Murray Bridge launch hits the headlines

Today's online version of the  Murray Valley Standard has a great article about Murray Bridge joining the One Card network.  It includes a picture of the Mayor, Manager Carol Bath & an old friend known to many of us, who is now president of the Friends of the Library.

Given the reach of the paper it gives good coverage of which libraries are already part of the consortium & which libraries are still to join in a radius of about 80Kms from Murray Bridge.

You can see the article here.

2104 industry forecasts and more

I thought I'd provide links to a couple of articles which may be of interest to some.

A few times I have written about & linked to Marshall Breeding's excellent site called Library Technology Guides.  Breeding keeps track of library automation issues, writes great articles on a range of topics for the American Library Journal and also does some general forecasting regarding trends.  His 2014 trends paper published here on Information Today's site talks about what is trending for 2014 & makes for interesting reading.  I would recommend poking around on the Breeding site as it contains lots of very useful information.

Breeding's 2014 forecasts include some interesting background information on the development of consortia around the world, as well as progress on the vexed issue of seamlessly integrating e-book lending into library discovery layers.  It is well worth a read in the context of both what we're doing consortium-wise and the struggles we're having regarding seamless access to e-books.  However it looks like this is a problem that we may have an answer to very soon.  Watch this space!!

Another couple of articles worth looking at include one about the thinking behind the transformation of the Chattanooga Public Library - with funds and a space of 1,300 sq M quickly shifting from "really high end research materials" to a maker space with laser and vinyl cutters, sewing machines and the obligatory 3D printers. 

Here is an interesting quote about the philosophy driving this change:

“With this space, what we’re trying to do is acknowledge that access to the commons is no longer a read-only environment,” says Meg Backus, who runs the library’s fourth floor.
 

Backus says libraries should find instruction in the evolution of the Internet—which started as a place to post static pages and now is a thoroughly collaborative environment. “There needs to be production capabilities for true access to happen,” she says. “That means the ability to create a video, the ability to learn how to make a website, to have access to the software that can create these 3-D files.” 

 

An interesting article about sharing all sorts of items and skills to save money includes reference to an inner-suburban Tool Library in Melbourne's Brunswick. This is an interesting concept & may be something that a local library may want to consider.  I know that I'd be a customer if it was fairly close to home.

How far have we come?

PLS provides the Libraries Board with a monthly status report on the One Card project.  As the end of February report has just come across my desk I thought I would share a few of the statistics from it with you.

With Burnside and Murray Bridge joining the consortium during February the system now covers 94% of the State's population; with 55 of the State's 68 councils are now included in the coverage.  This represents 72 separate library services which used to run on 56 different databases.

The system has 981,609 registered borrowers and 3,657,919 items listed in the catalogue.  To date the consortium has not done a great deal of work on de-duplicating the borrower file.  Therefore the number of registered borrowers is somewhat inflated & will be addressed as we move forward. As the user group decided that any customer de-duplication would require negotiations with customers this will be a relatively slow process. 

PLS is planning a major de-duplication of the bibliographic database (i.e. the catalogue - aka Enterprise).  Our early assessment is that approximately 100,000 bib records will be merged when the next de-duplication takes place in April.  While some of the de-duplication work can be automated, there will be an ongoing need for staff in libraries to continue to work on specific records to ensure that we work towards having a clean and accurate database.

The inclusion of Mallala and two of SA's larger regional towns in Whyalla and Pt Lincoln in March will continue the spread of the consortium to another 42,000 residents.

Murray Bridge joins the party

Because we had a relatively longer period over Christmas / New Year where we did not have any libraries go live we've managed to schedule 2 go live sites in 8 days - with Murray Bridge going live today. In fact they went live late yesterday - slightly ahead of schedule.

The Murray Bridge Enterprise site is here.  You will note that their Enterprise iteration includes links to information about library operations such as opening hours etc, as well as links to other content options and a copy of their local library newsletter Amongst the Shelves.  This is featured on the front page using the issuu software, which I really like.

The Murray Bridge Council shares boundaries with five councils, three of whom (Karoonda East Murray, Mt Barker & Alexandrina) are already consortium members.  We're looking forward to filling in more of the map by adding the Mid-Murray and Coorong councils to the network in coming months.

Burnside Launch - colouring in the map

Last Friday Burnside had their public celebration of their One Card go live.  While it was very wet day outside, the warm atmosphere & buzz of excitement was palpable. The team had asked for 14 February as their public go live date - as it was Library Lovers Day - not to mention Valentines Day.  And the Mayor reminded us that momentous things happen on 14 February - from Australia taking on decimal currency in 1966 to Burnside joining the One Card consortium.

It was great to see a few local library managers in attendance along with councillors & council staff as well as Libraries Board member Ann Short & PLS staff.  Library Manager Lindy made particular mention of her neighbouring libraries who had been so helpful to Burnside as they transitioned to the new system.  This sense of camaraderie and professional support has been a hallmark of this project.

The mayor made specific reference to Burnside being the last metropolitan library to go live, saying that his natural scepticism led the council to hold back.  However he was very positive about the benefits for Burnside residents, stating that he had found & reserved a book from another library which he'd been trying to find for ages.

With Burnside joining the consortium we can now say that all of metro Adelaide is on the system.  In fact as we continue the roll out it is great to be able to colour in the map of councils across the State which are "on".  The gaps are now the minority of the map, which is very encouraging for the PLS project team & indicates that over 90% of the State's population now have access to the system.

Below are some photos of the event, taken by Burnside's resident photographer.

 

Mayor David Parkin & Library Manager Lindy Burford, with the Burnside cake!
Note David's sash "Going live 14 February".  This had been stuck on the front door leading up until Friday



Some of the happy & proud Burnside staff



Cutting the cake - note the number of supervisors

Burnside style - catering for the crowd

And the trio who entertained the crowd before & after the formalities

2014 Rollout Starts - Burnside goes live today

Over the last few months the LMS project team and staff in a range of libraries have been working towards the beginning of the 2014 rollout.  Our office has seen evidence of this progress with staff from the various March and April "go live" libraries here over the last few weeks for their training.

All of this "backroom" work is now beginning to reach its end point, with the public go live events for libraries about to commence.  Burnside goes live today, with many other libraries to follow in coming weeks & months. 

Burnside is having a public celebration tomorrow & a few of us from PLS will be there to celebrate with them.  I'll post a few pictures and comments that we'll glean from our visit.  The Burnside Enterprise site can be found here, with its distinctive purple & green - advertising a range of the libraries services - from databases to its online newsletter and PC bookings system embedded in the Enterprise screen - and much else besides. It is worth clicking the buttons just to see what is embedded as part of the Enterprise screen & how these various screens work. 

I was also interested to see that this site has been labelled as a "catalogue" - which of course it is in part.  This is a term we, as library staff don't often use any more, but I am sure it is the term that many customers continue to associate with much of what Enterprise does.

And regarding what comes next; the planned rollout schedule for the rest of the project can be seen here.

New City Library opens

On 17 October I wrote a post about what would be in the "soon to be opened" new City of Adelaide Library.  And the day has now arrived.  Last night a large crowd of invited guests - many being library managers - gathered in Rundle Mall, keen to be let into the new library.

The event was great with the notion of what new public library looks like given a good workout by a few of the speakers.  This new library certainly takes community engagement, active participation and public programming to a new level.

You can see an interesting time lapse video on You Tube posted by the Council here.

Now that the library is open to the public I'll go & take a few pics and post them here in coming days.

Burra SCL Farewells Mary Wollacott

Each new year continues to see staff changes across the network, particularly in our joint use libraries where these changes coincide with school years.  To all who are retiring, transferring, moving on - I hope that your involvement in the public library network has been professionally fulfilling & I am sure that your colleagues wish you well in your future endeavours. 

One person who retired over the break was Mary Woollacott, Community Library Assistant at Burra School Community Library for 33 years.  The local Burra & Districts online "newspaper" had a lovely farewell tribute to Mary -   See the article here.