Spydus Newsletters 2006 Archive

July - December 2006

June 2006   Download PDF File

May 2006    Download PDF File

April 2006   Download PDF File

March 2006   Download PDF File

January-February 2006    Download PDF File

Spydus Newsletter January - February 2006

This month our product news has a reporting focus with an article on linking Crystal Reports via the Spydus Reporting Interface and don’t miss the dates for the special Advanced Reporting Workshop we’re running in Melbourne in March and April. We also have an update on the new interface for the AEGIS web based service request system, which provides a simplified way for customers to log and respond to SRs.

January was a very exciting and busy month for our Singapore team with the Ministry of Education (MOE) successfully going live with Phase One of their Spydus implementation project.

Phase One encompassed 69 schools, all using our Spydus Managed Service with full system hosting and management and our new Spydus Collection Services, which provide the schools with book selections, acquisitions, cataloguing and end processing. We also provided our new Spydus Manpower Services, which covers the recruitment and placement of library staff, for 53 of the MOE schools.

 

Civica’s Singapore Staff including Library Assistants now deployed to the 53 MOE Schools.

 

The Civica team had a three month lead-up to the Phase One Go-live and during that time they were hard at work analysing and converting 1.4 million bibliographic records; completing a full stock-take at each school library; recruiting 53 library assistants for redeployment to the schools; training staff in Spydus and general library procedures and practices; holding profiling meetings with each school to ascertain their collection needs and interests; installing client software at all 69 schools and finally manually inputting more than 38,000 cataloguing records.

Naturally, it was very exciting and rewarding for the team to see all the hard work that took place over the three previous months come to fruition.

Civica’s Singapore team is now well into the planning for MOE Phase Two, which will consist of 130 schools all due to go live on June 26 2006.

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The Toledo Museum of Art Library is located in the heart of Toledo, Ohio.  A Spydus customer for the past 10 years, the reference library was originally established in 1901 and serves the Museum's staff, scholars, educators, and the public.  In addition, it has served as the primary art research facility for students and faculty of the University of Toledo since 1921. The library’s primary collection includes over 60,000 books and journals, information files on over 18,000 artists, thousands of auction and sale catalogues, subscriptions to several hundred periodicals, and information from museums all over the world.

Emmaus Public Library is located in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, 50 miles north of Philadelphia, and serves residents from the municipalities of Emmaus, Macungie, and Upper Milford Township.  Largely founded on community group involvement and activities to increase and strengthen the services offered to the residents, Emmaus Public Library’s mission is to continually provide programs to increase the public's awareness of the library and its value to the community and to promote greater use of library resources.  The Library has been a long standing Spydus customer since 1994.

We are also very pleased to report that Gatton Shire Council Library in South East Queensland successfully migrated to the Spydus Managed Service on January 25. Gatton Shire is located in the Lockyer Valley of South East Queensland approximately 90 km west of Brisbane and has been a Spydus customer since 2001.

The City of Moreland is a large metropolitan municipality situated north of the Melbourne CBD. Moreland City Libraries serve a population of approximately 135,843 residents with Coburg Library the largest of the five libraries provided by the City of Moreland.

Visit Moreland City Libraries at: http://www.moreland.vic.gov.au/services/libraries/librcont-fr.htm

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Spydus 8 – Linking Crystal Reports via the Spydus Reporting Interface

Spydus 8 allows you to create your own reports using Crystal Reports Designer/Developer and then add these reports to the Spydus Reports module.  Once reports have been developed, the file should be stored on a shared network directory if it is intended to be used by multiple staff members.  Alternatively, you can store the file on the local PC for each staff member who is to access the report.

To create a new folder:

1.       Click the folder in which you want to create a new one.

2.       On the Edit menu, click Insert Folder.

3.       In the Title box, type the name for the new folder.

 

 

To link a newly created report:

 

1.       Click the folder in which you want to create a new report.

2.       On the Edit menu, click Insert Report.

3.       In the Title box, type the name for the new report.

4.       Click  to search for the report you want to add.

 

This process will be covered in detail in the Spydus 8 Advanced Reporting Workshop. Please refer to the Training article below for further details.

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Training - Spydus 8 Advanced Reporting Workshop

Learn everything you need to know about Reporting at our Spydus 8 Advanced Reporting Workshop. 

We are running two workshops at our Melbourne Office:

-          22 & 23 March

-          27 & 28 April

Please contact your Account Manager if you are interested in attending a session.

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The Aegis web based service request system has recently been upgraded.  The new interface provides a simplified way for customers to log and respond to SRs.

Once you have logged into the system, you are presented with a list of hyperlink options from the left hand frame and a list of your active service requests. 

To add a new SR, click ‘Add New SR’ and complete all details as per helpdesk requirements.

To add a response to an existing SR, highlight the SR from the list and click ‘Add Response’.

To generate a filtered report, click on the report icon below your username.  Customers have the option to create a filtered view of active requests, closed requests and all requests.  You can then conduct a sort on individual columns or generate a detailed report for your records.

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Spydus People

- Spydus Singapore Team

The last 5 months has been a whirlwind of activity for our Singapore team! Along with the MOE project, we have also established a brand new office in Singapore, which included a total refurbishment of the entire office space plus installation of network and all hardware and office equipment.  We have also recruited and trained staff across all areas of our business operation including: management, finance, HR, administration, IT, help desk, technical services (acquisitions and cataloguing staff) and circulation staff, along with temporary staff to complete such tasks as stock-take and data entry.

 

We now have more than 90 staff in Singapore and we are proud to say we have another great team of dedicated and professional staff. Each and every one has contributed to making this a successful story.

Sarah Gauci will be returning to Melbourne in March and will be handing over to Marc Nolan the newly appointed Director of Operations in Singapore.

- New Staff

 We are delighted to welcome Kirsty Armit to our Spydus Training and Consulting Team based in Melbourne.  Kirsty’s educational achievements include a Bachelor of Business (Information & Library Management) at RMIT, a Grad Dip. (Communications) from Monash University and a Grad Dip. (Primary Education) from LaTrobe University.  She has experience working as a Children's Librarian at Darebin Libraries, Monash Public Library Service, Yarra Plenty Regional Library Service and as a casual librarian at Stonnington Library and Information Service.  In her spare time, Kirsty enjoys going to the cinema, reading, cooking, travelling and supporting the Hawthorn Football Club.

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- Queensland Public Libraries Association Conference Cairns 4-7 June

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Spydus Newsletter March 2006

Welcome

This month we welcome three new libraries to the Spydus customer base with the signing of the LINK Consortium in South Australia. Read on for further details of the decision by The Barossa Council, Clare and Gilbert Valley Council and the Light Regional Council (LINK) to implement Spydus on a Managed Service. Our implementation team has also been busy, with Australia Post and Noosa Library live on Spydus 8 this month and they will be kept pretty busy for a few months yet given the list of upcoming Spydus 8 Projects! Our Site of the Month for March is Bundaberg Library “one of the busiest libraries in Queensland!”

Don’t miss our regular Hot Tip, which this month focuses on how to add images to your Location OPAC pages and we also have an article on a new Spydus 8 feature – Loading Weblink Records.

Ideas for articles or Hot Tips in the Spydus Newsletter are always welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Account Manager.

LINK Consortium in SA selects Spydus Managed Service

The Barossa Council, Clare and Gilbert Valley Council and Light Regional Council (LINK) have chosen to join the growing number of Civica’s Managed Service customers and will implement the Spydus Managed Service over the next few months.

The LINK consortium consists of 3 main library services with 11 branches operated by 3 neighbouring regional South Australian Local Government authorities serving a population of approximately 40,000 residents. LINK was formed in 2003 when the regions’ Library Managers sought to provide a better level of service to the community by cooperating in the purchase of a new Library Management System.  By achieving economies of scale through a regional purchase, the consortium achieved their goal of acquiring a system that will provide state of the art features as well as the potential for ongoing, future development.

The Spydus consortia model will allow the libraries to share a common bibliographic and patron database, and whilst policies throughout the LINK network are very similar, Spydus will allow for individual policies and operational flexibility for each of the member council libraries. 

The project has also resulted in a set of templates produced by John Dunnery of KDN Services, that are now freely available to libraries in SA, to be used to assist in the purchase of a new LMS from initial planning through to implementation and evaluation, as well as documents to assist the formation of regional networks.

According to The Barossa Council’s Library Manager, Vicki Hutchinson, LINK chose Spydus for a number of reasons.

“The client focus and Civica’s ability to provide additional features for our borrowers such as SDI and SMS messaging, as well as meeting a host of other requirements we had listed, were all key to our decision.  Feedback from other Spydus users on both the product and the service from Civica was also very positive, particularly in regards to suggestions for future development from libraries.

The Managed Service option was selected not only for its financial benefits, but because it provided our smaller libraries with a viable alternative to managing and maintaining the infrastructure that would have been required if we had located servers within our region. “

Library staff at all branches are very excited about finally moving into the implementation phase of the project and looking forward to Go Live, Haigh’s chocolate and champagne in July!

LINK Library Managers: From left to right: Heather Lymburn (Clare & Gilbert Valleys), Amanda Cook (Light) and Vicki Hutchinson (Barossa).

Australia Post Live on Spydus 8 Managed Service

Congratulations to the Australia Post Library Service on their successful Spydus 8 and Managed Service implementation and go live on 16 February.

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 1.1 million customers in its outlets every business day and delivers mail to 9.68 million Australian addresses.

The Australia Post library is located in Exhibition Street, Melbourne, and will now 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.

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.

Please stay tuned for a review of the Managed Service and Spydus 8 implementation from Australia Post staff in a future issue.

Site of the Month: Bundaberg Library, Queensland
 

Bundaberg is located on the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef abut four hours drive north of Brisbane. Bundaberg Library is one of the busiest public libraries in Queensland and for the last two financial years, annual loans have exceeded 1,000,000 items with circulation numbers expected to continue to rise as the area experiences steady growth.

Bundaberg Library serves the 71,000 residents of Bundaberg city and the neighbouring Burnett shire. Currently more than 40,000 residents are active members utilising the vast range of materials and specialist services available. Bundaberg Library has a staff of 3 librarians, 8 full-time assistants and 4 part-time staff, who” do a marvellous job”, says Chief Librarian Ray McInnerney.

Bundaberg has been a Spydus customer since March 2004 and is looking forward to upgrading its current version of Spydus. A busy library in a population growth area, Bundaberg Library staff experience a wide range of demands from their patrons and it is essential that library software is up to the task to ensure staff can maintain the high level of service that is expected.

According to Ray McInnerney, Bundaberg staff have well and truly earned the dubious distinction of being regarded as “the hardest worked library staff in Queensland”!

You can visit the home page of the Bundaberg Library at http://www.bundabergcity.qld.gov.au/library/ 

Spydus 8 New Feature – Loading Weblink Records

Spydus 8 now provides a user friendly facility for customers to load their weblink records into their Spydus database.   Weblink bibliographic records are obtained from website directories such as LinksPlus and are loaded through the Batch MARC Load Client with a nominated load source of WEBLINKS.  These records are loaded as non-physical items in Spydus so that they can be filtered and displayed via the web OPAC.

1.  Load weblink file into the Batch MARC Load client

You can perform record validation at this stage to ensure that there are no errors in the records.

2.  Select your records and then commence the load process

 3.  Once you have completed the load process, the weblink bibliographic records can be viewed via your OPAC.

4.  Click on the URL to launch the web source in a new browser window.

Keep up with all 8.2.4 New Features and Enhancements by accessing http://www.civica.com.au  Customer Services/New Features and Enhancements

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

Congratulations this month to two Spydus customers that have gone live with Spydus 8: new customer Australia Post in Melbourne and Noosa Library http://www.library.noosa.qld.gov.au/spydus.html in Queensland upgrading from 6.5.3.

Current Spydus 8 implementations in progress include:

·         Cooloola Library in Queensland who will also go live with their Picture Cooloola
collection on Spydus 8.2.4

·         Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Singapore)

·         Whitehorse Manningham Regional Library Corporation (Victoria)

·         Boroondara Library (Victoria)

·         Gatton Library - Spydus Managed Service  (Queensland)

·         Kingaroy Public Library (Queensland)

·         Loretto Mandeville Hall - Spydus Managed Service

·         Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School (Victoria)

·         Corporate Solutions (Queensland)

·         Adelaide Hills Library (South Australia)

·         Monash Public Library (Victoria)

·         Glenelg Shire Library (Victoria)

Spydus 8 implementations to commence soon include:

·         Clarence Regional Library - Spydus Managed Service (NSW)

·         Toowoomba Library (Queensland)

·         Port Philip Public Library (Victoria)

·         LINK (South Australia) - Spydus Managed Service

Hot Tip # 23  - Adding Images to Location OPAC Pages

To add an image display to the Spydus OPAC Location pages, you can specify the path to the image URL in the Address details of Spydus8 System Params.  The image must be stored in the Spydus8 wwwroot images directory on your server.

Spydus User Group Meetings

New Zealand User Group - 22^nd March at Porirua

New South Wales User Group – 7^th April Orange Library

ACT User Group - 31^st March at JACS in Canberra

Spydus People

-          New Staff

This month we are delighted to welcome Maranda McLaren to the Spydus team. Maranda has taken on the role of Business Development Manager with responsibility for Account Management and New Business Sales in both our Australian and international markets. Maranda brings a great wealth of sales and account management experience to our team having spent the past 7 years at the Gartner Group focussed on sales and marketing to the Asia-Pacific region. Maranda enjoys travelling, art, good food and wine and …. competes in Triathlons in her spare time!

Marc Nolan has recently joined our Singapore team in the role of Director of Operations following Sarah Gauci’s return to Melbourne.

Marc has extensive operational experience in educational and professional information publishing as well as trade publishing within the world’s leading publishing companies. Previously responsible for managing a large corporate legal library, Marc has many years experience in managing hard copy and electronic-based information services.

 Prior to moving to Singapore, Marc was an active member of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW and a member of the Art Gallery of NSW and Australian Museum, he was studying for an MBA and an ‘enthusiastic’ motorbike rider with a reputation for having caused the most riders to crash at one corner during an Eastern Creek raceway track day. In Singapore Marc is keenly practising his Singlish to the ‘amusement’ of the Singapore staff and embarking on Mandarin lessons. Having played soccer for over 16 years and with Australia in the Soccer World Cup this year plus the move to Singapore, 2006 is going to be a very exciting year for Marc!

We also welcome Robert Gurr to our Spydus Development Team based in Melbourne. Robert’s educational achievements include a Bachelor of Computing (Software Development) at Monash University, and a Bachelor of Science. (Resource Management) from Monash University. In his spare time, Robert enjoys socialising with friends, reading and sport.

Upcoming Events

- Asia-Pacific Conference on Library & Information Education & Practice A-LIEP : Preparing Information Professionals for Leadership in the New Age Singapore 3-7 April   …More

- Queensland Public Libraries Association Conference Cairns 4-7 June ..More 

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Spydus Newsletter April 2006

Welcome

This month we are delighted to welcome the Central Northern Library Service including 14 branch libraries to our growing base of Spydus Managed Service customers. A Spydus customer for more than 16 years, Central Northern has decided to move to a Managed Service to enable them to support their many branches and patrons more effectively.

Our Site of the Month for April is Cooloola Shire Council in Queensland and we encourage you to explore their colourful and information-filled website for new ideas and applications of some of the new Spydus8 features.

Noosa Council has become the first library to go-live with the Spydus Self Service solution and we bring you details of their successful launch plus some more information on the self-check service and other potential uses for this exciting and affordable new application.

Last, but ceratinly not least... make sure you don’t miss our regular Hot Tip, which this month focuses on how to create a line for an OPAC workstation to ensure your statistics accurately reflect the different OPAC workstations within your library.

Ideas for articles or Hot Tips in the Spydus Newsletter are always welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Account Manager.

Central Northern Libraries in NSW to move to Spydus Managed Service

We are very pleased to announce that the Central Northern Regional Library (CNRL) Service, a Spydus customer since 1990, has chosen to move their Library Management System to a Spydus Managed Service.

Central Northern comprises six local government areas in central northern NSW and 14 branch libraries and 4 public service outlets provide library services to more than 98,000 people.  Tamworth Regional Council is the executive council for the Central Northern Regional Libraries and the library services' main administration unit is based in Tamworth.

Providing system and IT infrastructure services to all of the branches over an area of around 44,000 square kilometres is understandably an enormous challenge for the CNRL team. The Spydus Managed Service will allow centralised management of the Services library

Tamworth Regional Council and Art Gallery opened in December 2004

systems, which will free their IT staff to focus on the many other hardware and communications issues that arise across the region as they strive to provide the highest level of service to their patrons. Regular software upgrades are an integral part of the Spydus Managed Service and patrons will be able to access all of the latest technology as it becomes available.

Central Northern are planning to go-live with a Managed Service in early June and we look forward to bringing you more news on their implementation at that time.  For now you can find the Library catalogue at the following address:

http://www.cnl.nsw.gov.au/

Site of the Month: Cooloola Shire Council Libraries, Queensland

The Cooloola Region in South East Queensland centres on the historic City of Gympie and includes the Cooloola Coast and the Mary Valley with major towns including Tin Can Bay, Rainbow Beach, Amamoor, Kandanga and Imbil. Located about two hours drive north of Brisbane and 40 kilometres from the coast, Cooloola is situated between Noosa and Fraser Island.

Cooloola Shire Council came into existence in 1993 as a result of amalgamation between Gympie Shire Council and Widgee Shire Council and now provides services to a population in excess of 35,000 people across an area of around 2,900 square kilometres.

Cooloola Shire Council Libraries became a Spydus customer in 2003 and as you can see from their website they are very committed to delivering the highest quality of library services to their patrons. The libraries central branch is located at Gympie and they have three branch libraries at Tin Can Bay, Rainbow Beach and Imbil.

Cooloola recently went live with Spydus 8 and at the same time took the opportunity to launch their Picture Cooloola database, which currently offers just over 100 records covering the rich history of this region.

The library has also implemented many of the latest Spydus 8 features including the Kids Catalogue, Requests for Items, Articles and Information and Join Online.

Cooloola’s patrons can also review the libraries Recently Available catalogued items. Spydus 8.2.4 now displays all of the libraries new titles catalogued for the current and previous month and displays separately all of the new issues for serials. Cooloola provide an extensive range of computer and internet facilities for patrons encouraging use and education via the website. They have also implemented the Spydus Bookings module, which allows patrons to book certain computer facilities online.

Take the time to explore the Cooloola Libraries home page and catalogue at the following address: http://www.cooloola.qld.gov.au/libraries.asp

Spydus 8 New Feature – Self Service Solution

Civica now provides a convenient and affordable Self Service solution that lets patrons check out items in a matter of seconds.  By simply waving their card and the items to be borrowed under the unit, the patron can check out their items, take their automatically generated receipt and leave the Library at their leisure.

The Spydus Self Service solution is available today and functions with both barcode and RFID tags.  The kiosk device may be column or wall mounted within the library, in a convenient location for self service.   As an extremely small device it offers libraries an affordable self service solution.

Check-out of items is just the beginning. Additional Spydus applications to be made available via self service include: electronic payments, streamed video promotions, event diary, resource bookings and canned enquiries for popular titles.

If you would like to see those queues disappear at your library call your Spydus Account Manager today for more information!

…and Noosa is the first to go live

Noosa Council Library is the first Civica library service to go live with the Spydus Self Service Station, launching the new service to patrons on April 20.

Staff christened the Self Service Station “Express Checkout” and used lots of colourful balloons around the unit to create interest and attention amongst library patrons.  As promised on Noosa’s website, library staff were on hand to instruct and assist first time users with the station to ensure a positive experience.

According to Noosa’s Systems Librarian, Gavin Elliott, most patrons were happy to use the station.

“We had comments such as ‘great idea’ and ‘much easier than others I’ve used’. We spent a lot of time setting up parameters to minimise blocked issues and tested it extensively before going live to make sure we had it right on the day.”

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

Congratulations to the following customers that successfully went live with Spydus 8.2.4 in the last month.

Whitehorse Manningham Regional Library Corporation  http://www.wev.vic.gov.au/

City of Boroondara Library Service  http://boroondara.spydus.com/

Cooloola Shire Council http://spydus.cooloola.qld.gov.au/

Gatton Shire Library http://library.gatton.qld.gov.au/

Kingaroy Shire Council http://www.kingaroy.qld.gov.au/index.php

Art Gallery of NSW Research Library and Archives http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/home

Hot Tip # 24  - Creating a line for an OPAC Workstation

In order to acquire circulation statistics on reservations and renewals performed via individual web OPACs, sites can set up a line for each library branch OPAC workstation. You can create an OPAC workstation line in the location section via the Circulation system supervisor menu.  

At each OPAC workstation, a staff member would be required to login to the staff catalogue, select the OPAC Line as the location, and then launch the OPAC catalogue.   The location is set as a cookie and will remain for an indefinite period, unless a site changes this setting to a lesser time period.

This will log all renewals and reservations made from an OPAC workstation in the library to the selected OPAC line.  All renewals and reservations made when the patron is outside the library, e.g. from a home PC, will be logged under the location of "Web".

Sister Libraries

Did you know… that Blacktown City Council in Sydney http://www.blacktown.nsw.gov.au/ and Porirua City Council http://www.pcc.govt.nz/  in New Zealand’s North island are Sister Councils?  Do you have a Spydus Sister Library you would like to tell others about?

Spydus People

-          New Staff

This month we are pleased to introduce Steven Leung, a new member of the Spydus Support Team.  Steven has completed a Bachelor of Information Management and Systems and a Masters in Network Computing at Monash University and has experience in call centre helpdesk operation and desktop support.  Steven enjoys listening to pop music in his spare time, along with travelling and exploring distant destinations.

…and a farewell message from Kylie Peckham

We are very sad to announce that Kylie Peckham will be leaving us. Kylie joined Civica in 2002 in the role of Spydus Trainer/Consultant and most recently has taken on the role of Services Manager.  Kylie will be greatly missed by everyone in the Spydus team and has the following message for you:

I have had a wonderful time working at Civica over the past four and a half years, and have had the opportunity to get to know a large number of our customers. I wish all Spydus libraries the very best of luck for the future. As we all know, the library world is a very small one. I am sure I will cross paths with a number of you again in the future!

All the best,

Kylie

Upcoming Events

- Queensland Public Libraries Association Conference Cairns 4-7 June …More

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Spydus Newsletter May 2006

Welcome

This month Emmaus Public Library in Pennsylvania successfully migrated to a Spydus Managed Service and we bring you news on their implementation plus an update on the numerous Spydus 8 Projects currently underway throughout Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Our Site of the Month for May is the City of Boroondara in Melbourne. A long-term Spydus and more recently Managed Service customer, Louise Pitcher Information Management and Kew Librarian, shares their Spydus 8 implementation experiences.

Our Spydus 8 feature this month focuses on the ability to offer Chinese language OPACS and we provide some examples of this new Spydus 8 functionality, together with links to some of our customers in Singapore that are already offering their patrons a Chinese language OPAC. Hot Tip # 25 this month and we look at how easily Spydus 8 can calculate Collection Depreciation.

Ideas for articles or Hot Tips in the Spydus Newsletter are always welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Account Manager.

Emmaus Public Library in Pennsylvania US successfully migrate to Spydus Managed Service

Our congratulations this month to the staff at Emmaus Public Library in Pennsylvania, US for their successful Spydus Managed Services go live on April 13.  Emmaus Public Library is a regional library with a very limited budget serving about 22,000 people in eastern Pennsylvania and has been a Spydus customer for 12 years.  Frances Larash, Director of the Emmaus Public Library, made the following comments on their decision to implement a Managed Service.

“In planning our technology budget, we were reviewing our library server which we have had in place for five years this January.  To replace the server would be a very expensive exercise and therefore the Spydus Managed Services offer from Civica was a very inviting proposal.  Another feature of the Managed Services offer that was extremely appealing from our perspective was the inclusion of software upgrades.  For these reasons, our library board voted to migrate to the Spydus Managed Service infrastructure.  We feel it will be a very beneficial and economical arrangement for the library and will add value to the services that our library provides to its patrons.”

http://www.emmauspl.org/index.htm

Site of the Month: City of Boroondara, Victoria

City of Boroondara Library Service in inner-eastern Melbourne operates from five branches across the Boroondara municipality and is one of Civica’s largest Spydus customers with branch locations including Ashburton, Balwyn, Camberwell, Hawthorn and Kew. 

Boroondara is a long-term Spydus customer, partnering with Civica for more than twenty years. In December 2004 the library migrated to a Spydus Managed Service and recently underwent their upgrade to Spydus 8.  According to Louise Pitcher, Information Management and Kew Librarian, the implementation went extremely well and the reaction from library staff has been very positive.

“It seems my Library Manager and I have been looking forward to Spydus 8 for a long-time…we were constantly saying ‘just wait for Spydus 8…that will fix it’.”

“We held our first project meeting in December last year just before Christmas and at that time, it was projected that we would go live on 11 April and we did!  It seems a silly time to undertake a major upgrade, just before Easter, which is our busiest time of the year, however we were constrained by the fact that I was going on a long holiday starting 8 May, so we had to have it all bedded down before then…or I would not be allowed to leave the country!”

“The lead up and offline period were incredibly busy, but went smoothly none the less.  Now we are 5 weeks into our live period and we have had very positive reactions from our staff. Specifically, lots of great new features… I just love Item Search. The general consensus is that the system changes are not overly dramatic which has made the staff learning curve easy, it’s mostly differences in the way that we can now locate specific types of data.”

“Overall, the implementation experience was nowhere near as challenging as I anticipated, although I do think being on the Managed Service infrastructure was a real bonus as we didn’t have to allocate resources to attend to the technical hardware requirements of the implementation.  Of course going live over the Easter holiday period wasn’t ideal, but the support we received and continue to receive from Civica has been excellent.”

You can access the Boroondara Spydus OPAC from the following URL : 

http://boroondara.spydus.com/

Spydus 8 New Feature – Chinese Language OPAC

Spydus 8 now includes a simplified Chinese Language OPAC displaying all captions and menu options in simplified Chinese character.  In addition to the captions and menu options, libraries also have the option of customising the descriptions for various tables such as branch location and collection to display in Chinese characters for patrons.

Spydus 8 OPAC Home Page

Spydus 8 OPAC Full Bibliographic Record Display

Spydus8 OPAC Borrower Details

Take a look at the following Singapore Ministry of Education school catalogues, which can all be viewed in simplified Chinese character.

http://canossaconventpri.spydus.com.sg/chis_spydus.html

http://pandanpri.spydus.com.sg/chis_spydus.html

http://zhonghuasec.spydus.com.sg/chis_spydus.html

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

This month we congratulate Glenelg Shire Library in regional Victoria and the Department of Education and Training in Brisbane on their successful migrations to Spydus 8.

And we also congratulate Ku-ring-gai Council Library following their successful upgrade to Spydus 8.2.4.  You can explore Ku-ring-gai’s catalogue at the below address, take some time to see all the interesting work that the Library staff have done to the catalogue in their effort to be customer focused:

http://203.34.0.71/spydus.html?http://203.34.0.71/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSG/OPAC/COMB.HTM

We also offer belated congratulations to Penleigh & Essendon Grammar and Loreto Mandeville Hall in Melbourne, Victoria on their successful upgrade to Spydus 8 during the month of March.  You can access the Loreto Spydus catalogue from the following URL :

http://lmh.spydus.com/

Spydus 8 implementations currently  in progress include :

• Monash Public Library (Vic)
• Adelaide Hills Library (SA)
• Port Phillip Library (Vic)
• Clarence Regional Library (NSW)
• NZ Defence (NZ)
• LINK (SA)
• Pymble Ladies College (NSW)
• Ryde Library Service (NSW)
• Toowoomba Library (QLD)
• Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Singapore)
• Nanyang Girls High School (Singapore)

Hot Tip # 25  - Spydus 8 Collection Depreciation

Customers using Spydus 8 can now monitor the depreciated value of items in nominated collections by configuring their depreciation parameters.  The following parameter settings can be employed in Spydus 8 Supervisor > Circulation > Collections :

Is depreciation active - Yes

This specifies whether to depreciate the value of items in the selected collection.

Yearly depreciation rate

This rate is used to calculate the depreciation for items in the selected collection. The depreciation is calculated by month and year.  For example, if the item was acquired on 30/5/03 and the current date is 6/5/05 then we would say that the item is 2 years old.

Minimum depreciated value

The minimum depreciated value for an item in the selected collection. Depreciation is used with items that have a Date acquired, and a Retail price or an Acquired price. Depreciation is not used with the Average price for the collection.  For example, say an item was acquired on 30/5/03 and the current date is 6/5/05, i.e. the item is 2 years old. We’ll say the retail value is $25.00, and the yearly depreciation rate is 10%.

If we set a lost status against the item on 6/5/05, then the value to charge the borrower is calculated as $25.00 - ($25.00 * 10% * 2 years) = $20.00. 

The Spydus 8 depreciation calculation default is currently configured as a simple calculation of item cost * depreciation rate * item acquired date; however, we may also deploy a more complex recursive calculation if required by sites.  For example, Spydus 8 can be commissioned to subtract the depreciation for the first year from the item's value and then calculate the depreciation for the second year using the depreciated value rather than the original value.

You can use the following SQL statement to determine the depreciated value of specific collections on your database.  This can be implemented and output as a Crystal report.

SELECT     MAIN.XCODE AS Collection_Code, ROUND(SUM(dbo.fn_SpyItemValue(ITD.IRN, DATEPART(YEAR, GETDATE()), DATEPART(MONTH, GETDATE()))), 2)

                      AS Collection_Depreciated_Total, COUNT(*) AS Number_of_Items, ROUND(AVG(dbo.fn_SpyItemValue(ITD.IRN, DATEPART(YEAR, GETDATE()),

                      DATEPART(MONTH, GETDATE()))), 2) AS Collection_Depreciated_Average

FROM         ITD INNER JOIN

                      ICO ON ITD.IRN = ICO.IRN INNER JOIN

                      MAIN ON ICO.COL = MAIN.IRN

WHERE     (MAIN.DEACT_DATE IS NULL)

GROUP BY MAIN.XCODE

ORDER BY MAIN.XCODE

Spydus People

- New Staff

We are delighted to welcome Michelle Davis to the Spydus team in the role of Services Manager. Michelle has more than 9 years IT experience and was previously at HP/Agilent Technologies in a variety of roles including General IT Support, Network Management, Project Management & Service Delivery Management.

Michelle keeps herself fit and busy away from the office with visits to the gym at least 3 times a week and Latin dancing at least twice a week.

Upcoming Events

-          Queensland Public Libraries Association Conference Cairns 4-7 June …More 

-          Country Public Libraries Association NSW  Coonabarabran 18-21 July …More

Upcoming User Group Meetings :

-          South Australian SPUN meeting is being hosted at Local Government Authorities (lower level board room), Hutt Street at 9am Tuesday May 30.

-          Victorian SPUN meeting is being hosted at Monash Library’s Oakleigh Branch, 148 Drummond Street Oakleigh at 10am on Friday 9 June.

-          Queensland SPUN meeting is being hosted by Caboolture Library 10.30am on Thursday 15 June.

Spydus Newsletter June 2006

Welcome

This month we are delighted to bring you news of two new Spydus customers in South Australia, Whyalla City Council and the Town of Gawler. Site of the Month for June is Central West Libraries in NSW who celebrated their first anniversary with Spydus this month (you may recall reading about their purple donuts last year!). Disaster Recovery is a topic receiving more and more coverage in the public sector and Civica’s Disaster Recovery solution provides a cost-effective and convenient option for libraries. You can find details on this service in the newsletter and your Account Manager will be happy to provide more information. Civica is always pleased to support industry events and this month you may have seen us at QPLA in Cairns or at the ALIA SA Trivia Quiz night. Hot Tip # 26 is a reminder on how to renew serial subscriptions - so don’t miss it!

Ideas for articles or Hot Tips in the Spydus Newsletter are always welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Account Manager.

South Australian Regional Libraries Choose Spydus

Whyalla City Council, South Australia’s second largest regional city has chosen to implement the Spydus Library Management System and staff are looking forward to going live in late October. The Whyalla City Council Library Service operates across two branches (Civic and Alex Ramsay Libraries) and serves a population of 22,000 residents with more than 11,000 borrowers registered.

According to Vicki Ledo, Whyalla City Librarian, Spydus will bring their systems into line with current patron expectations.

“We chose Spydus because it offered us all the operating modules as well as the desired modules we required. Our present system is over 10 years old and Spydus will allow us to provide the services our patrons now expect. In regional areas it is vitally important to provide the kind of online access to resources and information that Spydus provides.”

“Spydus will also allow us to develop our local history collection and develop an index to the local newspaper. All this information will be accessible online.”

Located 396km northwest of Adelaide, Whyalla has a rich history built on steel production however the city’s economy is now expanding in new directions with exciting global industries being targeted, including aquaculture, sustainable development and renewable technologies.

Visit the Whyalla City Council at http://www.whyalla.com/site/page.cfm

Pictured from left to right: Sue, Teresa, Janet
Vicki Ledo (City Librarian) with Lynette in front.

…and Gawler Library selects Spydus Managed Service

The Town of Gawler is a community of over 19,000 people located just 40 km north of Adelaide and adjacent to the Barossa Valley. When Gawler Library goes live in October this year they will become the 27th Australian library to run their library management systems as a Spydus Managed Service.

Those of you who are dedicated fans of the television series McLeod's Daughters will be interested to know that the show is filmed on a working property located between the townships of Gawler and Freeling.

Helen Hennessy, Manager Library and Community Information Services said they chose Spydus because of its many impressive features.

“Spydus has the ability to improve our online delivery of information (including images) and will provide hyperlinked records that will allow both our customers and our staff easy paths of interrogation and we will also have access to statistical reporting and improved management of the various views of our collection for example our home visiting service and youth services.

Helen envisages the move to Spydus will also assist with two current library projects, which are the creation of a Council Corporate Library and the provision of online access to the Gawler Historical Collection.

“While the Library is in the midst of significant change including a future building redevelopment, our staff believe that the move to a new library management system will be well worth it. We are housed in a 19^th century building, but we know that with this change we will be operating with a 21^st century system,” said Helen.

Gawler Public Library is located in the historic Gawler Institute building dating from 1870. The Library's motto is "Where the Old and the New Combine", reflecting its provision of access to 21st century information resources in a setting that has been in constant use for life-long learning, the arts and the sciences since the 19th century.

Site of the Month: Central West Libraries, NSW

Central West Libraries, a regional library service located on the Central Tablelands and Western Slopes of New South Wales celebrated their first Spydus Managed Service anniversary on 22 June. You may remember the team at Central West introduced the now infamous ‘purple iced donuts’ on their launch day!

Established in 1958 the Library encompasses the Local Government areas of Orange, Blayney, Cabonne, Cowra and Forbes. Branches are located at Blayney, Canowindra, Cowra, Forbes, Manildra, Molong and Orange and the Library’s support and administrative units are located in the Orange City Library building.

The Library service covers an area of 15,348 square km and serves a population of 75,719 of which 55% (41,952) are active members.

Since its inception the Library has been known by several different names. Originally known as the Orange Regional Library, in 1977 the name was changed to the Central Western Cooperative Public Library and in 2001 the name was again changed to the simpler Central West Libraries.

For Ros Dorsman, Technical Services Librarian at Central West Libraries, the past year has gone very quickly and she made the following observations.

“Central West Libraries has just celebrated their first anniversary of going live with Spydus 8 on June 22 2005. There was no snow this year and no purple donuts (a blessing said some!) and we are content with enjoying a ‘business as usual’ day.

“As a new user of Spydus, we were excited about the improved functionality we could offer our clients and we have found that our reservations have increased dramatically. Library staff have developed their skills and certainly benefited from the extra training that they received prior to ‘go live’ and subsequent refreshers. New staff, some with no previous library experience, have said “I like this, it’s sooooo easy”.

 “I have found the SPUN User Group and ListServe a very helpful knowledge base that is easily accessible and I now feel more confident to broadcast other Spydus features to staff and clients so we can fully utilise the system.

“Thanks to all our contacts at Civica, the Help Desk, Spydus colleagues and CWL staff – the year has gone very fast.”

Picture from left to right: Ros Dorsman Technical Services Librarian and Jan Richards Library Manager

You can explore the Central West Libraries catalogue at the following address: http://cwl.nsw.gov.au/

Spydus Disaster Recovery

Civica is now able to offer customers a cost-effective and simple full Disaster Recovery (DR) service. In the event of a disaster at your library, your library staff and customers will be able to access the Disaster Recovery site over the internet via VPN links to the Civica Managed Services data centre, which is located in Melbourne.

Your Disaster Recovery system will be fully operational within one business day of Civica receiving your Library data and application software in a suitable form for use.

Civica utilises the established and proven Managed Services infrastructure to provide this cost-effective service and an Annual Disaster Recovery Service fee includes the following service components:

• A copy of the customer's Spydus environment on a Managed Service server, with capacity permanently allocated to manage a Disaster Recovery situation
• Initially and every 6 months thereafter during the contract period a copy of your LIVE Spydus system will be migrated to the Managed Services environment for testing by the customer
• Provision of technical assistance to the customer's network administrators, to the firewall at the customer's site(s), and including establishment and testing of VPN tunnel(s) for access to the Disaster Recovery site

Please contact your Account Manager for further details on this service.

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

The following libraries are currently scheduled for upgrades to Spydus 8.2:

¨       Adelaide Hills Library (SA)

¨       Caboolture Shire Libraries (Qld)

¨       Central Highlands Regional Library Service (Vic)

¨       Cessnock City Council Library (NSW)

¨       Clarence Regional Library (NSW)

¨       Department of Employment and Training (QLD)

¨       Gawler (SA)

¨       LINK (SA)         

¨       Lithgow City Council Library (NSW)

¨       Monash Public Library (Vic)

¨       Nanyang Girls High School (Singapore)

¨       Newington College (NSW)

¨       Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Singapore)

¨       NZ Defence (NZ)

¨       Porirua City Council Library (NZ)

¨       Port Phillip Library (Vic)

¨       Pymble Ladies College (NSW)

¨       Ryde Library Service (NSW)

¨       Toowoomba Library (QLD)

¨       Victor Harbour (SA)

¨       Wattle Range Library Service (SA)

¨       Whyalla (SA)

Hot Tip # 26 - Renewing Serial Subscriptions

Have you tried to check in a serial issue, and found “no expected issue”? 
Well then your subscription might need to be renewed.    

Renewing an individual subscription

You can renew individual subscriptions from the order list:

1. Click the row to select the order you want.

2. Click Renew on the Orders menu. You could also right-click and then click Renew. The Renew command will only be available if you’ve created a PO for the order.

3.  Use current order subscription period is selected by default — so the subscription will be extended by the same number of days as the current subscription period. If you wish, you can clear the Use current order subscription period check box and specify the number of Days and/or Months and/or Years that you want to extend the subscription by. Commitments are applied to the funds for the current year.

4.  Click OK to renew the subscription.

Renewing subscriptions in batch

As well as renewing an individual subscription while you’re working with an order list, you might also review the subscriptions due for renewal and then decide whether or not to review each one.

Note: If you choose to renew subscriptions in batch, the renewal period for each title will be the same as the current subscription period.

1.     Close the order list (if there’s one open).

2.     Click Renew subscriptions on the Tools menu.

3.    Choose the vendor or date if you wish.

·         To renew subscriptions only for a specific vendor, select the Vendors check box and select the vendor from the drop-down list. Leaving the check box unselected means you’ll renew subscriptions for all vendors.

·         To renew subscriptions whose subscription ends within a specific period, select the Dates check box and specify the Start and End dates for the period.

4.    Choose the options. We’ll choose the Preview List Only option.

·         If you don’t select the Options check box then subscriptions will be renewed when you click the OK button.

·         If you select the Options check box and the Display Processed List option then subscriptions will be renewed when you click the OK button. A list of all the subscriptions renewed will be displayed.

·         If you select the Options check box and the Preview List Only option then a list of the subscriptions will be displayed when you click the OK button. You can then go through each one individually and decide which ones you wish to renew.

5.    Click OK. Since we chose the Preview List Only option, the subscriptions due for renewal are listed. We can then go through each one in turn and renew them or not.

ALIA South Australia 2^nd Annual Quiz Night

Civica was delighted to support the 2^nd Annual ALIA SA Quiz Night held on May 26 during Australian Library and Information Week. Twelve teams comprising 100 eager quiz participants, armed with picnic baskets and bottles of wine competed for prizes on the night and the winners were:

1^st Prize            Left Blank Intentionally

2^nd Prize           The Swamp

3^rd Prize            The Boolean Operators

Another prize went to the best decorated table – Purple Passion won the prize, and with their purple table decorations and costumes, not to mention the purple cakes and tarts they consumed during the evening, they were deserved winners.

Robyn Wright from Civica with Alan Smith, Director State Library of South Australia, and very capable Quiz Master for the night.

Spydus People

The Spydus team is very pleased to introduce to you a new member of the Development Team, Tejas Goradia. Tejas has completed a Masters in Information Technology at RMIT in Melbourne and has a passionate interest in Microsoft Technologies. Sport is another passion of Tejas’s and he enjoys playing cricket.

QPLA Conference in Cairns 5-7 June

The QPLA conference was a well attended event and Ruza Obradovic enjoyed catching up with may of our customers on the Civica stand.

Congratulations to the winner of our lucky business card draw:Frances Utzinger, Shire Librarian from Mareeba Shire Council.

Civica will be supporting the CPLA conference in Coonabarabran on the 18^th to 20^th July.  Join us for the welcome drinks, and make sure you come and visit us on our stand.

 Upcoming Events

http://www.cpla.asn.au/agm/conference.html

Registrations are also now available for the CLICK06 Conference in Perth on the 19^th – 22^nd September.  Please see details at the following URL :

http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2006

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Spydus Newsletter July 2006

Welcome

This month features a number of articles on Managed Services with two special libraries in the ACT, Australia migrating to a consortium Managed Service solution and Tiffin-Seneca in the US migrating to the US Managed Service solution. There has also been substantial sales activity in the library market in NSW, WA, Victoria and Singapore during July and we look forward to bringing you news of the latest Spydus customers over the next couple of months.

Our Site of the Month is Monash Public Library Service in metropolitan Melbourne. The Monash community are generally very quick to adopt new online services that the library provides via their website, which is well worth a look for an example of a highly interactive, customer focused website.

On the Spydus 8 front it is go, go, go with no less than 17 Spydus 8 upgrades currently underway. Our congratulations to the staff at Port Phillip Library Service on their very imaginative campaign to keep their patrons interested and involved with the library’s upgrade. (Don’t miss the photo below).

The Hot Tip for July is a quick and simple process for making sure those email notifications have really gone…. and we also provide a sneak preview of the new Unicode CAT client.

Ideas for articles or Hot Tips for the Spydus Newsletter are always welcome. Please send any suggestions or ideas to your Account Manager.

JACS & ACT Law Courts sign on for Spydus Managed Service

The Spydus Managed Service continues to see success within the special libraries market with the Department of Justice and Community Safety (JACS) Library and the ACT Law Courts Russell Fox Library deciding to undertake the Spydus consortium solution via a Managed Service, which will allow them to capitalise on resource sharing.  The Spydus consortium model operates off one instance of the database, with separate filtered views provided for each library service ensuring the privacy of borrower records, bibliographic records and holdings and autonomy of policy and parameter settings. 

JACS comprises several agencies and is responsible for a wide range of activities and services in the areas of justice, the law, emergencies, commercial practices and government elections. A Civica customer for more than 5 years, the (JACS) Library is located in the Canberra CBD and provides access to information for more than 700 clients.

In a similar nature to JACS, the Russell Fox Library is a legal information resource supporting proceedings in the Supreme Court, Magistrates Court and Tribunals in the ACT.   The library collection consists of judgments, legislation, law reports, textbooks and periodicals relevant to ACT court proceedings.  Since 1966 the library has clipped court-related news from the Canberra Times and since 1992 it has been maintaining an index to these clippings.   The Russell Fox Library is a long standing Civica customer and have been Spydus users for over 14 years.

The Managed Service implementation has now commenced and the two library services are scheduled to be live by the end of August.  We look forward to bringing you a progress report on the implementation in upcoming newsletters.

….and Tiffin-Seneca in Ohio US migrates to a Managed Service

Congratulations this month to the staff at Tiffin-Seneca Public Library in Tiffin, Ohio for their successful migration to the US Managed Service infrastructure.  Tiffin-Seneca Library has been serving the Tiffin communities for over 125 years and has been working with Civica for more than 10 years.

Pat Hilmer, Tiffin-Seneca’s Library Director, was very pleased with the migration process and said “We have been on the Managed Service for almost a month now and I’m pleased to report that the testing of the connection went smoothly and the changeover took place without any glitches. “

According to Pat server maintenance issues were one of the key reasons for the migration plus the convenience and security of regular system administration.

“One reason why we decided to make the change to a Managed Service was to eliminate the need to maintain our own server. We look forward to any server ‘headaches’ being handled by Civica rather than by our library staff.  We also anticipate having our system updates on time; our back-up tapes will be generated off-site and routine system operations will be done automatically, all of which relieve us of local worries.  These are all positives for us.”

http://www.tiffinsen.lib.oh.us/

Site of the Month: Monash Public Library Service

Monash Public Library Service (MPLS) in metropolitan Melbourne was formed in the 1990’s when two long standing Spydus sites, the City of Oakleigh and the City of Waverley, amalgamated to form the City of Monash. Monash now serves a cosmopolitan community of around 160,000 people and Monash Public Library Service has five branch libraries, Clayton, Glen Waverley, Mount Waverley and Wheelers Hill. Over 1 million visitors go through the libraries doors every year and around 2 million items are issued. 

MPLS is currently upgrading from Spydus 6.5.3 and are scheduled to “Go Live” with Spydus 8 on Thursday 27 July. John Ruddle, Library Resources and Systems
Co-ordinator at MPLS says that the new Self-Service interface to be rolled out as part of the Spydus 8 upgrade will be popular with both the public and staff.

“MPLS first implemented “Fast Track Issues” terminals in the early 1990’s and they became very popular. It’s turned out to be a very successful service and is now responsible for approximately 50% of total issues at Monash.  The new Self Service interface, which MPLS commissioned Civica to develop, will be rolled out to each of the Monash branches as part of our Spydus 8 upgrade and will no doubt be just as popular with our staff and customers.” said John.

MPLS will also implement PC Bookings, email SDI profile alerts and Kid’s Catalogue. The colours and banners of the Kid’s Catalogue has been adapted to match the library’s children’s web pages which the library has branded as “Kids Space”. This colourful, easy to use Kids area can be found at http://monlib.vic.gov.au/kidsspace/kidsspace.html.

Branch library staff are keenly anticipating the new Spydus 8 PC Bookings module to help manage the 50 public PCs that are available across the libraries 5 branches and John expects the additional online services to be adopted quickly by the community.

“ When we introduced online reservations and emailing of inter-branch requests the number of items being reserved at Monash more than doubled and staff are expecting SDI alerts to have a similar affect as members have proven quick to adopt these types of online services.  The already popular DVD collections are especially expected to be targeted by borrowers keen to know when new titles are added to the collection.”

Visit the Monash Public Library Service website at http://www.monlib.vic.gov.au/ to see some great ideas for a truly interactive website for your customers.

Spydus 8 Advanced Report Training in Melbourne

Spydus 8 Advanced Reports training will be held in Melbourne, Victoria at the Civica Bourke Street Location in mid August.   If you are interested in attending the 1.5 day workshop please contact Holley Dumble to register your attendance.

….New Zealand Spydus 8 Advanced Reports Feedback

In May, Civica’s Trevor Trotter conducted a Spydus 8 Advanced Reports workshop in New Zealand ,which proved to be a very rewarding session for the attendees.  Madelon van Zijll de Jong, the Systems Librarian at Hastings District Libraries, provided the following feedback :

“Thank you very much for the very practical Crystal Report training.  I learnt useful things like:

-          to display the Data Links according to their formats in separate "display lines"

-          the use of arrow keys in Design to move around

-          concatenating fields

-          renaming MAIN and HEADING fields to recognise where they belong to

-          the different join types for links

-          the statement "IsNull"

-          using parameters codes for selections in Select Expert

-          adding reports to Spydus 8 reports using these parameters!”

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

This month we congratulate the following site’s on their successful Spydus 8 implementations :

• Clarence Regional Library (NSW) Go Live 23 June  http://clarence.spydus.com/spydus.html
• Housing Development Board (Singapore)  Go Live 28 June
• Toowoomba City Library (QLD)  Go Live 5 July http://spydus2.toowoomba.qld.gov.au/
• Adelaide Hills (SA)  Go Live 24 July http://arnie.ahc.sa.gov.au/spydus.html
• LINK Consortia (SA)  Go Live 25 July http://www.lowernorthlibrarylink.sa.gov.au/
• Monash Public Library (VIC)  Go Live 27 July http://www.monlib.vic.gov.au/

Spydus 8 implementations currently in progress include :

·         Caboolture Shire Libraries (QLD)

·         Central Highlands Regional Library Service (VIC)

·         Cessnock City Council Library (NSW)

·         Department of Employment and Training (QLD)

·         Gawler (SA)

·         Lithgow City Council Library (NSW)

·         Nanyang Girls High School (Singapore)

·         Newington College (NSW)

·         Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Singapore)

·         NZ Defence (NZ)

·         Porirua City Council Library (NZ)

·         Port Phillip Library Service (VIC)

·         Pymble Ladies College (NSW)

·         Ryde Library Service (NSW)

·         Victor Harbor (SA)

·         Wattle Range Library Service (SA)

·         Whyalla (SA)

Port Phillip Library Service – has some fun with their Spydus 8 Upgrade

Port Phillip Library Service in Melbourne, Victoria has been getting into the spirit of gearing up their patrons for their upcoming Spydus8 upgrade.

Port Phillip will be going live on Spydus 8 on August 3^rd and we are hoping to see the Port Phillip ‘All Grl Band’ in action on their go-live day. 

Hot Tip # 27 – Spydus 8 Email Notice Verification

Did you know???

after you have transmitted your circulation notices, you can check to make sure your e‑mail notices have actually been sent.  For instance, in the event that there was a problem with the e-mail server, notices may not have been dispatched. 

You can run the following Boolean query via Staff Enquiry :

FORMAT: NTC + NTD09\0

If no items are retrieved from this search, then all notices were sent. If items are retrieved, then those notices were not sent.

To resend your notices, run the Transmit Circulation Notices function again. If you want to create printed notices instead of e-mail, uncheck the Send email notices check box.  You can then run the Boolean query a second time if you want to ensure all notices have been sent.

Spydus 8 New Feature – Unicode Cat Client

Here’s a sneak preview of the new Spydus 8 Unicode Cataloguing Client.  The Spydus Unicode Cataloging module is a Microsoft Windows application that provides an easy and friendly way to create and edit multi-lingual catalogue records in USMARC format.  The Spydus8 Unicode Cat Client will be available in a future release.  Please contact your Account Manager for further details.

Single Record View Mode

Single Record Edit Mode

Field Edit

Field Validation

Upcoming Events

¨                ALIA CLICK06 Conference Perth

Registrations are now available for the CLICK06 Conference in Perth on the 19^th – 22^nd September.  Please see details at the following URL :

http://conferences.alia.org.au/alia2006

¨                   SPUN Conference 2006 Melbourne

The Annual SPUN Conference is scheduled for 18-20 October.  To view the program, register and get information about Melbourne, the conference venue (Novotel on Collins in the heart of the CBD) and parking information - visit the SPUN Conference page at http://www.spun.asn.au/members/conference.html