Spydus 8 – Family Linking

Spydus 8 offers library staff  the convenience of Family Linking, which provides access to family members’ registration details without having to wand in the member’s barcode.

All the family members that are linked to a registration can be found under the Family Groups tab in the Borrower Registration details.

To access a family member’s Borrower Registration details from this screen, staff would simply double-click on the appropriate barcode/children line. This is a really quick and easy way to access the Borrower Registration details if changes are required for just one of the family members.   Should staff need to access a sibling’s registration details, they would select the Family Groups tab again and double-click on the appropriate barcode/siblings line.   Hot Tip # 17 – Saved Lists SavedLists in Spydus 8 can be used in a number of ways, for example, bulk copy deletion or for compiling bibliographies. They can also be used for adding Line Items (Orders) to an Order list in the Acquisitions module, even if the Line Items belong to different Purchase Orders. 1. Perform an Order Search and add your results to a SavedList 2. View your SavedList, select the Orders you want to add to your Order List and choose OK Or have you thought about using Saved Lists for reporting? Did you know that through Staff Enquiry you can create lists of borrowers as well as lists of bibliographic items? You can then export your SavedList to Microsoft Excel to create spreadsheets and charts. Spydus launched in the UK Civica launched Spydus into the UK Library market in July, with Chris Thewlis attending the CILIP Umbrella Conference in Manchester. Attended by more than 800 delegates the conference was a great vehicle to begin the Spydus UK launch campaign. Chris Thewlis has temporarily re-located to our UK offices together with Julie McKay and will spend the next six months focussed on developing Spydus opportunities in the UK market. We expect to see continued growth in the global library market for Spydus, with significant opportunities arising in both the UK and Asian markets. Spydus People News This month we farewell Rose Hayes, Account Manager to our Spydus customers in Victoria, South Australia, the ACT and the US. Rose is re-locating to Singapore with her new husband and whilst she will be missed by her friends and colleagues we wish her the very best. We are delighted to advise that Holley Dumble has been appointed to the role of Account Manager. Holley joined the training and implementation team 19 months ago and is now looking forward to the challenges that her new role will offer. New Staff We are very pleased to welcome the following people to the Spydus team: Derek Moo has joined our development team and brings an in-depth knowledge of enterprise level systems software. Derek is an American with a great sense of adventure having studied in both the UK and Japan and working in Scotland prior to re-locating to Melbourne. Derek has three great passions: his wife, his two children and chocolate. Martin Zeng has also joined our development team as a graduate software programmer specialising in C++. Martin loves alternative music and keeps himself fit with a form of Chinese martial arts called Wushu. This month we congratulated Martin as he graduated from Melbourne University and was awarded an honours degree in Computer Science. Paul Johanson has joined our development team and will be focused on the Spydus RFID solution. Paul has previously worked in the Defence Science and Technology industry, however he has personal experience of the library world with both of his parents being Librarians. Paul’s father was a Lecturer in Library and Information Management and no less than 5 of the Spydus team have been taught by him. Paul loves pub rock music, keeping fit, and is the President of a Toast Masters Club. Susan Bentley joined the Spydus training and implementation team in August and brings 10 years of experience working in Public and School Libraries to her new role at Civica. Susan’s career started as an Industrial Designer, however she soon moved to the world of libraries. Susan loves to keep fit by cycling whenever she can. <Back to Top>

Spydus Newsletter September 2005

Welcome

Welcome to the September issue of the Spydus Newsletter! An extremely busy time of the year for Civica as we come to the close of our financial year and there is certainly plenty happening in the marketplace!

Moreland City Libraries in Melbourne went live last month and staff are now enjoying the benefits of their new software under a complete Managed Service solution. Mandurah Library in Western Australia recently went live with Spydus 8 and this month held their official launch party where staff celebrated with a symbolic “cutting of the blue cable” ceremony!

Product news this month includes articles on new features within Spydus 8 Family Linking and our Hot Tip # 18 focuses on the process for changing from USMARC to MARC21 cataloguing.

We have two Sites of the Month for September as we look at Hastings District Council and Napier City Council, the first of our New Zealand customers to implement Spydus 8!

Suggestions and ideas for Spydus News are always welcome, please contact your Account Manager.

Moreland City Libraries Live on Spydus Managed Service and Spydus 6.5.3

Congratulations to all the staff at Moreland City Libraries in Melbourne’s northern suburbs on a successful go live with Spydus 6.5.3 on Managed Services on August 3. Moreland Libraries provide library services across five service points located at Brunswick, West Brunswick, Coburg, Fawkner and Glenroy.

The Spydus Managed Service is an important move for Moreland City Libraries and will enable staff to focus their resources entirely on providing a more efficient and timely library service to their patrons. Their Managed Service solution includes: full application hosting services, Spydus client desktop maintenance and management, extended scope application support (Spydus parameter maintenance), regular software upgrades and management of the communications link to the Moreland Council network.

Moreland’s Managed Service agreement also includes client desktop support and this task was carried out by three of Civica’s Technical Services staff in the final phase of the 6.5.3 go live and included installing the Spydus client software to a total of 60 PCs across the 5 Moreland service points.

Visit Moreland City Libraries website at: http://moreland.spydus.com/

City of Mandurah Spydus Launch

The City of Mandurah located an hour south of Perth, Western Australia, held the official launch of their new Spydus system and Community Directory on September 21 at Mandurah Library.

The launch of the new services marks two key milestones in Council’s ability to deliver efficient community access to information.

A demonstration of the new functionality offered by the Spydus Library Catalogue and the Community Directory was provided to staff and patrons. Councillor Brian Joynes then officiated over the symbolic “cutting of the blue cable”, which linked the libraries old green terminal and the new thin screen, which staff will use to access the new systems.

 Alasdair Wardle, Libraries and Learning Coordinator
and Councillor Brian Joynes prepare to “cut the blue cable”.

Upgrades to Spydus 8

Congratulations to Coffs Harbour City Library in NSW and Beaudesert Shire Library in Queensland on successfully upgrading to Spydus 8! Check out their new Spydus 8 Library Catalogues at the following addresses:

http://library.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/

http://www.bsc.qld.gov.au/council_services/libraries/

Sites of the month: Hastings District Council and Napier City Council, New Zealand

Hastings District Council and Napier City Councils are located on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.  Offering a Mediterranean-style climate, the region is very famous for the Hawke’s Bay wineries.

Napier boasts a variety of buildings in the architectural styles of the 1930s - Stripped Classical, Spanish Mission, and above all Art Deco, the style of the 20th Century. Napier's Art Deco is unique, with Maori motifs and the buildings of Louis Hay, admirer of the great Frank Lloyd Wright.

Renowned world-wide as New Zealand's Art Deco City, Napier Public Libraries is striving to have the best Art Deco Collection of resource material in the Southern Hemisphere.

The libraries’ comprehensive Art Deco Collection was originally launched at the Napier City Library in 2002 and includes both domestic and international Art Deco resources.

The ceramic works of the world famous Clarice Cliff are recorded in full colour in twelve different books about her life and works in the collection along with other international books on the Art Deco period like Essential Art Deco and Screen Deco: A Celebration of High Style in Hollywood. Each item in the Art Deco Collection has the DECO logo on the spine for easy identification.

The library has plans to reshape and enhance the area in which the collection is displayed and include Art Deco style furniture and accessories with a view to making it an even more inviting place to visit.

In 1931 an Earthquake devastated the city of Hastings and a stunning new townscape in the major styles popular in the early 1930's - Stripped Classical and Art Deco, was created to complement the surviving Spanish Mission architecture. The Hawke's Bay Opera House (formerly the Hastings Municipal Theatre) is an example of Spanish Mission Architecture and is currently being redeveloped as a major landmark of the city.

Hawke’s Bay Opera House Re-development

Napier Public Libraries and Hastings District Libraries recently went live with Spydus 8 becoming the first of our New Zealand libraries to migrate to the new software. Hastings District Libraries has 3 branches located at Hastings Central, Flaxmere and Havelock North and Napier Public Libraries has 2 branches, the Central Napier Public Library and a branch at Taradale.

Visit their websites today at:

http://www.hastingsdc.govt.nz/libraries/index.htm#CatalogueNew

http://www.library.napier.govt.nz/

Spydus 8 – Family Linking – New Feature

Soon to be released within Spydus 8 Family Linking is the ability to nominate who library notices should be sent to. So for a child borrower, who is linked to a parent, a check box to “Send Notices to Parent” may be activated by library staff.

Alternatively if you wish to continue to use the Guarantor details, in the Guarantor’s tab, you are able to nominate if you wish to send notices via email to either the Borrower’s address, or the Guarantor’s address.

In addition the Guarantor’s tab in the borrower registration details has been enhanced to include additional contact information, such as: address line 3, mobile number, email address and fax number.

Hot Tip # 18 – Changing from USMARC to MARC21 cataloguing

To change from USMARC to MARC21 it's simply a case of registering the M21Svr.dll rather than the UsmSvr.dll. You'll find these dll's in the folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Spydus8.

To register the M21Svr.dll:

1. On the Windows Start menu, click Run.

2. In the Open box type regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Spydus8\M21Svr.dll".

3. Click OK.

That's all there is to it.

To go back to using the USMARC dll, just re-register the UsmSvr.dll:

1. On the Windows Start menu, click Run.

2. In the Open box type regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Spydus8\UsmSvr.dll".

3. Click OK.

There are a couple of things to remember.

Register the dll you want before you start the Cat Client.

You can only have one of these dll's registered on one PC at any one time, either M21Svr.dll or UsmSvr.dll.

Tip: Here's a good tip to save you having to type regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Spydus8\M21Svr.dll". First use Windows Explorer to browse to the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Spydus8 folder, and locate the dll. Then click Run on the Windows Start menu, type regsvr32, and drag and drop the M21Svr.dll into the Open box.

Spydus on display at LIANZA

Civica was delighted to sponsor the LIANZA Conference in Christchurch this month and Robyn Wright and Ruza Obradovic were kept busy catching up with customers and demonstrating Spydus. Thanks to everyone that stopped by the stand and our congratulations go to Jo Orange from the Ministry of Education in Wellington. Jo was the lucky winner of our Lucky Draw Prize of an Apple mini i-Pod.

Spydus People News

This month we welcome Wendy Heale to the Spydus Training and Consulting team.

Wendy has more than 20 years library experience and has been a Spydus customer for many years formally working at Glenelg Regional Library. Wendy has found the move from the country to the city very interesting and exciting and prior to joining the Civica team enjoyed a 5 week holiday visiting the UK, Belgium, Paris and Norway. 

SPUN Conference 

Don’t forget October 19 to 21 is the SPUN Conference in Noosa, Queensland and we look forward to seeing everyone there!

Each year Civica provides sponsorship for one delegate outside of Australia to attend the conference and we are delighted to announce that Campbell Scot from Napier Public Library in New Zealand won the lucky draw and will be joining us in Noosa.

Civica’s Melbourne office is moving!

After nearly 13 years in the Melbourne suburb of Collingwood, we are relocating to the City centre. From Monday October 24 our new contact details will be:

Level 5/565 Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia

Phone: +61 3 8676 4400

Fax: +61 3 8676 4444

Stay tuned for further details in next month’s issue!

Spydus Newsletter October 2005

Welcome to the October issue of the Spydus Newsletter, the first issue to be published from our brand new premises in the Melbourne CBD!

Interest in the Spydus Managed Service continues to grow across all sectors of the library market and in this issue we have Managed Service articles on Penleigh Essendon Grammar (a school library), Bayside Library Service (a public library) and Australia Post (a special library). Plenty of product news this month as well, with an article on how to select an item for another bibliographic record in Cataloguing and a detailed description of the steps required to duplicate LIVE environment to TEST environment.

In earlier issues we announced the launch of Spydus into the UK market. Recent reports out of the UK suggest that their library industry faces a few challenges over the next three years and early feedback on the Spydus system and Managed Service as a means of addressing those challenges has been very positive.

The annual SPUN conference was held this month and was again a very successful and well-attended event. If you missed the conference, don’t miss the presentations, which are now available from the SPUN website.

The Spydus team continues to grow across all areas of our business and this month we introduce and welcome four new Spydus team members, all based in our Melbourne office.

Suggestions and ideas for Spydus News are always welcome, please contact your Account Manager.

Two more Victorian libraries join the growing list of Civica’s Spydus Managed Service customers….

Penleigh & Essendon Grammar School (PEGS) Library in Melbourne went live at the end of September becoming the second of our secondary college libraries to choose Civica’s Schools Consortia model within a Managed Service environment.

According to Michael Jongen, Head of Library Services at PEGS, the new system will provide a number of advantages.

“One of the advantages of moving to the consortia solution is that we now have access to key modules like Acquisitions and Serials, which would have otherwise have cost thousands of dollars to obtain the licences. This means we can modernise our ordering processes and reduce the paper trail and duplication that is part of the present process.   Using an automated acquisitions package will mean that from the moment a request is made for a title the order can be tracked on the catalogue.”

"The Managed Service also enables better financial house-keeping, especially in estimating our committed funds.”

Under the Managed Service model many processes previously done by PEGS Library and IT staff will now be performed by Civica staff.

Michael commented that the changeover process was relatively painless due to the combined efforts of the PEGS IT department and Systems librarian. 

http://www.pegs.vic.edu.au/PEGSLibrary/ 

….and Bayside Library Service went live with the Spydus Managed Service on Monday October 3. Located 15 minutes south of the Melbourne CBD, Bayside is a long standing Civica customer and has been using the Spydus Library Management System since 1990.  Bayside provides library services to 4 service points across the Beumauris, Sandringham, Hampton and Brighton areas.

 Visit their website at http://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/library.htm

Australia Post signs for Spydus Managed Service

Australia Post has announced they will implement the Spydus Managed Service becoming the first ‘Special Library’ Managed Service.

Australia Post is a government-owned enterprise dedicated to providing accessible, reliable and affordable postal services for all Australians. The corporation currently employs 35,049 full-time and part-time staff, operates 4,477 postal outlets, serves 1.10 million customers in its outlets every business day and delivers mail to 9.68 million Australian addresses.

The Australia Post library is located in Melbourne and will be accessible via the Staff Intranet to the more than 35,000 staff working at postal outlets throughout Australia. The library catalogue includes a comprehensive range of policy and procedure documents, training materials such as videos, and historical and educational collections.

As a government-owned business enterprise, Australia Post has a comprehensive system of corporate governance practices in place. The tender process was particularly stringent and in-depth testing and analysis was completed to ensure Civica’s Managed Service met all of the criteria. Civica’s Spydus library management system now offers national access to three specialist government libraries: Australia Post; the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Department of Family and Community Services.

SPYDUS to meet UK Library Challenges

In the United Kingdom, local authorities are under increasing pressure to provide ‘comprehensive and efficient’ library services including year-on-year progress against public library service standards (including ICT provision) that require more opening hours and equal access for all.

At the same time, the number of visits to libraries in the UK is rising with an increase of 14 million in 2003/04 to 337 million in total, reinforcing the need for increased investment in public library buildings, book stock and new technology. In addition, recent surveys show that 59% of libraries in the UK are having difficulty filling vacancies and nearly a third of staff will retire in the next 10 years.

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) is the lead government agency for developing and delivering a national strategy for England's 3000 public libraries. Through “Framework for the Future”, its 2003-06 libraries improvement programme, £9 million of central government funding is already being invested in supporting reading and literacy initiatives in libraries; on improving leadership and management; and on a major recruitment campaign to attract a new generation of public library staff.

The MLA believes libraries face five major challenges over the next three years:

·         To extend opening hours, particularly at evenings and weekends

·         To diversify  both the library workforce and the services on offer

·         To sustain free internet access in all public libraries

·         To co-ordinate book procurement, reducing overheads and increasing the range of resources available to users

·         To establish a major investment programme to renovate and sustain public library buildings.

Civica has launched Spydus into the UK marketplace and initial interest in the software and the Managed Service delivery model has been very positive.

Phil Barr, Library Solutions General Manager at Civica explained, “With the increasing pressure on libraries to expand their range of services to a growing number of people, we believe the time is right to launch Spydus into the UK. It helps provide better and more efficient library services, whether the customer is a major urban library or a series of small or mobile branches and with the resourcing pinch beginning to be felt, the success of our managed services model is particularly relevant.” 

Site of the month: Thuringowa Library Service

Thuringowa City Council is one of the oldest local authorities in Queensland, celebrating its 125th birthday in 2004. Since its declaration in 1986, Thuringowa has experienced spectacular growth with the population more than doubling in the past twenty years to 56,000 and the area is currently one of the fastest growing in Northern Queensland.

In April this year, Thuringowa City Council’s library was officially named the best public library in Queensland being awarded the prestigious Queensland Public Libraries Association Public Library of the Year Award for 2005.

The award focuses on three key factors:

• Service to the community.

• Creativity and innovation in developing specific community programmes or a dramatic
  increase in library usage.

• Leadership in creating programmes that can be emulated by other libraries.

According to Thuringowa Mayor, Cr Les Tyrell the award was very much a team effort by the Library’s dedicated staff.

“They are a great group who have consistently demonstrated a willingness to embrace change and take on new challenges while always maintaining a focus on good customer service”, he said.

However, Cr Tyrell said it was the Library’s patrons who were the real winners.

“The Library has been asked by the Council to take a leadership role in the development of Thuringowa as a learning community,” Cr Tyrell said.

“The Library has consistently scored well in Council’s Customer Attitude Surveys and has been placed in the top four libraries in Queensland surveyed by the AEC group in terms of scores attained for customer service.”

In their commentary, the judges of the award said the library had been an innovative service from its very beginnings in the mid-80s and had been prepared to take a leadership role for north Queensland libraries.

Comments from the Judging panel included: “Given the demographic mix and the challenges presented by a 'scattered population' TLS have clearly demonstrated equity in their provision of services to the community. Of special note are the following: Commitment to the Indigenous community via the employment of a Indigenous Library Resources Officer; the range of targeted learning programs; partnerships/collaborations with the Smith Family, local schools, National Library etc; and innovations such as the web based InfoInstruction. It is also important to note TLS is looking a long way ahead by the development and implementation of its Strategic plan, 5 Year Plan and Marketing Plan and their alignment with Council's Corporate and Operational Plans.”

Thuringowa Library Service has been a Spdyus library customer since September 2003 and went live with Spydus 8 this month.  To find out more about Thuringowa Library Servicevisit their website at: http://library.thuringowa.qld.gov.au/

Spydus 8.2 Upgrades

Congratulations to Frankston Library Service in Victoria and Thuringowa Library in Far North Queensland on successfully upgrading to Spydus 8.2!  You can access their new Spydus 8 Library Catalogues at the following addresses:

http://www.frankston.vic.gov.au/library/spydus.html

http://library.thuringowa.qld.gov.au/

The following sites are also in the final stage of their Spydus 8 implementations.  Keep an eye out for their Spydus online catalogues in future newsletters.

Alfred Hospital Library (Vic)

MTRC (Hong Kong)

Camden Public Library (NSW)

North Western Library Service (NSW)

Spydus 8 - Selecting an item for another bibliographic record in Cataloguing

You can select an item for a different bibliographic record without having to close the Item Maintenance dialog first. Simply scan or type the accession number of the item you want in the box at the bottom of the left pane, and then press Enter.

You will be prompted whether you wish to save your changes. If you select the Auto save check box then any changes you’ve made will be automatically saved — you won’t be prompted.

Hot Tip # 19  - Steps to duplicate LIVE environment to TEST environment for Spydus 6.x

Note: In the documentation below it is assumed the LIVE environment is in D:\SPYDUS\SANLIB and the TEST environment is in D:\SPYDUS\SANTEST. The equivalent for Unix/Linux environments would be /spydus/sanlib for LIVE and /spydus/santest for TEST. The http server port number for the TEST environment is usually 8080, however this can vary. If unsure please check with the System Administrator or the Spydus Help Desk.

There are two options:

1. Database Refresh: programs, parameters and web are NOT duplicated from LIVE.
Note: the LIVE and TEST environments MUST be on the same Spydus version.

2. Full Refresh: data, programs, parameters and web are all duplicated from the LIVE environment.

Important: There must be no Unidata database activity whilst the files are being copied.

1. Database Refresh

In D:\SPYDUS\SANTEST replace SD & LIBD by deleting existing directories and then copying from D:\SPYDUS\SANLIB

This should be quite adequate for most circumstances.

2. Full Refresh

1. Delete all directories in D:\SPYDUS\SANTEST

2. Copy from D:\SPYDUS\SANLIB the following:

-          SL SP SS SD

-          LIBRUS AWAIRS30 LIBC LIBD

-          wwwroot

3. Log to D:\SPYDUS\SANTEST\SL

4.1 ED PARAMS VERSION

G1

A/ Training

FI

4.2 ED GM GN.MENU

L/M A I N

R/M A I N/TRAINING

FI

4.3 CM GN.MENU

4.4 ED WWW.PARAMS CONFIG

G16

In this field add http server port number for TEST environment to end of server IP Address or hostname. For example: 192.168.11.12:8080 or spydus.com.au:8080

FI

CONFIGWP

File = WWW.PARAMS

4.5 Repeat 4.4 for WWW.PARAMS.OPAC WWW.PARAMS.CI WWW.PARAMS.CAT WWW.PARAMS.ZPAC WWW.PARAMS.ZWEB

4.6 Update LINELOCS

·         Spydus Main Menu

·         System Supervisor

·         Circulation

·         Reference File Maintenance

·         Lines/Ports

·         A to Amend

·         use N for Next to get to screen 6

·         add :8080 to Field 1 Host Name

·         press <RETURN>

·         Y to file away

·         . to get back to sub menu

·         choose Compilation

·         Y to compile

4.7 ESEARCH HTDOCS

String = http://

We are looking for any URLs that may contain the Spydus servers IP address or hostname

The likely ones are spydus.html asklib.html cominfo.html

To each URL we need to add :8080 to keep the searches in the Spydus Training System.

The above steps ensure that the correct URL is set for the clients calling the browser, the character based system says it is "Training", and users don't access the "live" system when using the web OPAC.

SPUN 2005 Conference

Congratulations to the SPUN Organising Committee this year on a hugely successful conference held in Noosa, Queensland. All SPUN conference papers will be published on the Spydus User Network homepage at http://www.spun.asn.au/ , so remember to visit the web page and take a look!

Conference highlights!

·      Trevor Trotter presented a demonstration of Advanced Reporting in Spydus 8 and an advanced Acquisitions workshop, which included EDI, Order Loading and Claims and Reminders.

·      The conference dinner was held at Trio’s Restaurant overlooking Noosa River.  It was a very merry evening, with dancing finally making its debut at a SPUN conference!

·      Enzo Accadia from Coffs Harbour Public Library, Tom Grey from Darebin Public Library, and Anne Kingsun from Thuringowa Public Library, provided interesting and detailed descriptions of their recent migrations from Spydus 6 to 8.

·      Campbell Scott from Napier Public Libraries in New Zealand started his library profile with a traditional Maori welcome and thank you, which was just wonderful and preceded a very lively and interesting presentation, in which he also covered the libraries' migration to Spydus 8.

Spydus People News

Melody Ku has joined the Development Team as an Analyst/Programmer.  Melody is originally from Hong Kong and has been living in Australia for 6 years.  She has also recently graduated from Monash University where she studied for an Honours BA in Computer Science. Melody enjoys cooking and relaxing in her spare time.

Gurav Kapur has joined the Spydus Support Team where his main role will be undertaking tasks on the Spydus Helpdesk.  Gurav is an experienced Web Developer and IT Support Officer and he enjoys playing cricket and travelling to exotic destinations.

Sarah Cavanagh has joined the Spydus Training and Consulting team.  Sarah is currently undertaking a Masters Degree in Information Management Systems at Monash University and brings a range of skills to the team as her past employment includes working as the Information Services Librarian at Holmesglen TAFE Waverly Campus and also at the Department of State & Regional Development special library.  Her interests include travelling, having recently returning from a fantastic holiday in Thailand.

Nader Kidwani has joined the Spydus Development Team.  Nader brings a wide range of skills and specialist knowledge to the team.  Nader’s background is in molecular physics, where he worked as a Research Assistant at the Centre for Molecular Simulation at Swinburne University’s School of IT.  He has completed a Masters in Computer Science which he obtained at Swinburne and Victoria University and is in the process of undertaking a Masters of Physics at Melbourne University.  When Nader is not studying, he enjoys reading and playing chess.

…and last, but not least, we have moved!

Our new Melbourne office is located at:

Level 5/565 Bourke Street

Melbourne Vic 3000

Australia

Phone: +61 3 8676 4400

Fax: +61 3 8676 4444

Mark Aplin manning the Spydus Helpdesk – and what a view!

Spydus Newsletter November 2005

Welcome
Welcome to the November issue of the Spydus Newsletter. The year has again flown by at a rapid pace and is showing no sign of slowing down as we move into December and into the Festive Season! The Spydus team is seeing continued success with Managed Services with Maribyrnong the latest Library Service to go live and we have some excellent feedback on their experiences. Our implementation team are also working hard to deliver timely Spydus 8 upgrades for our customers including Albert Hospital Library in Melbourne and North Western Library Service in northern NSW. On the product development front we have two articles this month. Firstly the new cataloguing web forms, which are making librarians lives a lot easier and secondly an introduction to the features in the new Spydus Cash Management module. As always we bring you a Hot Tip and this month we focus on how to Create Tables within the Cataloguing Client. Our November Site of the Month is Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation and we have all the details of their latest expansion, which is providing the joint benefits of economies of scale and improved services to the community. Suggestions and ideas for Spydus News are always welcome, please contact your Account Manager. Maribyrnong Library Service Goes Live on Spydus Managed Service Maribyrnong Library Service in Melbourne’s western suburbs went live on the Spydus Managed Service on October 27 with a ‘smooth and painless’ implementation process.  A Spydus customer since 2002, the library serves a densely populated metropolitan area via four branches within the City of Maribyrnong - Footscray, Highpoint, West Footscray and Yarraville - as well as a home library service for elderly or disabled residents.  Lloyd Brady, Team Leader, Library Information and Technology Services made the following comments regarding their transition to the Managed Service. “The move to the Spydus Managed Service at the end of October was a smooth and painless process. The Civica team were a great help in resolving any outstanding issues that needed to be overcome in reconfiguring for the new setup. From a systems management point of view the service is a boon to us, as we have limited IT support capacity to host and manage such a large server and database in-house; and considering we were due for a new server the savings over time should be considerable.“ Lloyd also added: “We've been very impressed with the quick response times from the new server - renewing 20 items at once occurs in a flash. We're very much looking forward to our first upgrade to version 8 with the new service.” You can view Maribyrnong’s online catalogue at http://maribyrnong.spydus.com.
Spydus 8 Upgrades Congratulations to the Alfred Hospital Library in Melbourne and North Western Library Service in northern NSW on successfully upgrading to Spydus 8.2!  You can access the new North Western Spydus 8 Library Catalogue at the following address: http://nwls.spydus.com/ Stay tuned for further implementation news in the month of December.
NSW User Group The final NSW user group for 2005 was held at Blacktown City Council’s New Central Library.  You can found out more about the new library at www.blacktown.nsw.gov.au . The User Group discussed a range of topics including best practices for submitting and lobbing. Ruza provided a demonstration of the new Cash Management Module, and we also looked at the Spydus 8 version of the Newspaper Index module and the new cataloguing web forms. The NSW User Group has meetings scheduled for 2006 as follows: ·         March – Orange ·         July - Pymble Ladies College, Sydney ·         November – Ryde, Sydney
Site of the month: Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation Located in central Victoria, Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation (CHRLC) was established in April 1997 to provide library services to the City of Ballarat, Shire of Hepburn, Shire of Moorabool, Shire of Pyrenees, Ararat Rural City Council, Southern Grampians Shire and the Central Goldfields Shire.  The library service covers an area of 12,958 km and employs the equivalent of 32 full-time staff to serve a population of 156,310 and manage their collection of more than 270,000 items. Comprising twelve branches as illustrated, plus two mobile libraries, CHRLC has been a Spydus customer since 1986 and chose to migrate to the Spydus Managed Service in mid-2004.   This year has seen some exciting changes to the Corporation service with the addition of the Hamilton Library branch and Sebastopol College, Learning Resource Centre.  Previously a member of the Glenelg Regional Library Corporation, a restructure of the Corporation’s boundaries resulted in Hamilton Branch library being merged with CHRLC on July 1.  Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation now has responsibility for providing library and information services to the communities of Southern Grampians Shire. Not long after the Hamilton Library implementation was completed, scheduling commenced for work to proceed with the partnership of Sebastopol College and CHRLC.  According to Jenny Fink, Regional Youth Services Librarian, CHRLC seems to be ever expanding.   “Sebastopol Secondary College in Ballarat is now using the Spydus Library Management System through the Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation.  All data was converted from Softlink and special fields and parameters were added to suit the College requirements.  Staff and students at the Sebastopol College will now be able to not only search the College catalogue online, but also search the Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation catalogue and reserve items, which will be delivered to the College on a weekly basis.” Jenny believes CHRLC’s partnership with the College is a cost-effective way to share resources and expertise, while also improving services to the young adults in the region. “A new website has been developed for the Sebastopol College Learning Resource Centre that enables staff and students to view their own details, renew and reserve items using the Spydus software.  Staff and students are also able to use the one library card at both the College and Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation.”   To find out more about Central Highlands Regional Library Corporation visit their website at:  http://chrlc.spydus.com/
New Cataloguing Web Forms With the latest release of Spydus 8 we have created many more simplified worksheet entry forms, allowing you to catalogue with even greater ease.  The forms can also have default data in the fields where appropriate and links to authorities with the ability to add copy detail, simplifying cataloguing even further.
Spydus 8 – Cash Management Module The Spydus Cash Management module can be used as a standalone Cash Management solution or fully integrated with the Circulation module.  The library has the option to have a cash draw linked to each circulation PC or a number of PCs can all access a single cash draw.  The module features the ability to have standalone charges that are not linked to a borrower or charges that must be linked to Borrowers and a number of Cash Management reports are included with the module. For further information on the new Cash Management module please contact your Account Manager.
Hot Tip # 20  - Creating tables in Cataloging Client   In the Cataloguing Client you will be familiar with the standard tables available, like Country Codes, Geographic Area Codes and General Material Designation. However did you know that you can also create your own tables? In the example below you will see that we have created a Thesaurus table.                         The tables file resides in the following directory c:\Program Files\Spydus8\Cataloging and the file is called Tables.rgs.                           In order to create a new table, you can copy and paste an existing table.  The best table to copy and paste is the General Material Designator table, as that is a table in the form of a text file.  It is very important that the 3rd line exist as in the example below. val Title = s 'General Material Designator'                 val Path = s 'C:\Spydus8\Cat\Tables\GMD.txt'                 val Type = s 'TextOnly'   Please see the Thesaurus example below in the Tables.rgs file.  Please note that you also need to create a tables text file that the Tables.rgs file will call to display in the cataloguing client.  In the below example I have created a thesaurus.txt file, which resides in the following directory Spydus8\Cat\Tables. Please see example images below.                                               Please see the example thesaurus.txt below.                         To test your new table, open up the Cataloguing Client, select MARC from the menu bar, select tables from the drop down window, and then select the new table, in this example we select the Thesaurus table.
Public Libraries Australia Inaugural Conference - Albury Robyn Wright and Ruza Obradovic represented Civica at the PLA Inaugural Conference which was held in Albury on the border of Victoria and NSW from the 9-11 November.  It was great to see many of our customers stopping by the Civica stand and our congratulations to Duncan Furphy from Cockburn Public Library in Western Australia, the winner of the Civica Stand “Lucky Business Card Draw”.
Spydus People News
We are delighted to welcome Karen Scott to the Spydus Training and Consulting Team.  Karen has recently relocated from Adelaide where she was employed as a Microsoft Application Trainer.  Karen has a wide range of skills and experience in the Information Management industry including working as a Teacher Librarian and coordinating the implementation of a medical library for a General Practitioners organisation in Sydney.  In her spare time Karen enjoys travelling.  She has recently returned from journeys to the Philippines and Singapore and looks forward to spending time investigating the cultural diversities of Melbourne.