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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

Spydus Newsletter August 2006

Welcome

This month we are delighted to welcome three new Spydus customers, Hurstville and Rockdale Libraries in Sydney and Laidley Shire Library Service in Queensland. The Spydus implementation team continues to be very busy and we congratulate Port Phillip in Melbourne and Ryde in Sydney on their successful go-lives this month. The Ministry of Education project is also proceeding according to schedule and with Phase 2 now complete, Civica is providing library services to 198 primary, secondary and junior colleges throughout Singapore.

Glenelg Libraries in Victoria having just celebrated their first year of operation is our Site of the Month for August and we also bring you news of the launch of LibraryLink Victoria at Darebin Libraries Northcote Branch.

Don’t miss the review of the new Spydus Community Information Module and if you’re contemplating RFID make sure you take a look at our Hot Tip for the placement of RFID tags.

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

 Hurstville and Rockdale libraries in Sydney agree on choice of Spydus

Two of Sydney’s busiest libraries – Hurstville City Library and Rockdale City Library - will each install Civica’s Spydus Library Management System, after a thorough joint evaluation in which they co-operated in assessing 10 competing software solutions.

“It was a very thorough evaluation indeed,” said Jennifer Burrell, Manager, Library & Information Services, Hurstville City Library. “We evaluated all 10 vendors that responded to our joint Expression of Interest.  Our overriding concern at Hurstville was to find a system with functionality that fully met our needs.  We also considered technical compatibility, robustness and price.  Spydus was the best solution.”

Susanna Waller, Library Services Co-ordinator at Rockdale City Library, said: “After experiencing detailed demonstrations of competing products, our staff liked Spydus best as it was very easy to use and all the testing we did across all modules drew a very positive staff reaction.  We felt it had the best online public access catalogue (OPAC) we saw, and it had excellent references from current users.”

The new software is scheduled to go live at Hurstville Library in December and at Rockdale Library in November.  Staff at both libraries look forward to benefiting from a wide range of new functionality.

Jennifer Burrell said: “Hurstville Library will be looking at the strategic advantage of using a modern system with a very strong user group, backed by good support from the vendor.  Spydus will give us many functional advantages over our former software – we see it as the foundation on which to build improved technology services for our clients.”

She said management would take advantage of the Spydus implementation to review the library’s processes such as the way in which overdue reminders are delivered.  Spydus will allow the library to introduce notifications by email and further down the track they will have the option to introduce SMS notifications.”

“The new software will open doors like that, and allow us to communicate more directly with our users, which we are very keen to do,” said Jennifer. “It will also give us Chinese and Arabic language support, which we will be implementing immediately.”

Spydus will allow Hurstville Library to introduce Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) self-service, which Jennifer says will be considered in the future, possibly as a joint process with Rockdale Library.

Hurstville is a suburban regional centre for south-east Sydney.  The large central library, open seven days a week, is heavily patronised by residents, students and the area’s work force.  It will use some 30-40 Spydus workstations, including those at the Service Desk.  The library has a branch at Penshurst, as well as a very efficient and valued home library service.   Over the past year, Hurstville Library made 760,000 loans and logged 694,000 library visits from its membership base of 36,500. 

…..and a new era at Rockdale Library

Rockdale City Library staff are looking forward to offering their customers a range of new services, including profiling and alerts for new titles when they go live with Spydus.

According to Susanna Waller, staff are also excited about using a graphical ‘windows-based’ interface for the first time, since it is very intuitive, and clearer and easier to use than their previous system.

She said Spydus will allow customers to receive new title alerts for the first time, and when searching online they will be able to see thumbnail pictures as well as local history images.  Borrowers will be able to renew their loans online via the Spydus Web OPAC, receiving notices online via email, with the option for SMS.  The new technology will also allow Rockdale to introduce Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) of stock at some future date.

“Spydus will introduce new efficiencies in a number of areas, said Susanna. “It will give us better reporting that shows us a clearer picture of library use – that’s a big plus.  It will also permit more efficient collection management, and allow better stock rotation, which is important because we have six branches and we need stock to flow freely amongst these.

“Overall, it will allow us to spend less time chasing stock and items we can’t get a handle on at present, and enable us to connect with our users more effectively.  Spydus will introduce a whole new era for us and our users – we think it will be terrific.”

Rockdale City Library has six branches in Sydney’s southern suburbs: Rockdale, Arncliffe, Bexley, Bexley North, Brighton-le-Sands and Sans Souci. Some branches carry substantial collections in the Chinese, Arabic and Greek languages, as well as smaller collections in Macedonian, Serbian and Croatian.  Spydus’ multi-lingual capabilities will allow staff to record stock and transactions, for the first time, in some language scripts.

The library has more than 41,000 registered members and a collection of around 215,000 items.  Special collections include a Local History collection and one of the best music collections in a NSW public library.

Laidley Shire in QLD to achieve disaster recovery, security and lower administration costs with Spydus Managed Service

Laidley Shire Library in Queensland will be the 28th Spydus Managed Service customer when they go live later this year.

Laidley is located less than an hour's drive from inner city Brisbane and is home to more than 14,000 people. Laidley Library is a Country Lending Service (CLS) library, supported by the Public Library Services division of the State Library of Queensland.

The Country Lending Service represents a partnership between local governments and the State Library of Queensland to provide high quality public library services to rural Queensland. Local Governments serving populations of less than 20,000 are eligible to participate in the CLS.

It is envisaged that Laidley will be the first of many CLS libraries to take up the offer to join the shared Spydus Managed Service system for Queensland rural libraries.

According to Adam Staunton, Manager Information Technology, Laidley Shire Council, the shared Spydus Managed Service system was the right choice for Laidley Council.

“We were looking at a replacement server for our existing LMS, when the new Spydus Managed Service proposal arrived at Council. Previously out of our price range it was now more affordable to Shires our size, so we investigated further.”

“We received nothing but glowing comments from existing Spydus customers and decided on a demonstration.

“The functionality was fantastic and the fully Managed Service gives us the disaster recovery, security and lower administration costs we were after. The web centricity of the system will also provide additional functionality for our customers, in the form of a more featured and integrated WebOPAC.”

Phase 2 of Spydus Library Project in Singapore goes live as scheduled

The second phase of the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) school library project successfully went live on Monday 26 June as scheduled.

Adding another 129 schools in phase 2, the Spydus Managed Service now covers 198 schools across primary, secondary and junior colleges. In addition, Civica provides library staff to 133 of the school libraries and collection management services to 189 schools as part of its complete and integrated library management service.

The service is hosted within the Civica data centre in Singapore and is supported by more than 40 staff in Civica’s Singapore regional office.

The implementation of phase 2 was a highly complex process and involved Civica staff in both our Singapore and Melbourne offices. Major tasks included the conversion and migration of over 2.8 million records, stock take of over 2.1 million items, the training of over 120 school library staff and the recruitment and training of 80 Civica library staff to be deployed to the schools.

When the MOE school library project is fully implemented, 328 schools or 93% of all Singapore MOE schools will be using the Civica Spydus Managed Service.

Site of the Month: Glenelg Libraries, Victoria

In July 2005 Glenelg Shire Council located in south western Victoria decided to adopt a local government based library service rather than a regional library service, which saw the formation of Glenelg Libraries. In its first year of operation Glenelg Libraries has achieved a number of customer service milestones and they have seen a 16% increase in membership across the Shire.

The library service has three branches at Portland, Heywood and Casterton, with the Casterton library branch re-locating during the year from Casterton Primary School to refurbished premises at Casterton Town Hall. Following a consultation process with the community, Outreach services were also introduced with fortnightly visits by librarians to Dartmoor, Digby, Merino, Narrawong and Nelson. The service also publishes a monthly newsletter ‘Days of our Library” which is available in print from the branches or via the library website and customers can also request an email copy from the website.

The Portland Branch was re-developed in 2004 and the new Discover IT Centre includes a community meeting room, business office space, IT centre and IT training facilities.  The library service runs four story time sessions each week, school holiday programs and art exhibitions in the purpose-built space at the entrance of the Portland library.

Glenelg Libraries also undertook a transition to Spydus 8 during the year, which was a smooth process according to Bryan Amarant, Library Manager, Glenelg Libraries.

“Thanks to the training and support of the Civica team, particularly Sarah Cavanagh, who has been a great help, the upgrade has been quite painless.

Mayor of the Glenelg Shire Council, Cr Frank Zeigler has said that since Council had accepted responsibility for the running of the libraries twelve months ago, they had gone from strength to strength with the new look libraries and services being embraced by the residents.

43% of the entire population of the Glenelg Shire are library members and loans have increased overall by 5% with a 12% increase at the Portland branch.

Increased funding has enabled Glenelg Libraries to improve their book stock and resources and the service’s autonomy has opened up a range of options to promote new programs to build a vibrant service into the future.

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

Congratulations this month to Port Phillip Library Service in Melbourne and Ryde Library Service in Sydney on their successful Spydus 8 implementations.  Port Phillip went live on Thursday 3 August and Ryde went live on Friday 4 August. 

You can access their catalogues from the following links :

Port Phillip        http://library.portphillip.vic.gov.au/                       

Ryde                www.ryde.nsw.gov.au/library.htm

Spydus 8 implementations currently underway include :

¨        Caboolture Shire Libraries (QLD)

¨        Central Highlands Regional Library Service (VIC)

¨        Cessnock City Council Library (NSW)

¨        Department of Employment and Training (QLD)

¨        Gawler (SA) New Site

¨        Hurstville (NSW) New Site

¨        Laidley (QLD) New Site

¨        Lithgow City Council Library (NSW)

¨        MIT (VIC) New Site

¨        Nanyang Girls High School (Singapore) New Site

¨        Newington College (NSW)

¨        Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Singapore)

¨        NZ Defence (NZ)

¨        Porirua City Council Library (NZ)

¨        Pymble Ladies College (NSW)

¨        Rockdale (NSW) New Site

¨        Victor Harbor (SA)

¨        Wanneroo (WA) New Site

¨        Wattle Range Library Service (SA)

¨        Whyalla (SA) New Site

Hot Tip # 28 – Mounting RFID Tags

The following tip is provided as a guide to ‘tagging’ books with RFID tags and is based on information provided by Adilam, our RFID Tag supplier and the results of Civica’s in-house testing.

The M tag has a flat edge. The suggested way to mount it in a book is on the inside back cover, with the flat edge against the spine.

During our testing, each tag was fitted in a different location. This reduces the probability of having tags line up when the books are in a stack.

Placing a label over the tag has no effect on the tag itself, as long as the label doesn’t contain large areas of carbon printing (some black ink has carbon in it). Anything printed with a thermal, ink jet or laser printer can be safely placed over the tag itself.

Spydus 8 New Feature – Community Information

The Spydus 8 Community Information (CI) Module can be used to create and maintain a database of community information records. 

Some of the features associated with the CI module include :

·         Libraries can record descriptive details of an individual (e.g. doctor, dentist or teacher), an organisation (e.g. club or agency), a program or service (e.g. health care, adult education) or an event (e.g. lecture, open day, regular meeting) via user friendly web forms.  There is no longer a separate client interface for Community Information.  Records are entered using worksheets in the web interface or using the existing Cataloguing Client.

• Search for, display and print details of community information records via the staff and patron interface.

·         Create and print letters to send to organisations and individuals to confirm the details currently held in the database are valid.  The letters are printed in PDF format.

·         Create and send emails to organisations and individuals in order to confirm the details currently held in the database are valid.

LibraryLink Victoria Network and Spydus Victorian Metro’s

LibraryLink Victoria was launched on Sunday 13 August at Darebin Libraries Northcote Branch and was opened by The Hon Candy Broad, Minister for Local Government, Darebin Mayor, Cr Stanley Chiang and Katrina Knox, Library Manager of Darebin Libraries.  

The LibraryLink Victoria network is commencing with three Spydus metropolitan library services connecting Darebin, Port Phillip and Boroondara. The LibraryLink website is an Australian first and will provide Victoria's 2.5 million public library users with unprecedented access to the 10 million books, CDs and other items in the State's public library catalogues.

Candy Broad, Minister for Local Government said regular public library users will be able to directly search a virtual catalogue of all member libraries’ resources using the internet from anywhere – at home, school, the office or an internet café.

The new service will initially be available to members of ten country public library services in the north and west of Victoria and three Spydus metropolitan services – Boroondara, Darebin and Port Phillip, before progressively becoming available across the rest of Victoria later this year.

Darebin Mayor, Cr Stanley Chiang announced at the launch that “People will not only have access to their own local library’s collections, but books and other items from many public libraries.”

Cr Chiang said that with the introduction of LibraryLink Victoria, Darebin library members will be able to search an ever growing number of public library collections and request items directly themselves, just as they can do now on the Darebin Libraries catalogue.

“The City of Darebin takes great pride in its library services and we loan 1.4 million items each year. We seek to actively participate in the development of innovative programs and services that will extend and enhance our community’s access to resources and information.”

“This collaborative project between the State Government and Victorian Public libraries is a great opportunity to provide access to a wide range of collections from across the state. It’s also a chance to empower Darebin residents, giving them greater control over where, when and how they locate the resources they want and need,” Cr Chiang said.

LibraryLink Victoria will provide better access to library services for Cultural and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities, young families, people in remote areas, older Victorians and other Victorians who would not have had access to these vital community resources.

Take a sneak preview of the LLV portal at Darebin Libraries.

http://www.darebin-libraries.vic.gov.au/default.asp

NSW CPLA Coonabarabran

The Macquarie Regional Library Service hosted the NSW Country Public Library Association Conference at Coonabarabran in July. The conference was very well attended with many interesting papers presented and delegates fully embraced the ‘Bush Dance’ theme for the Conference Dinner with many a cowboy hat to be seen!

Civica was delighted to participate as a major sponsor of the conference and our congratulations go to Lauren Ryan, Riverina Regional Library and Sharon Tollard, Librarian Gunnedah Shire Library winners of the Civica Spot Prizes at the Welcome Reception.

Spydus People

We are delighted to welcome Bush Ndiege to the Spydus Team in the role of Management Accountant.  Bush has previously worked in the Business Services and Tax professions and has a Postgraduate Degree in Professional Accounting from Victoria University.  In his spare time, Bush enjoys playing soccer, listening to music and following the Wallabies Rugby Union side.

¨                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 

Civica is a major sponsor of the ALIA conference and we look forward to seeing everyone at the Welcome Reception on the Tuesday evening. Don’t forget to visit us on stand 41/42 for fresh coffee and a demonstration of the new Spydus Self-Service Station.

¨                   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

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Spydus Newsletter - September 2006

Welcome

This month we bring you news of three libraries that have recently implemented the Spydus Self Service solution and we are also delighted to announce a new customer in Singapore, the Health Promotion Board. Our site of the month for September is Cockburn Public Library and Information Service in WA and our review includes details of their new online historical collection called the Azelia Ley Homestead Museum.

We have plenty of product information this month with updates on the Spydus Kids Catalogue and a new interface to PictureAustralia and make sure you don’t miss Hot Tip # 29, which focuses on new Spydus Client Software Release Alerts.

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

NSW and Victorian Libraries implement Spydus Self Service Solution

The new Spydus Self Service Solution is proving to be a popular choice for Spydus public library customers with Blacktown City Council’s, Max Webber Library and Central West’s Orange Library in NSW recently implementing the solution. The City of Boroondara in metropolitan Melbourne has also implemented the solution at their Balwyn branch, one of the busiest of their five branch libraries.

Mark Grosvenor, Operations Librarian at Blacktown Library Service advised that their Self Issue Facility successfully went live on August 21^st.

According to Mark the public reaction to the self-service facility has been positive. “We have three Self Issue Stations located at the Max Webber Library, which is the central branch of the Blacktown service.  Although designed for RFID, we are currently running on barcode loans, just until we complete the RFID tagging process, which should be in the next few weeks.”

“Currently 10% of our loans are going through the Self Issue, which gives us great hope for the future.   Members of the public have been largely positive once they realise how easy the facility is to use,” said Mark.

Louise Pitcher, Information Management and Kew Librarian at City of Boroondara also provided some very positive feedback in response to their recent installation at their busy Balwyn Library Branch.

“Boroondara Library Service recently installed Spydus Self-Service at its busiest branch, Balwyn. Previously we had the Raeco FTI units – which had struggled along for many years past their ‘use by date’. Once we installed Spydus 8 however, we decided to give them a dignified burial,” said Louise.

According to Louise the Spydus Self-Service solution offers a number of advantages. “We had followed the development of the Self-Service solution with interest as we always try to avoid third parties if possible, preferring the greater integration and simpler allocation of responsibility that comes with a single supplier. The Spydus unit also has a major advantage of being significantly cheaper than the alternatives and it is easily upgradeable to RFID in the future.”

“Our Balwyn branch has always been the greatest user of self-service and the borrowers complained loudly when they didn’t have it. The unit was installed in early August and with some lateral thinking Civica was able to quickly resolve an issue with our previous barcodes. It has now slid into operation as smoothly as we could want and is a great success with the customers. We are now planning to purchase three more for our other branches – and we know we can be confident that it will be a hassle-free solution,” said Louise.

Health Promotion Board in Singapore chooses Spydus

The Health Promotion Board (HPB) of Singapore has chosen Civica’s Spydus Library solution following a comprehensive open tender process, with many companies submitting proposals. A major consideration was the significant and ongoing development of the Spydus solution, combined with the value of Civica’s Spydus Managed Service.

Spydus was chosen by HPB as the most appropriate solution balancing application suitability, functionality, ongoing development and support and value. The Spydus solution for HPB will go live in mid November and an Advanced Bookings module will be delivered end of first quarter 2007.

Spydus 8 Launched to Taiwanese Library Market

More than 80 librarians from libraries throughout Taiwan attended the launch of Spydus 8 this month, which was held at the Jin Wen Institute of Technology (JWIT) in Taiwan on September 8^th.

JWIT hosted the meeting in conjunction with Civica’s Taiwanese distributor, TOP Technologies. Civica’s Maranda McLaren was also in attendance and the key-note presentation was delivered by Chao-Chen Chen, Professor of Library and Information Studies and Chairperson from the National Taiwan University.

More than 280 libraries throughout Taiwan are currently using the Spydus library management solution and there was a great deal of interest and excitement amongst the librarians upon seeing the great depth of functionality Spydus 8 delivers. We look forward to bringing more news of developments in Taiwan in the coming months.

Site of the Month: Cockburn Library WA

The City of Cockburn Public Library and Information Service has been a Civica customer since 1992. Cockburn is one of the major Coastal Cities found in the state of Western Australia and is situated just 22km south of Perth and 8km south of Fremantle.

One of the City's most unique features is a chain of five lakes running north to south through the heart of the City. Sixteen Aboriginal campsites have been identified throughout Cockburn, most of them on the fringes of two of the larger lakes, North Lake and Bibra Lake. Cockburn's population is currently just over 75,000 people and is expected to grow to more than 100,000 by the year 2010.

Cockburn Library has committed to regularly upgrading their Spydus system to leverage off new developments to ensure that their library patrons are provided with rich functionality. Over time they have successfully introduced the Spydus Requests Module, the Syndetics enriched content interface and the Spydus Join Online feature. 

Library patrons are certainly making the most of the empowerment they are offered, with more than 50 % of renewals now conducted by patrons via the library catalogue.

The City of Cockburn Public Library & Information Service in Western Australia held a morning tea at their Spearwood Library branch this month to celebrate their recent upgrade to Spydus 8.

Duncan K. Furphy Manager Library Services/ City Librarian, thanked both the Civica implementation team for their great support and his Library team for all their great work.  He especially thanked Linda Seymour Library Technology Coordinator for her great work during the upgrade process. 

Duncan K. Furphy, Manager Library Services/City Librarian
and Linda Seymour, Library Technology Co-ordinator     

 Two years ago the library started an interesting project, to catalogue a special collection called the Azelia Ley Homestead Museum.  In collaboration with the Spydus team, a specific easy to use web cataloguing form was created and a filter setup for the collection.

The collection can be searched by the location of the historical items and in the image below you can see the items that reside in the Coachman’s House.

Visit Cockburn’s website at: http://www.cockburn.wa.gov.au

Civica Singapore All-staff Conference

Civica conducted the first all-staff conference at the Temasek Club on 1 September, with over 170 attendees from our Collection Development team, our team of Librarian Assistants and Library Officers and Head Office Support staff. With more than 130 staff deployed full-time in school libraries across Singapore, it was the first time that all Singapore staff had been able to get together to share experiences and ideas and to discuss our future opportunities.

Civica’s Singapore team has grown very quickly from one full-time staff member in July last year to approximately 180 staff in September this year. We will be looking for a new conference venue for 2007 as by then the Singapore office will employ more than 220 Library Assistants and Library Officers and more than 70 Support and Collection Development staff.

Hot Tip # 29 –  Spydus Client Software Release Alerts and FTP Access

To keep our customers up to date with the most recent Spydus client software releases, we are now including client Release Alerts each month in the Spydus Newsletter.  This will keep you all updated on what software release is currently available for download via the Spydus ftp server.

Now available for download :   Client Release 8.2.13a

In order to download the client software from the Spydus FTP server, you will need to input ftp.spydus.com into your web browser.  You will then be prompted with the following logon screen.

As we have recently incorporated a secure authentication process for this service, you will need to contact the Spydus Help Desk for access details.  The password is updated on a monthly basis.

Spydus 8 New Feature – PictureAustralia Interface

Spydus 8 now incorporates an interface to PictureAustralia,  an Internet-based service accessible via your Spydus OPAC catalogue that allows your patrons to search multiple online pictorial collections at the National Library of Australia’s union catalogue of images.   Site’s can subscribe to this service and make their pictorial collections accessible to anyone searching across the Picture Australia database.

A Result Set via PictureAustralia Search Interface. Simply click on the image to display full record image.

In order to utilise this facility, site’s will need to subscribe to the PictureAustralia service.  You’ll find more information about PictureAustralia at: http://www.pictureaustralia.org/index.html. 

Alternatively, contact your Account Manager for more details.

Library’s innovating with Spydus Kid’s Catalogue

The Spydus Kid’s Catalogue is an icon driven and easy to use search interface, which has been specifically designed for junior library users.  The principal design is focused on pre-configured canned searches that operate across a subset of your junior collections, where each category of enquiry is linked to a Dewey classification, or a truncated Dewey classification.  This provides a seamless and effective mode of record retrieval for the younger patrons who are not necessarily equipped with the more advanced search techniques.

To view some examples of online Kid’s Interfaces, please see the following links :

Monash Public Library Service       http://catsq.monlib.vic.gov.au/kids.html
 

Coolooa Library ServicE
http://spydus.cooloola.qld.gov.au
 

City of Mandurah Library Service    http://library.mandurah.wa.gov.au
 

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

LINK Library Network (Barossa)         
http://barossa.spydus.com/

For further information on the Spydus Kids Catalogue please contact your Account Manager.

ALIA 2006 – click 06 – Perth

The ALIA 2006 Biennial Conference was held at the new Perth Convention Exhibition Centre from 19-22 September with the conference theme click06: 'Create, Lead, Innovate, Connect, Knowledge'.

The program deliberately looked at challenging the norm in the provision of information services with a key focus on re-thinking the future movement of library profession's role and responsibilities in their communities.  The conference was very positively received with over 800 delegates in attendance from far and wide. 

As a major sponsor Civica was delighted to be involved and during the event our sales team were kept very busy on the stand dispatching 600 Civica maracas, 900 coffees and about 2kg of chocolate. The Spydus Self-Service solution was also demonstrated on the stand and created plenty of interest over the four day event.

Thank you to all the Civica Customers who stopped by to support our efforts!

Spydus People

The Spydus Team is very pleased to introduce Melanie Ngo our newest member of the Spydus Customer Support Team.  Melanie has a Diploma in IT (Software Development) from RMIT and a Diploma in Library and Information Science from Swinburne University of Technology and has recently worked as a Customer Support Consultant on the BigPond Helpdesk.

Upcoming Events

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

Library Books for East Timor Trivia Night

Civica is delighted to be sponsoring this very worthy event to raise funds for the purchase of library books and literacy materials for the ongoing development of Library and Information provision in East Timor.  The guest line up for the Trivia night includes Trivia Master Extraordinaire Brian Nankervis and guest Trivia masters include Sports buff Angela Pippos, Film buff Paul Harris, Lonely Planet's Tony Wheeler, Readings Books & Music's Mark Rubbo, State Librarian and CEO Anne Marie Schwirtlich and the DVC's Prue Digby.

So come along on Friday 6^th October and join us in supporting this important and fun event. For further information contact: patti.manolis@maribyrnong.vic.gov.au

Spydus Newsletter October 2006

Welcome

This month’s newsletter features loads of product news with the first of many articles on the new Spydus 8.4 Release. This month the focus is on Acquisitions and we will be bringing you regular updates on this important new release over the coming months. You will also find an article on a range of new Spydus 8 reports and don’t miss the new Spydus 8 Fact sheets on the website.

October Site of the Month is Ryde Library Service, a long-term Spydus customer, and we are delighted to announce they will celebrate 25 years as a Spydus site this year.

October saw Spydus on display at the LIANZA Conference in New Zealand with more than 800 librarians in attendance and another successful annual SPUN conference was also hosted in Melbourne. If you were unable to attend the SPUN event the presentations are now available for download from the website.

SPUN 2006 Conference, Melbourne

The 2006 Annual SPUN Conference was held at the Novotel on Collins Street, Melbourne on 18^th – 20^th October.  The event was once again very well represented with over 80 delegates in attendance from the Australian and New Zealand Spydus customer base.  

Major highlights of the 2006 conference included :

·         Spydus 8 Advanced Reports Workshop conducted at the Civica Bourke St Office.

·         Library bus tour which included visits to Loreto Mandeville Hall, Coburg Library (Moreland City Libraries), Carnegie Library (Glen Eira Library Service) and Beaumaris Library (Bayside Library Service)

·         Cocktail reception held at Civica Bourke St Office and Conference Dinner at Breezes Restaurant at Crown Casino. 

·         Consortium presentations were provided by the Schools Consortia participants (Rosemary Abbott and Michael Jongen) and also from the LINK Consortia in SA (Barossa, Clare and Gilbert Valley, and Light Regional Councils)

·         Member site profiles provided by Wollongong Library Service in NSW and Timaru Library Service in NZ.

Please remember that you can access the SPUN presentation papers from the Spydus User Network homepage at http://www.spun.asn.au/

Spydus Release 8.4 - Acquisitions Module Functionality

Over the coming months we will be providing all the latest information on the enhanced and extended functionality to be provided across the complete Spydus Solution with the release of Spydus 8.4. First up is a complete list of the exciting new enhancements that will be incorporated into the Spydus 8.4 Acquisitions client, due for release in March 2007. 

• The order running total will be displayed at the bottom of the screen
• Prompt if reservation attached when cancelling an order
• User customised display remembered when users log in
• Ability to add fund codes to charges
• Ability to load multiple POs into an Invoice
• Linking of allocations and fund codes
• Ability to show the Main Title of an item in the description field of the invoice
• Ability to change order details once processed, for example the vendor details or to cancel an order, or make an exact copy
• Ability to handle multiple currencies
• Ability to link currency and vendor so that currency defaults when the vendor is input
• Free text note field when an order cancelled
• Ability to create orders in batch and store for later use
• Ability to specify different delivery addresses for orders
• Check on ISBN input to ensure correct format
• Ability to link funds to collection type, location, quantity ordered
• Ability to create new POs for renewed subscriptions
• Enhanced fund rollover to include recommitting of standing orders in rollover
• Ability to add oncosts and charges to an order, such as postage and handling
• Ability to set up blanket orders
• Repopulating of templates
• Support for multiple locations and collections in the 960 subfield tag
• Ability to search ISBN to attach to the order
• Overspend warning in fund
• Ability to load PRF records
• Retrieve price from ISBN into order screen
• Add “Service” field to allow processing requirements to be captured on the vendors order
• Provide first copy alert so as can be sent to cataloguing
• Servicing codes to be added to the supplier record with capacity for multiple codes
• On invoice allow for number of item received to be added
• In supplier record allow for discount based on material type
• Support for non-bibliographic orders
• Support for different authority levels at order entry
• Branch level support for funds
• Ability to split funds across an order

Site of the Month: Ryde Library Service, NSW

Ryde Library Service in metropolitan Sydney will celebrate 25 years as a Spydus customer this year and Civica is honored that Ryde Library Service has chosen to taken this journey with us.

Ryde Library Service has always been a high end user of the Spydus library management solution and as such they have played a vital and highly valuable role in shaping the direction and functionality of Spydus over the years.

The City of Ryde lies in the central northern part of the Sydney Metropolitan area, approximately 12kms from the centre of Sydney and occupies most of the divide between the Parramatta and Lane Cove rivers, with 16 suburbs within its boundaries and serves a population of around 96,000 people.

The suburbs that make up the Ryde area include: Chatswood West, Denistone, Denistone East, Denistone West, East Ryde, Eastwood, Gladesville, Macquarie Park, Marsfield, Meadowbank, Melrose Park, North Ryde, Putney, Ryde, Tennyson Point, and West Ryde.

Ryde Council is very proud of its history, and this is reflected in the historical collections managed by the Library Services.  The Library has created two historical picture collections cataloguing the collections on Spydus, the “Ryde Photographs” and the “Hunters Hill Historical Society Photographs”.  You can also find a link to an Oral Histories collection on the library catalogue, featuring a collection of interviews made in the late 1990's with long-term residents of the Ryde area.

As part of their recent Spydus 8 upgrade, Ryde Library Service has also been the first Spydus customer to activate the Spydus Chinese catalogue providing a new level of service to the Cantonese speaking population within the Ryde community.

Spydus 8 New Feature: New Invoice Summary, Top Borrowers and Top Titles Reports

Library staff now have easy access to invoicing and popular borrower and title information with three new Spydus 8 reports.

1. Invoice Summary Report – provides detail of invoices issued during a selected time interval with the option to sort by Invoice Type, Staff ID (staff member who issued invoice) and vendor.

Follow this path to the report: Reports -> Acquisition Reports -> Invoice Summary -> Invoice Summary Report

2. Top Borrowers Report - provides details of those borrowers who borrowed maximum number of books between the selected time interval, detailing the barcode number, borrower’s name, borrower’s home group (only the first home group in the database is displayed even though the borrower may be associated with more than one home group) and the number of loans taken by the borrower between the time intervals.

Follow this path to the report: Circulation Reports -> Loans -> Top Borrowers -> Top Borrowers Report

3. Top Titles Report - Reports details of the titles which have been borrowed the maximum number of times between the selected time interval, detailing the book title and authors name and the number of loans taken against the title between the time intervals.

Sort options include: Borrowers Age, Borrowers Home Location, Borrowers Sex, Borrowers Category, Borrowers Course Code, Borrowers Home Group, Borrowers Languages Spoken, Borrowers Residential Area, Borrowers Year Level, Classification, Collection Code, General Material Designation, Item Material Type, Location Code, Postcode, Suburb and Workstation.

Follow this path to the report: Circulation Reports -> Loans -> Top Title -> Top Titles Report

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

Congratulations to our two newest customer sites in South Australia on their recent successful Spydus 8 implementations with Gawler Library going live on Monday 23^rd and Whyalla on Tuesday 24^th.

http://www.gawlerlibrary.sa.gov.au/

http://www.whyalla.sa.gov.au/

We also congratulate Lithgow Regional Library (NSW) and Pymble Ladies College in Sydney on their successful upgrade implementations this month.

http://www.learningcentre.lithgow.com/index.html

http://www.pymblelc.nsw.edu.au/

Hot Tip # 30 – Identifying your current Spydus client and server release

(Applicable to Spydus release 8.2.5 and above)
Did you know?? You can check to see which Spydus server and client release you have operating on your network by doing the following:

Client release

The Spydus8 client version can be identified via the version txt file accessible @ C:\Program Files\Spydus8 on each PC that the client software is installed.

Server release

The Spydus8 server release can be identified via the following URL : 

http://hostname/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/PGM/OPAC/SERVERINFO

Each site will need to substitute the ‘hostname’ component of the URL with their site's unique hostname or IP dedicated for accessing Spydus 8.

Spydus 8 – New Web Fact Sheets

The fact sheets listing on the Spydus web pages has been updated to include three new fact sheets for Spydus 8. 

·          Completing annual statistical surveys

·          Creating canned searches

·          Spydus consortium model

The fact sheets can be accessed from the Civica website at Library Solutions>Customer Services>Support Services at http://www.civica.com.au/ .

LIANZA Wellington, New Zealand

 The Library & Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa: Te Rau Herenga o Aotearoa (LIANZA) is the professional organisation for the New Zealand library and information services sector. Civica was delighted to join more than 800 people, including many of our customers, in Wellington where the conference theme was Next Generation Libraries.

The LIANZA Conference E-Blog is now available and you can visit the E-Blog at: http://www.lianza.org.nz/e-blog/ to find out all the conference news and delegate feedback.

Spydus People

Simon Parkes has joined Civica’s Spydus UK team based in London. Simon has worked with Civica since 1991 covering a broad range of Local Government activities.  Originally from a sales background, Simon spent a number of years working with McDonnell Douglas (Northgate) where he was responsible for sales of the URICA Library Management System. More recently Simon was the Managing Director of Civica’s Enforcement business in the UK, where he was responsible for Parking, Police and Legal applications as well as Managed Services. This year Simon has taken on a broader Business Development role and has taken responsibility for the delivery of Spydus into the UK.

We are very pleased to welcome Rimma Kats to the Spydus Help Desk Support Team.  Rimma is a qualified librarian with a strong technical and library background and has a Graduate Diploma in IT (Internet and Web Technologies) from RMIT and a Degree in Librarianship from the Ukraine.  Rimma’s interests include travelling, gardening and yoga.

Upcoming Events

Spydus Events

¨       SA SPUN Meeting:  The next SA meeting will be held at Unley Library at 3.30pm on Monday 13 November.  Following the meeting will be the SA SPUN annual dinner, Venue TBA.

¨       NSW SPUN Meeting: The next NSW meeting will be held at Blacktown Library on Friday 24 November.

¨       VIC SPUN Meeting: The next VIC meeting will be held at the Civica Bourke Street Office on Friday 8 December @ 11am.  The annual VIC SPUN Christmas lunch will proceed after the meeting.

Industry Events

¨       New Librarians Symposium Sydney 1-2 December

¨       Information Online Sydney 30 January – 1 February

Spydus Newsletter November 2006

Welcome

This month we are very pleased to announce Spydus' entry into the UK library market with a six library consortium ready to implement Spydus as a Managed Service serving 1.4 million people across south-east England. We also have news of a new Customer Award Program focussing specifically on Innovation in Customer Service, so make sure you read the details below, including our very first nominee, Beaumaris Library in Melbourne, Victoria.

Our Site of the Month is LINK Consortia in South Australia and we also have news of the new Community Learning Centre, Maribyrnong Library has opened at West Footscray.

As promised we have more on Spydus 8.4; this month we preview the new Circulation Module and there are also articles on using Google and Previous Queries for your searches plus the usual Hot Tip and news on the latest Web Fact Sheets.

Six Library deal heralds Spydus' UK entry

We are delighted to announce a multi-million dollar deal with a consortium of six British public library authorities highlighting the rapid global expansion of Civica’s Australian-developed library management system, Spydus.

The deal, worth £1.5 million ($A3.71 million), heralds Spydus’ entry into the UK marketplace. Worldwide, Civica now supplies Spydus software and services to more than 1,100 libraries.

The latest success follows a major contract in Singapore in late 2005, when Civica was awarded a five-year, A$40 million government programme to provide a national managed libraries service for more than 330 schools and colleges. The library management solution has also been successfully exported to the New Zealand, Taiwanese and United States markets and locally more than 350 Australian public, special and school libraries are now using the solution.

In Britain, Civica plc was appointed preferred supplier for automated library management systems for South East Library Management Services (SELMS), a consortium of six public library authorities. The five-year SELMS initiative will see Civica deliver Spydus under a fully managed service to Brighton and Hove Council, Buckinghamshire County Council, Milton Keynes Council, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, West Berkshire District Council and Wokingham District Council.

This initiative will improve the management and service capabilities of the participating local authorities’ library services, which serve 1.4 million people across south-east England. The improvements will help the libraries to deliver better customer service, accessibility and efficiency.

Civica was chosen as preferred supplier because it most closely met the SELMS specification and was the most economically advantageous.

Zoe Albright, project manager for SELMS said: “The consortium will provide an innovative and cost effective shared resource for members to renew and improve their library services and meet customers’ expectations. As the programme gathers pace, we hope that other local authorities will join to share in the benefits which we provide.”

Philip Barr, Civica’s General Manager Library Solutions, said: “SELMS represents a very significant win, as it is our first British customer.  A world-class library management solution rather than simply a software application, Spydus has a consortium model that delivers the necessary integration with complete library autonomy.  Its affordability and the fact that Civica is a single source provider, with no third-parties involved in delivery of our solution, all contribute to its accelerating global success.”

“Now in its fourth generation, Spydus has evolved and matured in Australia over 27 years,” said Mr Barr.

“A comprehensive library management system, it combines automation of traditional library functions including web-based and mobile access with the latest developments in administration, including the use of radio frequency identification technology (RFID). Spydus is backed by Civica’s unrivalled track record in innovation and delivery.”

Announcing Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award

Civica is very pleased to announce the launch of a brand new Award Program for our library customers, the "Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award".

As you know, customer service is at the top of the priorities list for organisations everywhere and libraries are no exception. Civica would like to recognise and applaud those library staff that are taking customer service to the next level, using the Spydus Newsletter as a forum to communicate the many innovative ideas and initiatives that are happening throughout the industry.

So how does it work? Quite simply. Each month a Customer Service Innovation will be profiled in the Spydus Newsletter with a winning library announced each quarter. You will also be able to vote for a library by simply clicking on the Vote Here button found at the end of each article.

And we appreciate that Customer Service initiatives generally only work when the whole team is behind it, so you can be sure the prize will be something your entire team can enjoy, whilst also building on your team work and team spirit.

If you would like to make a nomination for the Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award all you need to do is contact your Account Manager and they will be happy to work with you to build a profile.

This month we are delighted to bring you our first nominee, the team at Beaumaris Library in Bayside, Victoria for their implementation of a Book Shop shelf arrangement designed to be more meaningful, and therefore more accessible, for their customers.

u Beaumaris Library Bayside, Book Shop arrangement for Non-fiction

Melvil Dewey’s decimal classification system was revolutionary in 1876 when all knowledge could be divided into ten main categories. In 2006, our understanding of the world is much more complex and so is our notion of “all knowledge”. The main areas of interest to borrowers in a suburban public library service centre on the domestic and the personal: their health, their homes, their holidays, their money and their leisure. 

In 2005, Bayside Library service decided to address this challenge head on and stopped using Dewey numbers in the traditional sense to determine shelf order in its re-developed Beaumaris branch. The result was six new non-fiction collections which combine Dewey sequences within subject areas that are meaningful to a contemporary Australian audience.

The project had three customer service aims:

·         increase patrons accessibility to and use of the non-fiction collection

·         save borrowers time by grouping related items together

·         incorporate the 'junior collection' into the total package of ‘the children’s library’

The new collections are: Art and Craft; Computers and Business; Countries; Health; House and Garden and Leisure. These areas were chosen because they are popular with adults and because Dewey separates similar subjects. New collections were created in Spydus so the Catalogue record shows accurately where books are held in the Library and the new collections were not given any prefixes as it was felt that the Dewey numbers function as a code to subject areas and therefore other coded information should be avoided. The books are labelled with coloured stickers with the name of the collection in large white letters, which is consistent with the existing Biography collection.

As the subject areas chosen focused on adult tastes and interests it was no longer viable to integrate the adult and junior non-fiction collections and separating the junior non-fiction has made a clear statement that children have their own part of the Library which contains all of their materials.

At Beaumaris the junior collection is housed on bright blue shelving and separating the junior non-fiction has also improved the stock rotation in a collection that tends to have low circulation figures.

And the results? Items held in the new collections are marching off the shelves. Beaumaris is the 3rd smallest library in Bayside, but it has the hardest working collection and the majority of loans have come from items held in the new collections. If you would like a copy of the collection document used at Beaumaris please email shopkins@bayside.vic.gov.au

 

Spydus Release 8.4 - Circulation Module Functionality

The following list of Circulation enhancements will be available in the new Spydus 8.4 release, due in March 2007. 

• Self check alert sent to staff when reservation is placed with items available
• Customer defined alert to purchase when reserves exceeds holdings
• Enhanced searching on borrower name permutations to avoid duplicate registrations
• Ability to type DOB in borrower registration form
• Customer configurable rules on borrower pin
• Additional status field to be added on item record to show cataloguing status
• Enhanced privilege levels
• Internal messaging service to be added for staff communication
• Provide a reserve all copies function
• More complete postcode and suburb information to be added for UK, NZ, Taiwan, Singapore, and US
• Automatically randomly generated pin number
• Display collection when an item is issued
• Enhanced mobile services with the ability to automate generation of Routing lists for each location stop
• Transmit notices function to be moved to circulation
• Audit trail for item renewals
• Provide a holdback time period for certain items, for example copyright periods
• Allow interbranch requests from the OPAC
• Borrowers will be able to reserve interbranch item and an email will be generated automatically
• Ability to add title requested to the message header in a request
• Ability to change hold periods for reservations in staff enquiry
• Reservation note displayed on Reservation alert when returned
• Comprehensive stock rotation plans to be supported
• Ability to archive borrowers
• Automated suppression supported based on copy status
• Bulk change of due dates to be supported
• Change copy status available via staff enquiry

Site of the Month: LINK Consortium SA

The LINK library network, a collaborative project between the Clare and Gilbert Valley, Barossa and Light Councils has recently won the SA (South Australian) Great Regional Award in the Innovation category.   The award, a purple glass pear, was presented to LINK on the 13^th November at the Novotel Barossa Resort to acknowledge the greatly improved services provided to the regional communities served by the Library network through their implementation of the Spydus Consortium Library Management System.

The introduction of the Spydus Solution has allowed all three library services to provide a far greater level of service to their users through the extended functionality available via the Spydus catalogue, such as patron SDI alerts, item requests, online reservations and renewal and access to a range of remote catalogues and databases.   In addition to the end user services, the Barossa Library Service has also taken the opportunity to introduce a range of circulation notice dispatch methods such as SMS and email to advise their patrons when items are available for collection and loan renewal reminders.  Both Clare and Light Library Services are intending to implement these notice methods in the early part of 2007.

Heather Lymburn, Library Manager at Clare and Gilbert Valleys Library Service comments:  “It has been an honour to have all the hard work of the three library service’s recognised by the wider community.  Our communities have embraced the new features and services, which are now available through Spydus 8.” 

“As the award is a joint award, we are all quite pleased to have the opportunity to share the purple pear across the 3 services on a rotational basis, so now we can all enjoy a piece of the pear.”

The SA Great Regional Awards recognise and celebrate individuals, businesses, organisations and communities who have made a significant contribution to regional pride in South Australia.  The Innovation category is for a business, organisation or community group who have introduced new or significantly improved goods or services and/or implemented new or significantly improved processes.

SA Great Chairman, Mark Bickley believes passionately in recognising the successes of South Australian communities.

"The SA Great Regional Awards are a great way to celebrate the outstanding contributions and successes of both individuals and organisations.” said Mark Bickley.

"At SA Great we believe by sharing our achievements, everyone can learn from and be inspired by the success of others,” added Mark.

Spydus 8 New Feature: Google Search and Previous Queries

Two enhanced enquiry options are now available within the Spydus 8 Staff Enquiry pages.  The first new feature is the ‘Google’ extended search facility which allows staff to extend their initial search of the library catalogue to a broader search across the web when selecting the ‘Google’ option.

For example in the screen below, the keywords ‘nw zealand’ are misspelt. In the OPAC you have the option to link to Google directly or select the ‘Did you mean: new zealand?’. If you select the Did you mean: new zealand? link, you are taken to an Anywhere: keyword search of the preferred spellings, browsing the library catalogue holdings.

The second new feature is the Previous Queries List allowing staff to access a list of the previous queries conducted across the catalogue from the Operations menu and initiate a previous search strategy by selecting the hyperlinked search.

Note: These new features are currently available in Spydus 8.3 within Staff Enquiry and will shortly be released in the Spydus Web OPAC allowing patron use. Both features will be available in the new Spydus 8.4 release.

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

Congratulations this month to Cessnock City Library and Newington College in NSW and Caboolture Shire Libraries in QLD on their successful transition to Spydus 8.

Congratulations are also extended to Porirua Public Library in NZ on their Spydus 8 implementation, which was successfully completed on Monday 13^th November. 

The year is certainly not yet over and we have two South Australian libraries, Victor Harbor and Wattle Range Library Service due to implement Spydus 8 during December.

Hot Tip # 31 – Updating your scheduled task to automate circulation notice transmission

Did you know !  You can now configure your circulation notices to transmit automatically.  This can be achieved by updating the notice generation scheduled task on your Spydus server.  By appending the -t flag at the end of your notice generation scheduled task path, this will automate notice transmission functions and will transmit all notice types and levels that haven’t already been transmitted.

What actually happens ?  If the delivery method is mail then –t creates the pdf document or txt file on your server.   However, you will still need to print the document or file and then mail the notices to your borrowers.  However, if the delivery method is e-mail or SMS then –t sends the e-mail or SMS to the borrower. 

For example, your scheduled task path (depending on the notices and update functions you have active on your database) could look like this :

-xtsk -yCIRC_NTCGEN -w80 -nUR]UL]O]V]LM]LL  -t

NB.  Please refer to your Circulation Supervisor training notes for a list of update and notice codes and instructions on editing a scheduled task.

Spydus 8 – New Web Fact Sheets

Available now on the Civica website at: Library > Customer Services > Support Services > Fact Sheets

·         Stocktake Process

• Spydus 8 Boolean and SQL Queries

Maribyrnong Library Service Opens West Footscray Community Learning Centre

Our congratulations to Maribyrnong Library Service on the opening of their new West Footscray Community Learning Centre during the month of October.

The new West Footscray Community Learning Centre, costing just over $2 million, with major contributions from the Victorian State Government and Maribyrnong Council, is a modern two-storey venue designed by award winning architects Whitefield McQueen. 

The centre has been designed to incorporate the West Footscray Library, West Footscray Neighbourhood House, meeting rooms, occasional childcare and toy library service. The centre was officially launched by the Minister for Information and Communications Technology and Consumer Affairs, Marsha Thomson.

The Minister, Marsha Thomson, announced: “The new West Footscray branch library will be a focus of community activity, where members can access books and other materials in English and a number of other languages.

“Both the library and the learning centre will also provide access to modern technology, including the Internet. Computer skills classes conducted by the learning centre will provide many people with the opportunity to engage in life-long learning as well as build new skills to enhance their employment opportunities.”

Spydus People

We are very pleased to welcome Helena Dionysiou to the Spydus team in the role of Services Manager.  Helena has over 16 years experience in researching, identifying specific knowledge based information, developing, project managing, consulting, and in particular, implementing general EDMS and knowledge management programs for six major health service providers and two corporate organisations.  Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Business (Information Management) and she is currently working towards the completion of the AQF registered training program (Cert 1V Assessment & Training).  Helena enjoys spending time with family or meeting with friends, dining and enjoying a nice glass of wine and catching the occasional play at the Melbourne Theatre Company/National Theatre.

Upcoming Events

Spydus Events

• VIC SPUN Meeting :  The next VIC meeting will be held at the Civica Bourke Street Office on Friday 8^th December @ 11am.  The annual Civica Xmas lunch for Victorian customers will proceed after the meeting.
• QLD SPUN Meeting :  The next QLD meeting will be held at Library Service Corporate Solutions on Thursday 7^th December @ 10am.

Industry Events

¨       New Librarians Symposium Sydney 1-2 December

¨       Information Online Sydney 30 January – 1 February

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Spydus Newsletter December 2006

Mallala Public Library Service signs on to Spydus South Australian Public Libraries Consortium Solution

We are very excited to announce the first library to join the Consortium Solution for public libraries in South Australia, Mallala Public Library Service.  The District Council of Mallala Public Library is situated 60km north of Adelaide in a district dominated by the Light and Gawler rivers.  The Town of Gawler, another library that recently chose to implement Spydus, is situated just 20 minutes away.

The District Council of Mallala is establishing a brand new library located at Two Wells, which will be open for access to all council residents, in addition to existing depots in Mallala and Windsor.    Kimberley Hargrave, Mallala Library Manager, comments: “We chose Spydus because it's many features are very user friendly, we were particularly attracted to the statistical reporting facilities within Spydus, and the cataloguing and circulation modules.”

“We are excited that Spydus will enable our users to access details about our library and it's resources online at their convenience. We anticipate that the recent introduction of broadband access to our district will enhance access to Spydus and library services within our region.  This combined with the library relocating and becoming a sole public library will ensure a challenging start to 2007!”

The South Australian Public Libraries Consortium Solution was designed with the needs of small and remote library services in mind, enabling smaller library services to leverage their limited resources. For instance through the sharing of setup and maintenance costs associated with the implementation of Spydus, along with sharing a bibliographic database so that they can provide a larger pool of services to the communities that they serve.

The solution comprises a shared database hosted on the Spydus Managed Service infrastructure and allows for an unlimited number of member libraries to join.  It also includes a pre-defined version of the Spydus application which includes the Enquiry, Circulation, Circulation Offline, Cataloguing, Requests Management and SDI modules.

New British success highlights global growth of Civica’s Spydus library management solution

We are delighted to announce another new Spydus customer in the UK with the signing of a five-year agreement with Hampshire County Council Library and Information Services. Hampshire Library and Information Services serves over one million people and 300,000 regular borrowers across the county. Its 54 branch ‘discovery centres’ and 19 mobile units are among the most advanced and innovative sites in the country.

The new partnership with Civica will support Hampshire’s drive to deliver lending and education services to reflect 21st century tastes, with the Spydus library management system underpinning new customer lending channels such as web-based individual borrowing profiles. There will be contact centre support for customers of the county’s local discovery centres as well as mobile library units serving rural areas and the contact centres will use real-time customer records. 

The agreement will help Hampshire Library and Information Services to deliver enhanced operations in line with the UK’s Department of Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) targets for improved accessibility, customer service and efficiency.

Once completed, the Spydus solution will connect departments’ service operations more closely with Council’s main corporate customer relationship management and financial management systems. This will provide a transparent view of the Library and Information Services’ financial performance, in line with addressing the government’s wider Efficiency Agenda for local authorities.

Richard Ward, Hampshire County Council’s head of Libraries and Information, said, “We wanted to harness technology to bring service innovations for customers and devolve management functions to local centres. We also wanted transparent management systems to help us provide ‘more for less.’ Civica offered a partnership model that will help us deliver our vision within an efficient operational framework.’

Visit the Hampshire County Council Library Service at http://www.hants.gov.uk/library/

Baby Bounce & Rhyme Program @ Adelaide Hills Library

As announced in the November issue of Spydus News, Civica has launched a brand new Award Program for our library customers, the "Spydus Customer Service Innovation Award" and this month we are delighted to include this nomination from the staff at Adelaide Hills Library in South Australia for their Baby Bounce and Rhyme Program.

Baby Bounce and Rhyme, a catchy title picked up during a serendipitous on-line search, has become a resoundingly successful program for Adelaide Hills Council Library Service and for numerous other South Australian libraries and is now being introduced into libraries in New South Wales. A training DVD has also been developed and is used in the University of South Australia’s Bachelor of Early Childhood Education curriculum, in training sessions for South Australian public libraries and is also being promoted interstate.  

Baby Bounce and Rhyme is a 30 minute session based around nursery rhymes, action songs, finger plays and music, providing an early literacy language enrichment program that is fun for parents and babies and prepares the way for reading to children. The sessions include a CD of musical accompaniment put together by staff, words displayed on large posters for parents to follow and an assortment of musical instruments suitable for tiny hands. 

Each parent or carer receives a Baby Bounce and Rhyme booklet that includes pictures, words and actions, suggested book lists and local information and contacts, all of which have been made freely available; together with advice, information and support, to interested libraries. The services and collections available are actively promoted, the most popular being board and picture books, CDs and educational aids.

Baby Bounce and Rhyme had its genesis in the libraries overcrowded story time sessions where it became apparent that the content of these sessions was not really suitable for toddlers. This realisation combined with a desire to address issues of literacy at an earlier age and based upon chance comments from new parents on not knowing nursery rhymes and concerns of not 'reading properly' to their babies and of not 'doing it right' led to the creation of the Baby Bounce and Rhyme program.

What began as a fortnightly session extended to weekly and then twice weekly, and now has a third session per week at another branch. Adelaide Hills library staff say it is wonderful to see the focused connection and interaction between parents and carers and baby, the fun found in bringing words and actions together, and the increased confidence of new parents in their own abilities. An unexpected bonus has been the connections and informal support being made between parents - including dads - and carers within the community.

For more information regarding the Baby Bounce and Rhyme Program please email Dee O’Loughlan @ dolough@ahc.sa.gov.au or visit their website at: www.ahc.sa.gov.au

Spydus Release 8.4 -   Management Report Functionality

The new Spydus 8.4 Release due in March 2007 will feature a comprehensive range of new management reporting functionality including:

• Copy holding start and end time
• Discard item report to be broken to collection code
• Statutory reporting
• Reservations supplied between periods
• Active membership reporting
• Library visits
• Supply rate for ILL

Site of the Month: Housing Development Board Library Service, Singapore

The Singapore Housing Development Board (HDB) Library Service is a long-term customer of Civica, initially implementing Spydus in 1992. As the public housing authority, HDB plans and develops public housing towns that provide Singaporeans with quality homes and living environments. In so doing, HDB also engages in active research and development work to ensure that cost-effectiveness and quality standards are maintained and continually improved on in the provision of HDB homes. 

In 2003 the HDB Library Service relocated to new premises together with the entire HDB group, which currently employs around 5000 staff.  The HDB Library Service accommodates a collection of 20,000 books, audiovisual materials and over 80,000 slides and the new location allows easier access to the library resources for all staff.

HDB introduced a conducive and pleasant learning environment within the library featuring reading tables for small group discussion, a music corner, television consoles with video playback capabilities, internet PC’s, and online search and reservation services. The HDB library service has also recently upgraded their library management system to Spydus 8 to provide improved services to their organisation.  This new advancement has additional features that include online reservation for library resources, online inter-library loan and renewal services, and online information search through the web OPAC.

Both library staff and users of the HDB Library Service are very pleased with the new Spydus 8 system as it is user-friendly and enables staff to access the latest reports on library usage.

From left to right:Leow Kok Meng, Civica, Julian Lim, Information Services Officer, HDB, Mrs. Tay Mee Fong, Senior Executive Corporate Admin Officer, HDB,_Ms. Serene, Library Assistant, HDB, Vijaya Lakshimi, Civica and Amy Natasha Toh, Civica.

Visit the Housing Development Board website at http://www.hdb.gov.sg

Spydus 8 New Feature – RFID Collection Management Unit

The Spydus RFID Hand Held Collection Management Unit is the latest addition to the Spydus RFID Solution and can be used to administer all inventory and stock audits across your library branches.

The unit consists of a hand held computer with touch screen and keypad access to Spydus stock functions; a docking station to charge the hand held unit and to connect to the network to upload and process your offline stocktake data and an RFID reader/antennae.   

The solution has been designed to work either offline or online connected to your network, supports wireless and bluetooth connectivity where available, and can be used with barcode or RFID tag technology to deliver seamless and dynamic workflow for your stock processing.

The stock audit functions currently available include :

·         Locate items

The locate items option can be used to identify mis-shelved items such as Lost, CR and Missing items.  This can be achieved by selecting a group of copy statuses and collections to be examined, which will then download a list of RFID or Accession numbers to the unit from the server that has the associated conditions.  Once you start scanning your collections, you will be alerted if there is anything identified on the shelf that matches the list downloaded to the unit.

·         Stocktake

The user can specify location, collection or Dewey range to be examined for their internal collection audit.   To operate in offline mode, the user commences scanning the relevant collections.  Once they have completed this process they can then store the data file, connect to the network and process the upload instantly.  Alternatively, sites have the option to conduct their stocktake dynamically online by comparing the data collected from the shelved items to the list of items downloaded from the server to the hand held unit.

·         Inhouse Usage

The inhouse usage mode can be used to record information regarding inhouse usage of items.  This will create an inhouse event loan which allows site’s to generate statistics on items that patron’s have used in your library branches.

·         Item Query

The item query function will allow users to query details about individual items that the unit has detected a specific action on. For example an item sitting on the shelf that has a CR status assigned to it.   The unit will display the item details such as title, author and collection on the compact screen.  Note this function is network/server intensive and will only be available when operating in online mode.

If you would like to arrange a demonstration or quotation on the Spydus RFID Collection Management Unit please contact your Account Manager.

Spydus 8.2 Upgrade Projects

Congratulations this month to Victor Harbor Public Library in South Australia on their successful Spydus 8 go live on Thursday 30^th November, which was earlier than their projected timeframe.  Well done!!

http://victorharbor.spydus.com/

We also congratulate our two new southern Sydney Spdyus customers Hurstville and Rockdale public libraries on their successful go-live’s. You can visit their OPACs by clicking on the links below.

Rockdale City Library

Hurstville City Library

Hot Tip # 32 – Changing circulation slip footer text

Did you know you can change the footer text in your circulation slips by editing the C:/Spydus8/Circulation/Templates/Slip_includes.xslt file, which is stored on your local workstation in the C:/ ????

Within Slip_includes.xslt you will find the following tags:

Line 1 :             <xsl:template name="footer">

Line 2 :                         <xsl:param name="slip-type"/>

Line 3 :                         <xsl:if test="$slip-type = 'ISSUE' or $slip-type = 'ONLOAN' or $slip-

type = 'RSV'">

Line 4 :                                     <xsl:text>Please retain this receipt and return</xsl:text>

Line 5 :                         <xsl:text>&#x0d;&#x0a;</xsl:text>

Line 6 :                                     <xsl:text>    items before the due date.</xsl:text>

Line 7 :                         <xsl:text>&#x0d;&#x0a;</xsl:text>

Line 8 :                         <xsl:text>&#x0d;&#x0a;</xsl:text>

Line 9 :                                     <xsl:text>THANK YOU FOR USING YOUR LOCAL

LIBRARY</xsl:text>

Line 10 :                                    </xsl:if>

Line 11 :                                    <xsl:if test="$slip-type = 'RETURN'">

Line 12 :                                               <xsl:text>&#x0d;&#x0a;</xsl:text>

Line 13 :                                               <xsl:text>&#x0d;&#x0a;</xsl:text>

Line 14 :                                                <xsl:text>THANK YOU FOR USING YOUR LOCAL

LIBRARY</xsl:text>

Line 15 :                                    </xsl:if>

Line 16 :                        </xsl:template>

You can add, edit and change the details for both the issues and return slips @ Line 9 and 14.  You can edit the file using Notepad or Wordpad, keeping in mind that there is a limit of 40 characters for your text description.

If you wish to add multiple lines of text, you can include a character return line feed after your text (as per lines 5, 7, 8, 12 & 13).  The code line required to do this is :

 <xsl:text>&#x0d;&#x0a;</xsl:text>

Note: Please make a backup copy of Slip_includes.xslt file before you make any changes.

Spydus 8 – New Web Fact Sheets

We have posted another Spydus 8 Fact Sheet to the Civica web page detailing how you can create the collection code for your Weblink records.

To access the latest Fact Sheets please go to http://www.civica.com.au/  Spydus > Customer Services > Support Services > Factsheets > and enter the password daffodil.

Civica Runner Up in Freehills Breakthrough Award, Singapore

At the recent Singapore Australian Chamber of Commerce Jubilee Business Awards, Civica was awarded runner up in the Freehills Breakthrough Award, which recognises those companies that have achieved a significant commercial breakthrough in Singapore.

Civica was recognised for being awarded the contract to provide Library Management Solutions to 330 Singapore MOE schools including Collection Development and the provision of library staff to more than 220 schools by July 2007. This contract is itself a breakthrough in the outsourcing of all government school libraries to a single commercial enterprise.

From only one staff member in July 2005, Civica has now recruited and trained more than 200 library operational staff and a further 50 library support and collection development staff in Singapore. Civica now provides a full spectrum of library management capability in Singapore and is providing library management software, collection development and collection budget management, processing and cataloguing of books, training and deployment of library operational staff and general library management consulting.

Rockdale’s Official Spydus Launch

Rockdale Public Library held a well attended official launch of Spydus on the 8th December.  The Library staff all wore t-shirts that read "New System. Better Service.  Ask me!"   With the implementation of Spydus, Rockdale has been able to provide their patrons with the following filtered collections: Kids Catalogue; Song Index; Local History Photos and a Local Newspaper Index. 

Rockdale is also using Spydus to provide patrons with the ability to request information via the Library Catalogue and renew and place reservations on items online.  The library patron is also now able to setup a profile to be alerted of new items at the library that they are interested in and new library patrons can join the Library Service Online.

You can visit the Library catalogue and explore these collections at http://library.rockdale.nsw.gov.au/

SPUN Crystal Reports Knowledge Base for Spydus 8

Important Update!!  There is now a united facility across the User Groups for the sharing of customised Spydus 8 Crystal Reports.  Site’s now have the opportunity to share the reports that they develop in-house with all Spydus customers.

You can access and post available Spydus 8 reports from the SPUN Knowledge Base web page.  This initiative is designed to promote the sharing and collaboration of reporting requirements, in addition to learning to build custom Spydus Crystal reports in version 8.   We encourage customers to share their work with others.  For more details, please see the SPUN website @ www.spun.asn.au.

Spydus People

Amy Natasha Toh  -  Business Development Manager, Singapore

Amy has joined Civica as Business Development Manager based in our Singapore office.  Amy has more than 10 years of experience in Sales, Account, and Customer Support management across South East Asia and has an Advance Diploma in Computer Studies.  In her spare time, Amy enjoys playing golf, swimming, travelling, listening to music, and reading.

Rosemary Le – UK Projects Manager

After extensive liaison with the Civica team on delivery of a consortium solution to public libraries in the UK (SELMS), Rosi has now moved across to join the Spydus team to deliver Civica’s first contracts in the UK.   With extensive experience in project management, government, business development and marketing, acquired both in Australia and the UK, Rosi brings a vibrant energy to the Spydus team.  A lover of nature and travel, Rosi enjoys hiking, meeting people and trying out new experiences.

Kathleen Lakey – Training Consultant

The Spydus Team welcomes Kathleen to the Training Consulting Team.  Kathleen is a qualified librarian/teacher with extensive background in training, teaching and lecturing, as well as very strong skills in writing training documentation, project management, marketing and IT.

 Kathleen has recently returned from a 3 year stint in United Arab Emirates where she was responsible for implementing a new program with the goal of training Emirati women to work as Library Assistants in a range of libraries.  In her spare time Kathleen enjoys gardening, travel, anything of an historical nature as well as meeting people from all walks of life.  She is also interested in politics and international affairs.

Advanced Reports Workshop 2007 – South Australia

We are now looking for expressions of interest from customers interested in undertaking the Spydus 8 Advanced Reports Workshop, which is planned for the early months of 2007.  If you are interested in attending, please contact Holley Dumble to register your interest.

Upcoming Events

SPUN User Group Dates 2007

Make sure you pencil the following dates into your diaries for user group meetings scheduled for 2007!!

Victoria

2 March                    Monash (Oakleigh Branch)

1 June                      Boroondara (Balwyn Branch)

7 September             Australia Post (Melbourne CBD)

7 December              Civica (Melbourne CBD)

Our congratulations to Dale Cousens at Whitehorse-Manningham on her election as the Victorian SPUN President for 2007 and to Nikki McGregor at Glen Eira on accepting the role of Secretary. 

We would also like to take the opportunity to say a ‘very big thank you’ to Louise Pitcher for her grand efforts in co-ordinating and chairing the Victorian SPUN meetings for the past 2 years as President and to John Ruddle as Secretary.

New South Wales (dates to be confirmed)

March                      Coffs Harbour

July                          Wollongong

November                 Ryde

Queensland

8 March                    Caboolture

South Australia and New Zealand User Group meeting dates will be confirmed in early 2007.

Industry Events

Spydus will be on display at Information Online 2007 in Sydney and you will be able to see demonstrations of the latest Spydus applications including our Spydus RFID solution. We look forward to seeing you at the Civica stand (42/60) during the show.

Civica will be hosting a Spydus
Customer Dinner in Sydney at The Malaya on Tuesday 30^th January and invitations will be posted to you in the New Year. If you will be attending Information Online we would love to see you there!

Seasons Greetings from the Spydus Team

From everyone here at Civica our very best wishes for the festive season and we wish you a safe and enjoyable New Year.