
safely in," said Eilagh.
There is no cost to the
nominated library
client, as Mid-Western
Region Council library
currently pays the
content copyright cost
for each unit ($100) per
annum and there is a
site licence cost
($1,000) usually covered
by the library.
Library clients using
the technology range
from elderly people
through to a 16 year
old, about to commence
Year 11. Mid–Western
Regional Council Library
hope to be able to
expand their services to
the visually impaired in
the future offering
services to more library
clients.
For more information
about the Audio
Navigators please
contact
Eilagh Rurenga at
Mid Western Regional
Council Library.
Don't forget if
you would like to vote
for Mid Western's 'Audio
Navigator' innovation
simply click on the
'Vote Here' button
below. Thank you.
How to submit a
Customer Service
Innovation profile?
Ever wanted to submit a
Customer innovation
Profile!
If your library service
has introduced an
interesting customer
service innovation
please don’t be shy, let
us know. We are very
happy to help you so
that your library team
can be in the running to
win a great prize.
Please email
mhunter@civica.com.au
for assistance in
writing your profile.
Timaru District
Libraries is located in
Timaru in New Zealand’s
South island. Sitting at
the doorstep of many
inland lakes, sailing,
water skiing, boating,
windsurfing and fishing
are popular summer
pastimes. Many tourists
visit the city en route
to Lake Tekapo, Mt Cook
and Queenstown where the
central south island ski
fields are located, less
than two hours' drive
from the coast.
The landscape of the
region consists of
rolling hills created
from the lava flows of
the extinct Mt Horrible
volcano, which last
erupted many thousands
of years ago. The result
is that most of the main
streets are undulating,
a clear contrast with
the flat landscape of
the Canterbury plains to
the north.
Timaru District
Libraries have branches
in Geraldine and Temuka
and earlier in the year
they started a book club
and discovered the first
one was so popular that
they now have two clubs
running and are taking
expressions of interest
for a third! To ensure
that their customers are
kept up to date with the
latest new books and
services a quarterly
library newsletter is
published on the library
website and is available
for download.
Timaru recently upgraded
to Spydus 8 and are
enjoying the additional
functionality this
version is offering
their customers,
especially the library
OPAC. They have embraced
their new OPAC and made
it their own by
customising it to better
meet the needs of its
varied community.
Features include photos,
links to the council &
library website, a kid’s
catalogue, additional
text reminding its
customers to log in for
member services and a
special ‘contact us’
button that links to a
customised web form.
The kids are not
forgotten at Timaru
District Libraries with
their own web page and
links to their own photo
page, a link to a
homework website
a collection of optical
illusions, book news and
other fun stuff!
Don’t forget to check
out the new YA (Teenage)
webpage with book
reviews, links to music,
links to help with those
dreaded assignments and
other groovy stuff!
Renewal Type & Forgotten
PIN OPAC
In the Spydus 8.4.x
Release there is a new
option to the loan
renewal screen allowing
your Library staff to
choose the type of
renewal from a drop down
box e.g. the renewal was
undertaken in person, by
phone or online.
This information stays
within the history of
the loan record and
assists your staff when
they need to clarify
when and how an item was
renewed. This is
particularly beneficial
in assisting the Library
Service in analysing how
the library is being
accessed by the patron
and their preferred mode
of contact with the
library.
Forgotten PIN
Another convenient new
feature has been added
to the Spydus OPAC
allowing library
borrower’s who have
forgotten their PIN to
retrieve it via email,
providing the library
patron with greater
autonomy. Library
borrowers must have a
current email address so
that their PIN can be
sent to them.
Customers running
Spydus Clients 8.2.15 or
less should upgrade to
8.2.17a, whilst those on
Spydus Clients 8.2.16
should upgrade to
8.2.18a.
Current
Client Version..
Upgrade
Version..
8.2.15
or less
Upgrade to
8.2.17a
8.2.16
Upgrade
to 8.2.18a
If you have forgotten
your login details or
require the latest
password please contact
the Help Desk on (03)
8676 4415.
To ensure you are
advised of Spydus Client
Releases as they become
available you can
subscribe to the Spydus
Client Release Database.
Simply email
Matthew Hunter your
name, email address and
the name of your
organisation.
Please include in the
subject heading the
title ‘Subscribe to
Spydus Client Release
Database’
Congratulations to staff
at Maroochy Shire
Libraries in Queensland
who recently completed
their successful upgrade
to Spydus 8.3.2
.....visit their
catalogue.
Customers on Spydus
server version 8.3.2 or
8.3.2 + now have the
option to purchase extra
Enriched Content
elements for Video/DVD &
Music holdings.
Syndetic solutions
currently have covers,
summaries and track
listings for over
760,000 VHS/DVD & CDs on
their system with more
listings being added
each week. The video
category represents not
only popular new
releases and DVDs, but
also educational videos,
documentaries, and
how-to films. The
paragraph-length
annotations provided for
videos identify the cast
members and directors. A
great new feature for
all those movie buff’s.
This month’s Hot Tip
tells you how to
catalogue your Video/DVD
and music holdings so
that the enriched
content will display
correctly in the library
OPAC.
West Berkshire
Library Service (part of
the South Eastern
Library Management
System (SELMS) Consortia
in England) has a star
Spydus Librarian in
their midst. Helen
Dahlke, who works at the
Newbury Library branch
as a reader development
librarian was a
successful contestant in
the ‘Love Libraries’ Top
Ten New Librarians
competition.
Ms Dahike, won the award
for her innovative use
of Spydus, which
resulted in savings of
staff time and also for
her work with book
groups.
The SELMS Consortia
currently has 3 of its 6
libraries live on Spydus
with Brighton & Hove
currently preparing for
their ‘go-lives’ with
remaining libraries at
Milton Keynes and
Buckinghamshire planning
to move to Spydus at the
end of this year.
SELMS Consortia have
annual loans of 10 ¾
million per year spread
across their libraries:
Wokingham
1 million
West
Berkshire
1.75 million
Windsor & Maidenhead 1
million
Brighton &
Hove 1.5
million
Milton
Keynes 1.5
million
Buckinghamshire
4 million
Read more about Helen
Dahlke's achievement at
the
Newbury today
website.
West Berkshire
Library Catalogue
link
West Berkshire Council
website
The Annual SPUN
conference was held in
Canberra recently with
excellent attendance
over the 3 day
conference. Chris
Thewlis from Civica
provided a demonstration
on the many exciting new
features available in
future releases of the
Spydus solution
including workflow
manager, a new look OPAC
and Faceted Searching.
Civica’s management team
was also on hand to
answer various questions
from attendees relating
to the Spydus LMS and to
discuss the company’s
future direction.
Conference silver
sponsor, Mark Anderson
from Adilam
Technologies also
delivered a presentation
on the Alien RFID
technology and the
future application of
RFID within modern
libraries.
Spydus Libraries
attending the conference
gave the following
presentations:
•
Web 2.0 Technology and
Library Training
presentation by
Karyn Siegmann from
Bayside Library
Service in Victoria
•
Youth & Libraries
presentation by Sylvia
Marshall & Andie Josey from
Dalby Library in
Queensland
•
Spydus RFID
presentation by Daniel
Brinkworth from Victor
Harbor in South
Australia
•
Checkpoint RFID &
Envisionware
integration with
Spydus presentation by
Neoli Blakeman & Andrew
Main from Wollongong
City Library in New
South Wales
•
Spydus Extended Bookings
presentation by
Vernon Lee from Wanneroo
Library in Western
Australia
•
Library Hotspots –
going wireless
presented by a panel
from Blacktown,
Frankston & Noosa
Libraries
•
PC lockdown freeware
solutions
presentation by
Brain Searles from the
Frankston Library
Service in Victoria
Papers and presentations
from the Canberra
conference will be
available for viewing by
members on the SPUN
website
in the near
future. The conference
provided a great forum
for library staff from
all over Australia and
New Zealand to network
and share information
with their colleagues
and Civica staff.
We look forward to
seeing you all next year
in Adelaide, South
Australia for the 2008
SPUN Annual
Conference...keep an eye
out for dates which will
be confirmed in the New
Year.
The SPUN AGM was held at
the Annual Conference
in Canberra and a new
executive committee has
been elected as follows:
• President - Dale
Cousens
• Secretary - Phill Webb
• Treasurer - Brian
Searles
Louise Pitcher will
continue as the SPUN-Listserve
administrator and Enzo
Accadia will continue as
the SPUN website
administrator.
As the incoming
president I would like
to take this opportunity
to thank Enzo, Robyn,
Kate and Louise for all
their hard work and
dedication and for
making the recent Annual
Conference the great
success that it was.
Kate
Woodforde Kate Woodforde
has recently joined the
Spydus help desk team.
Kate is a library
technician and has
worked in the library
and information services
area for the past 12
years. Kate's last role
was at OCLC PICA as a
support consultant
working with VDX and
ZPORTAL. Kate enjoys
traveling, having
recently returned from
her wedding in Thailand.
Meredith
Coffey
Joining the
training/consulting team
is Meredith Coffey.
Meredith joins us from
Monash Public Library
service where she has
worked since 2003,
firstly as a reference
librarian then as Team
Leader and Corporate
Librarian at the Glen
Waverley branch. Prior
to this she was a
network administrator
and library manager for
a large primary school
in East Bentleigh.
Meredith’s interests
include gardening, roses
in particular, her three
children and socialising
at every opportunity,
not necessarily in that
order! Meredith also
loves a good or even a
not so good joke!
The Great Endeavour
Rally is a major off
road annual fundraising
venture for the
Endeavour Foundation
which is a Queensland
based, non-Government,
organisation supporting
and providing
opportunities for people
with disabilities. In
excess of $3 million has
been raised for the
Endeavour Foundation
since the rally began.
In July 2007, in
celebration of the 20th
Anniversary of the Great
Endeavour Rally entrants
were taken on a whirl
wind journey from
Toowoomba to Kooralbyn
via the Bedourie Camel
Races. Amongst them was
library technician
Nicole Kilah from Gatton
Shire Library who was
competing in the charity
event for the fourth
time.
For further information
visit the
great endeavour
website.
to
reduce t
sort
of magic has arrived at the Caboolture Railway Station, in the form
of Library Express! Library Express is a ‘library rail stop’
operating at the Caboolture Railway Station in Queensland every
Tuesday morning from 5.30 am to 8.30 am allowing library customers
the opportunity to borrow and return books whilst commuting to and
from work. 
We
are very excited to announce that Civica’s first Spydus
implementation in the UK was successfully launched at Wokingham
Borough Council last week. Indeed Wokingham was so enthusiastic
about using the system that one branch went live ahead of the
official launch day. 
whose followers farmed much of the land in this area, notably also
Wokefield. The courts of Windsor Forest were held at Wokingham
and the town has remained a small market town all its life from
1219. From the 14th to the 16th centuries, it was well known
for its bell foundry which supplied many churches across the south
of England. Brickworks were once active southwest of the town,
but engineering and software development coupled with the service
industry are the main local economic activities today. 
We
welcome Amanda Norton to
the Spydus team in a
Training Consultant
role. Amanda originally
started her career as a
primary school teacher
where she taught in
Bendigo and Melbourne
for 5 years. Amanda has
since commenced her
Graduate Diploma in
Information and
Knowledge Management
where she has completed
half of the post
graduate degree and her
interests include
swimming, reading,
spending time with
friends and family and
gardening.
We
also welcome Fiona
Downie to the team as a
Training
Consultant.Fiona has
worked at the State
Library of Victoria in
Document Supply and at
Eastern Regional
Libraries as
Interlibrary Loans
Officer. Fiona is
currently studying by
distance to become an
‘official’ librarian
through Charles Sturt
University and her
interests include
running/walking and
swimming, watching
movies, shopping and
facials.
We
are delighted to announce that our
latest New South Wales customer to
embrace Spydus, Liverpool City
Library, in Sydney has gone live on
version 8.3.2 on Monday 15 October.
To
encourage interaction between the
various teams working on the Spydus
product at Civica, team building
exercises are hosted by an appointed
staff member 2-3 times per month.
Events have ranged from board games,
soccer, making stress balls, hang
man, quiz’s and cookery to name but
a few.
Maroochy
Libraries on the Queensland Sunshine
coast fell victim to flooding
recently as the parts of the state
were hit by high winds and rain.
Recently
joining Spydus in our Melbourne
office is Nigel Wing. As the new
Product Manager, Nigel is looking
after the Australian Help Desk,
Quality Assurance, Documentation and
the Planning and Scheduling for
software releases. Nigel has
previously worked for public sector
software product companies and
system integration companies in
senior roles.
Corbit
Harrison has joined the Spydus team
as a Business Development Manager
based in our Ohio, North America
office. With over a decade of sales,
business development and management
experience, Corbit has served in
various capacities with HarvestINFO
Inc., Gannett Media Technologies
International and ATX Communications
where his primary focus has been in
software and ecommerce solutions. In
his free time, Corbit enjoys golfing
and spending time with his family.
Joe
Keller has also joined the Spydus
team as a Business Development
Manager based in our Ohio office.
Joe has three sons and they keep him
very busy with coaching and watching
their sports. Joe also enjoys a
round of golf and spending time with
his family. 
Kate
Woodforde
Meredith
Coffey