May 2015 - celebrating 3 years since the LMS rollout began

This Sunday May 3rd marks the 3rd anniversary since Mitcham "went live" in 2012.  However as I said at the time, we really only had the beginnings of a consortium once Onkaparinga joined a week later on the 10th & items started flowing between the libraries. 

For the early adopters I am sure that it all seems so long ago, while for those who joined up towards the middle of last year, you're still catching your breath!  Our next real milestone will be 25 September, which will be 1 year since the final library (Yankalilla) joined up.

We continue to get really great unsolicited feedback from library users about how happy they are with the service they get & the quantity and quality of the collections available to them - so it has delivered on all of our expectations.

It has been quite an achievement, but there is not a lot of time to look backwards.  Libraries will continue to move ahead to ensure we maintain our quality service and meet the changing needs of our customers.  I am looking forward to kicking off the RFID project - to provide greater efficiencies for library staff - freeing them up a bit to spend more time with customers.  We also have eResrouce Central close to readiness - which will allow us to introduce a second e-Book provider & have all e-Books discoverable through Enterprise.  And despite a few hiccups to start with, we hear that Mobile Circ is close to being ready.  It will be released without all of the feature we want - but SirsiDynix's philosophy is that it is better to get a "skinny" product out there earlier than a feature rich one later.  There are mixed views on this approach - but we go with what we get.

And we're also exploring a few other options - they're in their infancy but I can mention that we're examining whether customers can use their public library card to authenticate to the State Library's online resources & also looking at providing direct access to e-Books via QR Codes on the trams.  Watch this space.

So - perhaps libraries can reprise their wonderful cakes as their anniversaries roll around.  Enjoy!