Panlibus 27

ISSUE 27 | SPRING 2013

The social media strategy – a journey beyond our own brand PATRON DRIVEN ACQUISITION

What exactly is Patron Driven Acquisition, what models are best and what are the potential outcomes?

REACHING OUT WITH BOOKS

A pioneering partnership between Warwickshire County Council and the George Eliot Hospital

SEMANTIC TECHNOLOGIES AS A BASIS FOR NEW SERVICES

Oslo Public Library has looked into semantic technologies as an alternative to the traditional library catalogue

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Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

WELCOME TO PANLIBUS

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Semantic technologies as a basis for new services

The spring issue 2013 Welcome to the first issue of Panlibus Magazine for 2013.

Just as libraries are requiring modern buildings and spaces to meet user needs, the library is also requiring new technology to support user needs, often with less resources. The use of technology in libraries is a topic explored throughout this issue.

16 Please Sir, can I have some more?

4-5 Patron Driven Acquisition What exactly is Patron Driven Acquisition, what models are best and what are the potential outcomes?

6 Northern Children’s Book Festival Mark Freeman reports from the frontline of the Northern Children’s Book Festival, this year hosted by Stockton Library Service.

8-9 Semantic technologies as a basis for new services Oslo Public Library has looked into semantic technologies as an alternative to the traditional library catalogue when developing new digital services. The team is currently finishing two new services that manage to present the library collection in new ways with the aid of these technologies.

10 Reaching out with books A pioneering partnership between Warwickshire County Council and the George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton is making library books available around the clock for people working, visiting or staying as inpatients in one of Warwickshire’s busiest hospitals.

12-13 White paper: Enhancing the student experience Towards the end of 2012 Capita released a white paper focused around enhancing the student experience in university libraries.

Here we have an extract from the whitepaper, which focuses on the

technology aspect of university libraries, and how to utilise it to enhance the student experience.

14-15 The social media strategy – a journey beyond our own brand Stockholm Public Libraries outline the steps taken in social media to set them on the path towards fulfilling their comprehensive digital strategy.

16 Please Sir, can I have some more?

Mark Gavillet of PTFS discusses what users should expect from technological innovation.

18 Case study: lorensbergs Award winning library gains significant benefits from netloan integrated kiosks.

20 Nielsen LibScan data 857,407 different books (by ISBN) were borrowed last year from UK libraries. Nielsen takes a look back at the library borrowing data from 2012.

22 Partner news The Additions Partner Programme builds strong relationships with companies providing thirdparty products that extend the functionality of Capita’s library management system. In this issue of Panlibus, we bring you news from some of our partners.

26 Events and webinars See what events to find us at in the coming months and peruse our upcoming webinar schedule.

Patron Driven Acquisition has been around since the 90s and has enabled universities to redefine acquisition models. Heather Dawson from Bertram Group takes a look at where PDA is now and why there has been rapid shift towards it in recent months (p 4-5).

Social media and its place in the library world has long been discussed.

At Stockholm Public Libraries it is very much part of an ongoing broader digital strategy. Åke Nygren talks us through the how the library has extended its brand as a result of the strategy (p 14-15). Oslo Public Library is currently looking at flexible metadata formats to improve service and implementing semantic technologies to present their collections in new ways (p 8-9).

Closer to home, Warwickshire Libraries has extended its service to hospitals (p 12), and Stockton Libraries held the Northern Children’s Book Festival at the end of last year (p 6). We also have an exclusive extract from Capita’s recent white paper ‘What every university librarian needs to know about enhancing the student experience’ (p 12-13).

Capita’s Additions Partners provide a wide range of solutions designed to improve the library service. In this issue we feature an article from PTFS and a case study with lorensbergs and Bibliotheca.

I hope you enjoy this issue, and as always, I encourage you to get in touch with your thoughts on any of the articles. If you have any topics you would like to share with the library world, I would be extremely pleased to hear them. Please contact me on the email address below.

Mark Travis Editor, Panlibus Magazine mark.travis@capita.co.uk

Panlibus Magazine is a Capita Software Services production

ISSN 1749-1002 Knights Court Solihull Parkway Birmingham Business Park B37 7YB United Kingdom Telephone: Web site:

+44 (0)121 717 3500 www.capita.co.uk/libraries

The views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors for which Capita accepts no responsibility. Readers should take appropriate advice before acting on any issue raised. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is strictly prohibited. ©Capita. All rights reserved. Capita and the Capita logo are trademarks of Capita or its licensors in the United Kingdom and/or other countries. Other companies and products mentioned may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

www.capita.co.uk/libraries | Spring 2013 | Panlibus Magazine

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Patron Driven Acquisition

Patron Driven Access or Patron Driven Acquisition?

Heather Sherman, Head of Technical Development, Bertram Group Patron Driven Acquisition/Access (PDA) began in 1998 with the first service being provided by NetLibrary. Since that date, vendors have developed increasingly sophisticated systems to provide libraries with the tools to enable users to trigger the rental or purchase of ebooks for the library.

According to Joseph Esposito writing in the Scholarly Kitchen in October 2012,“PDA deployment is becoming widespread, with about 400-600 academic libraries around the world now using such systems, a figure that is likely to increase sharply in the coming years.”(1) Dawson Books’ experience mirrors this, with a huge increase in PDA in the last 12 months.

Early adopters were teaching universities, looking to involve their users in stock selection; more recently traditional research universities have been investing in PDA, seeing it as a valuable part of the collection development toolkit.

What exactly is PDA?

PDA is an example of a ‘Just-in-time’ acquisitions model. Title purchases are made at the point the need is identified, usually by the user, as opposed to the ‘Just-in-case’ acquisitions model in which materials are selected by a librarian in anticipation of the user’s needs. This is the traditional way that libraries purchase stock.

There are four key questions libraries need to address when considering PDA: 1. What does the ‘A’ stand for in your library?

2. What model(s) of PDA are most suitable?

3. How will users discover the titles?

4. What does success look like?

Let’s look at each of those in more detail.

1. What does the ‘A’ stand for in your library?

To quote Rick Anderson, Interim Dean of the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah:

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Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

“The bottom line… is that each library needs to decide what problem it’s trying to solve with PDA. This suggests a need to decide what the “A” in PDA will stand for in your library: if you want to build a better collection, then you probably want to do patron-driven acquisition.

If you want to make the collection itself less of an issue, and instead focus on giving … dynamic and real-time access to relevant and useful content, then your focus should be on patron-driven access.”(2)

determine for themselves what thresholds need to be passed before a purchase is triggered. Suppliers with more sophisticated PDA models will allow a combination of the triggers to be used. For example, a purchase might be triggered by two users reading the title for more than five minutes OR three users previewing the title. Libraries may also want to mediate some purchases, for example titles over a specified price.

As we’ve seen, the first question to ask is what your library wants to achieve. This will differ from library to library based on the type of collection you’re building, research or teaching, and the problem(s) you’re wanting PDA to address. Typical drivers are: • Low scores in the National Student Survey • Giving immediate access to titles the library doesn’t own • Enabling user purchases from a predetermined pool of titles • Demonstrating that students play a role in how a proportion of their fees are spent • Ensuring that budget is spent on titles for which there is proven demand • An alternative to inter library loans • Building depth in specific subject areas • To present a broader range of titles to users.

2. What model(s) of PDA is (are) most suitable?

Just as there are many reasons why a library uses PDA, there are also different ways in which PDA can be implemented. There are two key decisions to be taken: which titles will be available for PDA, and what will trigger a purchase. Let’s look at those in more detail.

Rental models allow for a title to be used by a single user for a set period of time, usually for a percentage of the full price. A purchase can be triggered by a specified number of users renting the same title. This model is often used by libraries for whom PDA is an add-on to the inter library loan service.

Which titles will be available for PDA?

Whether you’re using PDA for access or acquisition, you’ll probably want to pre-select the titles available to users to ensure that users can only select from titles the library considers to be suitable. Profiling is typically done using a range of filters such as date of publication, price, subject, publisher, and readership level.

Suppliers should also be able to de-duplicate against a library’s existing ebook holdings.

What will trigger a purchase?

Commonly available triggers are: time spent reading online, number of users previewing a title, number of users expressing an interest in the title being purchased, and number of rental requests. Libraries should be able to

Other models allow for retrospective decisions on purchase based on actual usage.

In these cases the library is asked to deposit money at the start of the PDA project which gives access to a collection of ebooks. At the end of the project the deposit is off-set against purchases decided by the library on the basis of proven demand.

Patron Driven Acquisition

Most suppliers offer both up-front deposit and ‘pay as you go’ models, with regular invoices being raised for titles purchased.

For example, dawsonera allows libraries to specify an amount they want to spend on PDA, and once that figure has been reached, PDA automatically turns off. Libraries receive a warning when the funds are getting low, so they can top the money up immediately, if required.

3. How will users discover the titles?

PDA titles are typically discovered by one of three routes.

• Within the supplier’s ebook portal • Within the library catalogue • Via a web scale discovery service.

Within the supplier’s ebook portal, such as dawsonera, the user has three PDA options available: 5 minute preview, request rental, or suggest for purchase, shown by the purple buttons. The user clicks on one of these buttons to read the ebook.

If discovery is via the library catalogue the supplier provides a MARC record for each PDA title for the library to load. PDA titles appear in the catalogue in the same way as ebooks the library owns. Typically an 856 tag will link from the catalogue to the title on the supplier’s ebook portal.

• G enerally PDA titles are better read at Roehampton than non-PDA purchased titles.

• Some non-PDA titles have never been read.

• Three of Roehampton’s top-ten most read ebooks in 2011/12 were PDA purchased titles.

• 25% of Roehampton’s 100 most read titles for the academic year 2011/12 were PDA purchases.

• Six of Roehampton’s top 20 most requested titles were PDA titles.

• None of Roehampton’s 50 least-used titles are PDA titles.

Why it’s grown rapidly in the last few months

Dawson Books have seen an explosion of PDA in the last 12 months. It’s moved from being a service that libraries experimented with at the end of the financial year, to being a core part of a collection development policy. PDA is the fastest growing part of the dawsonera offer, and is an important part of the service we can provide to libraries.

There are a number of reasons why this rapid shift has taken place.

• PDA provides access to a greater number of resources, without the library having to spend money on titles that may only be used once, or for a limited period.

• Several studies have demonstrated that in the print world only about 40% of an academic library collection ever circulates.

As libraries are under increasing pressure to demonstrate Return on Investment (ROI), PDA offers clear benefits as titles are only purchased on the basis of proven demand.

• Research shows that patron-selected items get used more often. Statistics from the University of Huddersfield e-book PDA project in 2011 showed that PDA titles had double the usage of a non-PDA title. The average number of views per month for a non-PDA title was 0.966 as opposed to the 2.03 views for a PDA title.

• P DA titles are accessed in the same way as ebooks the library already owns, with the purchase being as seamless as possible to the user; in other words users do not have to do anything differently.

• P DA provides access to increased resources at key periods of the year, such as exams.

PDA is proving itself as a valuable tool for collection development. It’s targeting spend in areas where users have reported dissatisfaction with stockholdings, it’s enabling libraries to demonstrate ROI, it’s freeing up time spent on making title level purchase decisions, and it increases scores in the National Student Survey. It is a collection development tool that should be considered seriously by every library.

Dawson Books expects PDA to continue to grow and for more libraries to adopt it as a formal part of their collection development policies. To finish where we started with a quote from Joseph Esposito, “E-books and PDA represent significant changes to the supply chain for books. There is a whole new ecosystem under development here, and the precise workings of this environment are only now coming into view.”.(3) References 1. Esposito, J, PDA and the University Press — Final Study Now Available, Scholarly Kitchen, 16 October 2012, http:// scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/10/16/pda-and-theuniversity-press-final-study-now-available/ 2. Esposito, J & Anderson, R, A dialogue on patron-driven acquisitions, Scholarly Kitchen, 3 January 2012, http:// scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/01/03/a-dialogue-onpatron-driven-acquisitions/ 3. Esposito, J, PDA and Inter-library Loan, The Scholarly Kitchen, 13 March 2012 http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.

FIND OUT MORE Email: enquiries@dawsonera.com

Alternatively, via a web scale discovery service such as Summon or Primo, again the user clicks on the link and they are taken through to the title screen on the suppliers ebook portal (as above), where the PDA options are presented.

4. What does success look like?

Having run a PDA project, how do you know if it’s been successful? Most libraries do some usage analysis comparing library selected ebooks, with those purchased via PDA. The results below were kindly shared by Chris Foreman, Collections Development Manager at Roehampton University, and are typical of the experience of other PDA projects using dawsonera.

www.capita.co.uk/libraries | Spring 2013 | Panlibus Magazine

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Stockton Borough Council

Booking in at Preston Hall Museum Mark Freeman, Libraries and Heritage Services Manager Stockton Borough Council November is the time when the North East’s Library Services come together to mount the prestigious Northern Children’s Book Festival.

Stockton Library Service had the privilege of hosting last year’s Festival Gala Day at the splendid Preston Hall Museum & Grounds.

In 2012 this refurbished museum offered the perfect place to harness the power of museums and libraries to celebrate reading and learning, through an event which was full of fun and activities.

The atmosphere buzzed with excitement as 2000 children and adults alike enjoyed the delights that the Festival brings. Twelve fabulous children’s authors and illustrators captivated audiences of all ages as they brought the magic of books to life, with everything from dancing and singing to spine-tingling adventures and hilarious poetry renditions.

The Gala Day theme of ‘Time Travel’ followed the example of Stockton’s station clock, set into the floor of the museum, which continually turns back the hours of time, giving the 1200 Gala Day visitors the chance to explore different times, worlds and experiences.

The museum is full of displays which feature the history of the hall and its inhabitants, the key role of the local area in the development of railways and industry and the rich collections which have been amassed. Preston Hall offers a view of the past which many of us will find familiar.

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Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

The authors and illustrators were chosen to appeal to a variety of age groups and to both boys and girls. Steve Cole and “The 2Steves” took up residence in the Music Room amidst the Victorian splendour to offer sessions which could only be described as mad and silly, but very much appreciated by their audiences.

The Winter Garden hosted Karen McCombie and Paul Cookson who worked opposite each other offering poetry, song and stories for younger children, whilst in the Demonstration Kitchen, Philip Ardagh told his audience how he comes up with the inspiration for his rather tall tales. Local author Sally Nichols introduced her audiences to historical tales set in such dark times as the Black Death.

In the splendid setting of the Billiard Room, Julia Jarman and Lynne Chapman, proved very popular with their audiences, providing an insight into their stories for three to seven year olds. Vivian French took children on a magical adventure into a world of comic fantasy where good versus evil!

Paul Hess and Alex T Smith delivered sessions on illustration and stories in the Museum’s learning room, providing children with inspiration through presentations of their own very distinctive styles.

Theatrical groups roamed the Victorian Street in different costumes, displaying impromptu acts of history throughout time.

There was even a chance to mingle with Marie Antoinette (although she didn’t look quite the way you might expect!).

Impromptu performances by the storyteller Andy Hawkins and illustrator Liz Million, wandering into all corners of the Hall, were quickly surrounded by multitudes of children and their parents.

The Victorian Street hosted a variety of performances by Captain Tyne & Tees who could be found making piratical nuisances of themselves amongst the costumed volunteers and visitors alike throughout the day.

All in all, it was an event for every taste and offered a varied and rich experience for visitors. The whole event was only made possible by the strong partnership between the North East’s libraries, Preston Hall Museum and Grounds as well as a range of sponsors and funders including the Arts Council, Capita, Axiell, Oakhill Publishing and the Design Concept. And now for next year...

FIND OUT MORE Email: Mark.Freeman@stockton.gov.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/ Stockton-Borough-libraries/128038453437 Twitter: www.twitter.com/stocktonlibrary

TM

Offering an equipment loan service is a great way to increase student satisfaction. However, many libraries are worried about the potential drain on valuable staff resources to effectively manage such a facility.

The MyritracTM system from Bretford, a member of the Capita Additions Partner Program, offers the security, self-service accessibility and equipment tracking solution needed to manage such a facility with the most efficient use of staff time.

• Allows the potential to provide 24/7 access to IT equipment • Compatible with existing library management software • Compatible with standard student interface systems i.e. RFID, swipe card, key pad or biometric access control

• User access rights can be set and equipment tracked either locally

Intelligent laptop management & tracking

The MyritracTM system allows you to take control of all aspects of managing your IT equipment; securely storing it; charging it; running software updates; assigning user access rights and even tracking the IT equipment’s use on a daily basis.

Each cabinet is linked to the building’s network and feeds back information about when, at what time and by whom a storage compartment was opened and the allocated item either removed or replaced.

or remotely via an intranet or web based connection

• Gives responsibility of the IT loan to the student helping to reduce damage & loss

• Offers total control over the equipment loan process as ALL transactions are monitored and logged

• Integrated alarms to monitor and advise of improper use or abuse • Integrated power management system ensures optimum charging time for stored IT equipment

• Booking in/out periods are constantly monitored and logged

• Due back times can be set and late alerts issued • Audit reports can be run on equipment stock • Software updates can be made • Laptops are charged and protected

www.myritrac.co.uk

All units are built to cater for the specific project needs. Tell us what you want to do and Bretford will show you how the MyritracTM system can facilitate it.

Tel: 01753 539955 Email: sales@bretforduk.com

www.capita.co.uk/libraries | Spring 2013 | Panlibus Magazine

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Semantic technologies

Semantic technologies as a basis for new services Asgeir Rekkavik Librarian, Oslo Public Library

Oslo Public Library is currently planning a new main library for the city, scheduled to open in 2017. This is an ambitious project that aims to result in a library which is very different from the rather traditional main library the city hosts today. In the earliest stages, the planning process has mainly focused on the library building and the physical space, but gradually we see the focus shifting to services and their premises. Library metadata is one of the things that are being put under the microscope. Just as the current library building proves to be unsuitable for hosting a modern library, the traditional library metadata formats might not make the best basis for the services we wish to present in it. Just like the ever-changing library of the future needs a flexible physical space to be allowed to evolve, modern library services need flexible metadata formats.

The Digital Development Team at Oslo Public Library has looked into semantic technologies as an alternative way to express and work with library catalogue data: Linked data, the RDF format and the SPARQL query language. We have developed the open source toolkit MARC2RDF, which consists of software for converting MARC data and producing an RDF representation of the library catalogue, as well as methods for refining and enriching the data. While the traditional core library tasks, such as the circulation of library material, still rely on the MARC catalogue, its semantic twin has proven to make a better basis for developing new digital services.

During 2012 the team has developed working prototypes for two new services: Book Reviews and the Active Shelf. Both projects will be concluded with the completion of the services during the first part of 2013.

Book Reviews to the users A library catalogue mainly contains brief, descriptive metadata, whose main purpose is search and retrieval. A user can use these data to find and locate a book, but they are less suited for giving the user an idea of what

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Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

The Digital Development Team at Oslo Public Library has looked into semantic technologies as an alternative to the traditional library catalogue when developing new digital services. The team is currently finishing two new services that manage to present the library collection in new ways with the aid of these technologies. a book is like. This is information which is frequently requested by library patrons.

It might seem understandable that library metadata doesn’t contain this kind of information; after all reading whole books and writing reviews is very time and resource consuming. But the thing is that libraries are already producing exactly this kind of information. As a matter of fact they produce lots of it; it just isn’t utilised very well. Typically book reviews are published in a blog or on the library’s homepage, perhaps with links to the online catalogue so those readers who become interested in reading the book can borrow it. But there is no way to link the other way, so that someone who looks up a book in the online catalogue can find its review in the library blog.

The Book Reviews project aims to collect reviews from Norwegian public libraries in one common database, describe them with metadata and connect them to the linked data catalogue. The reviews and metadata are made accessible via an open API, so that developers easily can produce services that utilise and expose the reviews. External services can submit ISBNs, book titles, author names or other metadata to the API, and get book reviews and metadata in return for use in their own services. They can also use the API to submit their own reviews to the database.

The project includes the development of an online application where users can write reviews or look up reviews written by others.

Since the reviews are linked to catalogue data, you can use metadata that describe books to put together lists of reviews, eg the ten latest reviews of children’s fantasy books, reviews of books about the 1980s or novels for adults with less than 200 pages. Lists can be exported as RSS feeds and used as dynamical elements in blogs or homepages. The project has also developed a Wordpress plugin, so that literature blogs can submit new reviews to the database automatically, as they are published on the blog.

The Active Shelf The Active Shelf is a physical device which patrons can use to learn more about the books they find in the library, as well as finding suggestions about other books that might be interesting to them. The service makes use of data from the library catalogue, reviews from the book reviews database and data from external services like online bookstores and social websites for book lovers.

The device consists of a touchscreen with a small shelf on the side. Whenever a book is placed on the shelf, it is automatically detected and identified by an RFID reader, and the process of collecting information about it is initialised. The software collects data from the semantic catalogue and uses this as a basis for retrieving supplementary information, such as book reviews, cover images and reader ratings. The user can flip through reviews and get an impression of the book, or he can use the book as a starting point for exploring new books. He can choose to look at other books by the same author or books that are assumed to be similar to the one he started with. If he chooses a book from one of the lists, the Active Shelf looks it up and provides new reviews, reader ratings and a list of related books. It will also provide information if the books he discovers on the station are available.

Why not MARC? The main metadata standard in libraries today is the close to 50 year old MARC format.

Semantic technologies

The MARC format was launched as a machinereadable alternative to the physical card catalogues. A bibliographic MARC record is basically a digital version of the old catalogue card. Like its physical ancestor, its main purpose is to assist the organisation, retrieval and circulation of library material in the physical library. But when it comes to serving as a basis for digital services, it has obvious shortcomings.

For one thing, the format strictly limits the amount and the types of information you can register about items in the library collection.

There is no room in the MARC format to include an image of a book cover, a link to a review or an encyclopedia article about the author. Further on it forces the description of movies, music and electronic resources into a template designed to describe books. The format is manifestation-oriented with little or no facilities to link records that describe different editions of the same work.

But the most fundamental obstacle is perhaps that the format is tied to the notion of the bibliographic record as a smallest unit of information. This severely limits our opportunities to make queries to the catalogue and the kinds of answers we can get back from it. A MARC catalogue search can only return a set of records, no matter how you construct your query. You cannot search the catalogue for a set of authors, topics or genres, even if the information is in there.

When developing new services, we need a metadata format that allows us to retrieve and use all information that is contained in the catalogue, in any way it can be used. The semantic RDF format provides us with loads of new opportunities for what kind of information our metadata can contain, as well as for the ways in which we can access and utilise this information.

Works and manifestations As mentioned, the traditional library catalogue mainly focuses on the individual manifestations of the works it describes.

This means that when a book is published in several editions, each edition is registered as an independent document, with no formal connections between them. This might be practical in those rare cases where it is essential for the user to find one particular edition of a book, but it does not make it an ideal tool for presenting and exploring the library collection.

A user who searches the online catalogue for “Jane Eyre”, will be forced to pick one single edition from a long row of practically identical books, even if he doesn’t have any particular preferences. The library catalogue simply doesn’t contain the information that all these different records, describing a book entitled “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë, in fact are descriptions of the same book.

The challenge is well known in the library sector, and the FRBR model (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) was suggested as a solution to exactly these kinds of problems, as early as in the 1990s. Trouble is it is still no more than a model; its practical implementations are still missing from library systems.

It is essential that we have an automated way to handle these problems. We can’t create a Book Reviews service where the user doesn’t find reviews of the book he is interested in, unless he is fortunate enough to pick the exact same edition as the reviewer read. And we can’t have an Active Shelf service where a list of other books by Charlotte Brontë shows every single edition of “Jane Eyre”.

Oslo Public Library has attempted to solve these problems by including methods for work clustering in the MARC2RDF

conversion tool. This method creates separate unique identifiers for works and link their corresponding manifestations to them. This makes it possible to query the catalogue for works, as well as for manifestations. It also makes it possible to unite metadata from records that describe the different manifestations, together with data harvested from external sources, to create richer descriptions of works. These enhanced descriptions serve as valuable resources for the Active Shelf software to make assumptions about similar works.

Promising future Some of the most striking experiences we had when developing services such as Book Reviews and the Active Shelf, was how easy they were to make and how well they seemed to work.

There is no doubt that we owe much of this to the extensive work on converting and refining catalogue data. Working with library data in a more flexible format than MARC seemed to open up a world of opportunities.

We trust that the semantic catalogue will serve as a good foundation when designing even more services for our new main library.

FIND OUT MORE Book Reviews project: http://digital.deichman.no/blog/2012/10/09/book-reviews/ Active Shelves project: http://digital.deichman.no/blog/2012/10/16/active-shelves/ About the semantic catalogue: http://digital.deichman.no/data.deichman.no/ Digital Development Team blog: http://digital.deichman.no/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/digibib, https://twitter.com/asgeirr All software from the Digital Development Team at Oslo Public Library is open source, and shared at Github: https://github.com/digibib/

www.capita.co.uk/libraries | Spring 2013 | Panlibus Magazine

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Library Book Vending Machine at George Eliot Hospital

Reaching out with library books Ayub Khan Warwickshire Library & Information Service

A pioneering partnership between Warwickshire County Council and the George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton is making library books available around the clock for people working, visiting or staying as an inpatient in one of Warwickshire’s busiest hospitals.

Warwickshire Libraries have installed a library book ‘vending’ machine in a busy part of the hospital, effectively taking the library to customers.

The vending machine, which holds around 400 books, operates 24 hours a day and serves a sizeable captive audience. With a workforce of 1,800 staff (full-time equivalent) and a throughput of 245,000 patients a year, plus visitors, the George Eliot is always a busy place.

The new machine has been installed outside the pathology unit. There is a high footfall in this part of the building, of outpatients, inpatients and staff. It is also very close to the café so ideally situated to catch visitors with a few moments to spare.

Any Warwickshire library member can borrow books from the machine for free. It is activated by scanning a library card and then scrolling down the touch screen. Simple commands allow customers to choose and borrow a book, and take a receipt. All of this takes place within a minute.

The stock on offer was selected following research into what sort of books visitors and staff would want to borrow.

Books originally borrowed from the machine can also be returned to it and, again, the process takes a matter of seconds. Returns can also be made to any Warwickshire library.

The project was underpinned by a good working relationship between Warwickshire Libraries and the local NHS Trust. Both organisations have their specific roles to play in the partnership. A joint project team was set up and a Memorandum of Understanding signed, clarifying respective partner roles and responsibilities.

Warwickshire County Council purchased the machine and project-managed its installation, and will provide stock and membership cards.

The George Eliot Hospital provided a suitable location and access to network links into the building, and its volunteers will work with library staff to undertake day-to-day operations.

Similar book vending machines have been set up successfully in Sweden, the Netherlands and in California - but primarily at shopping centres and railway stations. As far as we know, the George Eliot machine is the first stand-alone of its type, in a community venue, in the UK. There were technical challenges, too. Most vending machines only dispense but this one also takes returns and had to be custom built.

The equipment had to be linked to the library management system and borrower records.

The hospital already had a connection to the county council network but a dedicated highspeed internet link was needed, and a new network point for the equipment, which then had to be configured.

The library service will monitor use of the machine to ensure maximum benefit to patients, visitors and staff. And the project is already leading to other joint initiatives such as the potential to set up reading groups.

It is exciting that, even in constrained financial times, there is still the potential for being innovative as we seek to provide valuefor-money, as well as a service that will benefit people and one that they will truly value.

FIND OUT MORE Email: ayubkhan@warwickshire.gov.uk

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Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

Read at least 8 boo

ks…(possibly at least 1 of which was written

by E.L.James)

RFID / SECURITY / RFIQ / PEOPLE COUNTERS / EM / STOCK MANAGEMENT / RF / LAPTOP SECURITY / VENDING / SELF SERVICE

Capita white paper

What every university librarian needs to know about enhancing the student experience Towards the end of 2012, Capita released a white paper focused around enhancing the student experience in university libraries.

Here we have an extract from the white paper, which focuses on the technology aspect of university libraries, and how to utilise it to enhance the student experience.

Executive summary

Students want more from their university library, especially as they are paying more for their degrees. They want greater flexibility in opening times, in finding and accessing resources and in using the working space effectively. This white paper examines how technology can help to meet these increasing expectations and ensure that libraries are ready to meet the demands of today’s student consumer.

Resource availability

At the core of library services, resource availability and discovery remain the key factors in keeping customers happy.

Consequently, they are the two areas that are likely to cause the most consternation.

Not being able to find a resource because it is already being used, is not available, or is simply not on the shelf is just as frustrating for today’s students as it has always been. There are various ways in which a university library can improve resource availability for students.

Acquisition of new books and journals is crucial – as is monitoring the usage of the resources that are already in the library to help inform future purchasing decisions.

“We make sure that the resources we are buying – particularly subscribed resources – are being utilised effectively. Usage data is readily available, enabling us to carry out in-depth analysis of the use of our content including data bases and e-books,” says Kitty Inglis at the University of Sussex. “This technology is valuable as it helps to inform future buying and ensures that our budgets are spent on the resources that will be used.”

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Demand-led procurement

Many universities are moving towards patron-driven acquisitions, in order to ensure that their resources are as relevant as possible.

Bournemouth University’s Head of Academic Development Services, Student and Academic Services, David Ball, has found this to be particularly effective in ensuring precious budgets are spent wisely.

“Librarians and academic staff make their selection of resources not from individual items but from a large conglomeration of resources,” he explains. “We deposit a sum of money with an e-book seller and define a set of titles on a particular topic. The titles are made available through the resource discovery engine, but they are only purchased when the usage hits

RFID can be combined with fully automated ordering and invoicing so that any new stock goes through a sorter on arrival, is scanned remotely, receipted as being in stock and can be on the shelves in a fraction of the time it used to take. This means that students can very quickly start using the materials.

The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) has introduced this technology, saving 17.5 hours a week as stock is delivered shelf-ready. New books make it to the shelves within two hours.

“Overall this has enhanced our students’ experience as they have the resources they need, when they need them, and it has saved us a lot of time and money along the way,” says Jeremy Andrew, Head of Library Services, UCLan.

“We are implementing a new resource discovery tool at the moment that can search across resources and catalogues, all in one place,” Damyanti Patel, E-Library Manager at Birmingham City University a certain number. In this way, it is the students who are selecting the titles we purchase,” he adds. As a result, libraries that adopt this approach are able to offer students a broader choice of titles; the university is not forced to pay for infrequent usage of these resources and the end-user – the student – is involved in the selection.

Smart shelves and sorters

A challenge that will continue as long as there are still physical books is the need to ensure that students can locate the items that they require, even if they are incorrectly shelved or hidden.

Smart shelf technology can be used to overcome the problem. This actually informs the librarian of the exact location of each and every book – enabling it to be found even if it has been put away in the wrong place. This does away with the irritation of finding out that the one book a student needs for their research is not in the place it is meant to be.

As for the speed of returning books to shelves – this process has been improved greatly by self-service Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) terminals, which sort books into bins for various departments.

Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

The other advantage of these technologies is that they free staff from routine tasks, such as barcode scanning, to take on work that can add real value for students – like guiding them to the right source for their research.

Resource discovery

The need for resource discovery has become much more important due to the nature of the resources that a modern university library now holds. There are usually several databases of physical and electronic books and journals to keep track of and students expect to be able to search for them in a much more intuitive way than before.

The Google benchmark

For digital natives the first place you search for anything is Google. Google is so ubiquitous that we almost forget how powerful and clever it really is. It will find not only the name of a website or an online publication, it will find material from mere fragments of information such as a short quotation. As students progress through their learning career at university, they begin to move away from Google to broader search tools. However, their expectations for ease of use remain.

Capita white paper

Students find it difficult to understand why they cannot search their university resources in much the same way. Damyanti Patel, E-Library Manager at Birmingham City University, is working on providing a similar experience for her students. “We are implementing a new resource discovery tool at the moment that can search across resources and catalogues, all in one place,” she says. “It will be just like a Google search – it will give students access to greater content and make it easier for them to find what they want.”

Libraries can greatly enhance the students’ experience by helping them to search for their resources online with one central search box for all resources – integrating e-journal data and institutional repositories into the catalogue. Students will be able to find what they need from a few details alone.

Student collaboration

With the explosion of social media, libraries can take advantage of students’ willingness to collaborate online by providing review options like those provided on Amazon.com. Using the latest technology, any search result can be accompanied by these reviews which will save students time and help librarians see which resources are value for money.

In the 2011 research conducted by Capita, academics supported these features too, with the ability to flag resources as favourites, critique items for usefulness or relevance and make recommendations mentioned as the most useful tools for teaching staff. In the same research, students also felt that technology that allows a similar facility to Amazon’s ‘customers who bought this, also bought xxx’ feature would be favoured to provide quick links to related resources and improve their access to relevant content.

By harnessing students’ familiarity with social media – and perhaps even incorporating the tools they have been used to using for communicating online – libraries can vastly improve the student experience and students’ ability to access exactly what they need in less time

Fiona Greig, Content & Development Manager at the University of Plymouth, also uses the reports from the system to help identify which students to chase for payments.

“By using reports we’ll identify those patrons with more than £5 of non-invoiced fees and suggest they might want to start the year by clearing their debts. This works quite well for us.”

Integration with the student portal gives tutors the opportunity to provide specific course reading lists and the ability for students to reserve those resources online.

This is especially effective if the academics understand and appreciate the resources that are on offer through the library. Many universities also use the portal to post information on overdue books, allow the payment of fines and enable catalogue searching.

Andy Bussey, Library Systems Manager from The University of Sheffield library also introduced an online payment system and has seen benefits for staff as well as students.

“It has saved staff time, reduced conflict at library counters and made things easier for our customers,” he says.

E-payments

Managing payments manually during office hours can be time consuming for library staff and is at odds with student expectations.

An e-payment solution means that students can pay their library charges at their own convenience, either online or via the library’s self-service terminals.

FIND OUT MORE

If wished, the system can warn students when books are in danger of becoming overdue so that they can avoid a fine altogether. The University of Plymouth have introduced this technology so that students logged into the SharePoint campus portal can see any outstanding fines and charges.

Clicking the ‘Pay Now’ button directs them to an ePay Gateway. Users can even charge the purchase of products and services (such as printing) from the media shop to their library account and pay for everything within the portal.

Download the white paper at www.capita-libraries.co.uk/hewhitepaper.

Email: libraries-enquiries@capita.co.uk

Integration

A key requirement from students is that they can access what they need to seamlessly.

Having to use multiple passwords and access a number of different systems to conduct the business of learning seems convoluted and time consuming. A single ‘sign on’ point via the student portal or VLE, where one username and password delivers access to all learning and library resources, is not only desirable but expected.

www.capita.co.uk/libraries | Spring 2013 | Panlibus Magazine

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Social media strategy

The social media strategy – A journey beyond our own brand Åke Nygren Project Manager Stockholm Public Libraries

Social media has been a buzzword for some time now. It took some years for the library world to include social media in its vision of a communicative and participatory library, but by now, most libraries have entered the online conversational scene and established some kind of social media presence. Some of us have also taken the first steps towards the creation of a social media strategy. In the Stockholm Public Libraries, we have taken the road towards a comprehensive digital strategy, covering all puzzle pieces of our online presence: the desktop site, the mobile site, our owned and earned social media channels, and last but not least, the visualisation of the digital library in the physical space. The first puzzle piece on this digital strategy journey is our social media presence.

Three years ago, we launched our first Facebook pages and Twitter channels. Since then, more and more librarians have got involved in online conversations and our digital brand is now moulded not only on the library web site but also in a variety of social media channels. One and a half years ago, in order to understand and draw strategic conclusions from the growing online activities of our libraries, we decided to start mapping, measuring and evaluating our social media presence.

At the time when the project was launched we all had different views about the extension of our scope. For some of us, our social media presence was equal to the maintenance of, and engagement on, our own blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and so on.

For others, the scope was larger: our social media presence was to be understood as the sum of all Stockholm Public Library related online activities, not just in our own branded channels but also in external ones. We found the latter definition to be the one that best corresponded with our vision of a future digital library, based on the values of participatory culture, transparency and active citizenship.

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All kinds of social media conversations matter.

All online conversations need to be dealt with as part of our digital strategy work, no matter if they are held within our own digital ecosystem or outside of it, be it on our own site, blogs, Facebook pages etc, or on locations outside of our branded digital presence. As long as the conversations deal with our own trademark, one way or another, and representatives of our own organisation are part of them, the conversations are to be seen as part of our social media presence. This is, we concluded, the definition that makes most sense, since the internet today is an entity without defined borders between what’s our space and what’s yours. On the social web, the battle of the trademarks is everywhere. Furthermore, the internet of today is becoming social by definition. Consequently, the frontiers between the digital library and the rest of the internet are also getting more and more blurred. The digital library, understood as a website, or even as the sum of both our website and our branded social media channels, isn’t enough. We need to start talking about digital library presence.

The first step: A strategy for our brand social media.

Despite our assumption that the digital library is basically everywhere, for practical reasons we needed to focus first on our own brand channels, leaving the external channels for later. The first thing we did was to map our channels and describe how they match, or don’t match, our organisation. The result was a digital map visualising the current relations between our brand channels and our organisation structure, departments, processes and projects.

Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

After mapping and visualising our brand channels, we started to describe them and measure the activities in them: when did the channels start, who runs them and how many fans/likes/followers do they have?

Finally, we wanted to find out if we are really reaching out to our target groups or not.

Taking into consideration the dominance of Facebook, we decided to make a conversation analysis of our Facebook pages. With the help of a variety of imagined personas as representatives for our target groups, we asked ourselves: what are we saying in our status updates, who do we turn to and what’s the outcome?

Despite the fact that our online conversations are both comprehensive and potentially engaging, the findings were disappointing: only a small part of them actually manage to reach out beyond our own library circles. The main part of our status updates and other activities on Facebook are held with our own colleagues, within or outside our own library system. Conclusion: our social media efforts up to now have generated only a small impact among our target groups, we are still stuck within our own library bubble and we need to do something about it. That’s why we now are preparing for the second, and maybe most important, step in our social media strategy work: to take the step out of our library bubble and meet our target groups in their own digital “backyards”.

Social media strategy

The next step: A strategy for an online presence beyond our own brand.

In order to step out of the library bubble, we need to get closer to the local digital communities in the neighbourhoods where our libraries are located. In order to achieve this, we are now launching a pilot project, called Step out of the Bubble!, located in the Stockholm neighbourhoods of Akalla and Bredäng. In this project we’ll try out new ideas and methods for user involvement and participatory culture, in close contact with the local communities. The work will be done proactively both within and beyond our brand channels. We’ll join online conversations on external platforms in search of new strategic partnerships with individuals and organisations. Citizens will be invited to become our digital library “ambassadors” and to co-create new content in our social media channels. By being where the citizens are, taking part in the conversations, inviting them in and by giving them the commission to create content for the library, we believe we can assure the formation of a trustful and

continuous link between our social media presence and the local community. It’s our conviction that it’s only when active citizens are included in the “we” of the digital library that we can reach out and step out of the library bubble.

Outcomes

An important goal of the project is to challenge our general understanding of what we mean by success in social media. Up

to now, we’ve been busy counting visitors, likes and overall exposure and impact. Even though quantitative ways of evaluating results always will be needed, more and more of us are longing for other, more refined, ways of measuring success that in a better way than before match the qualitative goals of the library as a whole. We need to look at not only what we achieve in social media in quantitative terms but also try to grasp the actual outcomes in terms of user satisfaction.

We need to improve our understanding of what citizens really expect from us in social media.

Therefore, a desired outcome of this project is to define relevant key performance indicators that will help us make the right decisions concerning our social media activities in the future.

FIND OUT MORE Web: www.akenygren.se Email: ake.nygren@gmail.com

www.capita.co.uk/libraries | Spring 2013 | Panlibus Magazine

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PTFS Europe Ltd.

Please Sir, can I have some more?

Mark Gavillet, Lead Developer - Rebus:list, PTFS Europe Ltd. Technological progress has been incorporated into daily life to such an extent that it is almost impossible not to come into contact with it. The reason? Because it makes things simpler, and that is what we all want – easier lives. Without this need for ease and simplicity, most technology would never have seen the light of day – after all, why would we use something that makes our lives more difficult? Yet despite this obvious statement, it is a pattern we do at times allow ourselves to fall into.

The last time I updated the software I’m using to write this, I was told that there were over 100 new features. To the best of my knowledge I haven’t used a single one of them. I have a core set of requirements that I use over and over again, most of which have probably been core features of the software and have barely changed since it was first written. If the developers are going to concentrate time on improving the product I’d much rather they spent that time on the things I use rather than the ‘100 new features’ which if I’m honest probably make the things I do use more difficult!

When evaluating the potential usefulness of a new product, ‘more features’ is something that is commonly regarded as a positive thing, so fulfilling this requirement can be seen as meeting the expectations of its potential audience. But is this what users really want?

Steve Jobs famously said ‘People don’t know what they want until you show it to them’ and while I believe that this is true to a certain extent, I also think that people can see things and want them without ever really needing or using them. Development is often seen as a cumulative process - the ever increasing number of functions and options regarded as positive progress. But should we want more just because we can have more? The answer is obviously yes – if we are upgrading why would we invest in something without expecting more? But it depends how we define ‘more’. ‘More’ can be seen as an accumulation of features, functions, and options, but it can also be seen as an evolving, targeted response to the user’s experience of a system, and that’s a far more positive thing, as therein lies its success. Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe summed this up in his phrase ‘less is more’, and I challenge you to fail to find the beauty in this statement when trying to locate the option you need in a menu containing 35 almost identical icons, put there by a cumulative development process.

The development process for PTFS Europe’s Rebus:list reading list management system has taken the approach of targeted simplicity and ease of use as its basis from the outset and will continue to do so. The approach has led to a high level of satisfaction from the current user group and, as a developer, I would far rather put my efforts into these results than 100 new features that noone will ever use. For example, Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust Library were able to meet extremely tight project deadlines, making all of their course reading available to their users in a matter of weeks. Swansea University have been able to achieve a level of integration with their Blackboard VLE that would not have been possible with any other product on the market.

Sheffield University were able to migrate their existing reading lists not only seamlessly, but had the added bonus of enhancing their existing bibliographic entries.

If you are a user, expect more of the things you need, rather than more for the sake of more, and if you are a developer, look at what you should do rather than what you could do.

Now that would be progress…

FIND OUT MORE Email: mark.gavillet@ptfs-europe.com Web: www.ptfs-europe.com Tel: 0800 756 6083

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Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

Case study

Award winning library gains significant benefits from netloan integrated kiosks “Installing the kiosks with integrated netloan software was a more financially viable option for Jubilee Library. Rather than having separate kiosks to manage the issue & return process and the PC & printing resources, we could have one kiosk that managed every function, offering a better service to all library users.”

Kim Warr, ICT Support Officer Solution Jubilee Library wanted to continue to offer their users a self-service facility but aimed to improve the process, making it easier and less time-consuming. Additionally, since it is regarded as one of the most successful libraries in the UK, it was important that the equipment installed portrayed the Library as being fresh, modern and innovative.

Background Jubilee Library is the main public library serving the population of Brighton & Hove. It is located in the centre of the city’s impressive Jubilee Square, which was part of a £50 million redevelopment programme to transform a once derelict area into a vibrant central hub for leisure and entertainment.

The Library, a £14 million landmark building, is the fifth most successful library in the country and plays host to over one million visits a year. Furthermore, it has won a large number of awards over the years, including the Prime Minister’s Better Public Buildings Award in 2005 and the Observer Ethical Award in 2006 for its eco-friendly design.

high volumes of issues and returns without recruiting and training additional members of staff. The library was refurbished in 2010, which included refreshing the RFID installation and upgrading all of the existing equipment.

Improvements were also to be made to better manage PC and printing resources; the existing bespoke print release system was temperamental and high maintenance and they wanted to make the process of booking PCs quicker and easier for all library users.

In total, seven kiosks were installed in Jubilee Library; four in the main library area, two in the children’s library and one in the IT suite. Each kiosk incorporated the easy to use liber8™ software, while six of the kiosks included the payment station tailored to conduct coin and note transactions.

There are a wide range of services and facilities offered to its many users, including dedicated service areas, such as a children’s library and a young person’s library, an extensive lending collection and high-tech IT and printing facilities, with over 50 PCs available throughout the site.

RFID technology was incorporated into Jubilee Library when it opened in March 2005. The initial installation allowed the Library to introduce self-service facilities to the public of Brighton & Hove and to cope with

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In order to achieve these objectives it was decided that the perfect solution was Bibliotheca’s smartserve™ 400 self-service kiosk, together with the smartserve™ 400 integrated payment station. The kiosks are designed to allow users to issue, return and renew items quicker and more easily than ever before, while the sleek, innovative design modernises any library setting. Moreover, the integrated payment station can be customised to accept a variety of payment methods when paying for library services.

The netloan integrated self-service kiosks allow library users to easily book PCs without assistance from staff.

Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

To improve the management of the Library’s PC and printing resources, each kiosk was also installed with lorensbergs’ netloan software, which is designed to manage the payment and release of print jobs and streamline the process of PC booking. The software can be easily integrated with Bibliotheca’s liber8™ software and is fully compatible with most ILS / LMS systems. For greater convenience, users can also use the attached payment station to pay for their PC and printing services.

Case study room than the previous machines and stand out more, attracting more people to use them for their library needs.

Kim Warr, ICT Support Officer at Jubilee Library, explains: “Installing the kiosks with integrated netloan software was a more financially viable option for Jubilee Library.

Rather than having separate kiosks to manage the issue & return process and the PC & printing resources, we could have one kiosk that managed every function, offering a better service to all library users.”

The financial benefits provided to Jubilee Library by installing the kiosks have also been recognised. “The kiosks are a great return on investment,” explains Kim Warr, “as they enabled the library to cope with the demand and handle the volumes of issues and returns.”

Some of the main benefits the Library has experienced derive from the implementation of the netloan software. Since installing the software, the volume of printouts has significantly increased, and almost 65,000 printouts were generated from August 2011 to April 2012. Furthermore, the Library has seen a dramatic increase in print revenue, with an average daily increase of 66% being generated since the installation.

Jubilee Library has received awards for its innovative, eco-friendly, building.

Using the software to book PCs and manage the printing process has reduced the level of staff involvement from 15-20% to around 5%. Users are now able to navigate around the software easily to book their own PC time and manage and pay for their print jobs, offering a true self-service facility.

Results Installing the smartserve™ 400 system has allowed Jubilee Library to enhance their self– service offering; the kiosks are more efficient and easier to use, and staff time is freed up so they can better manage their day-to-day tasks and focus on assisting the Library’s users. The slimline design has also been advantageous to the Library, as the kiosks now take up less

library. The ability to incorporate our netloan PC booking and print solution with their RFID self-service kiosks is meeting the need for self-service innovation in a cost-effective manner.

This combination was key for Brighton and Hove and it’s great to see our shared vision for enhanced library service provision being realised for this customer. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Bibliotheca so that we may continue to respond and add value to libraries in their mission to serve their communities.” James Entwisle, Head of Development and Support at lorensbergs.

FIND OUT MORE Bibliotheca Web: www.bibliotheca.com Email: info@bibliotheca.com Tel: 0161 498 1140 Twitter: @smartlibraries Lorensbergs

“We are delighted to partner with Bibliotheca in providing new ways to offer efficiencies in both self-service and revenue generation within the

Web: www.lorensbergs.co.uk Email: enquiries@lorensbergs.co.uk Tel: 01992 415505 Twitter: @lorensbergs

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www.capita.co.uk/libraries | Spring 2013 | Panlibus Magazine

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Nielsen LibScan data

Nielsen LibScan data Nielsen LibScan, 2012 annual library lendings chart For our first article of the year, we are taking a look back at library borrowings in 2012. Nielsen LibScan recorded a total of 79m borrowings of physical books last year, from its panel of over 1,750 library branches, across 65 public library authorities. This represents a significant proportion of the UK library service with circa 206 library authorities and more than 4,000 library branches.

The total number of different books (ISBNs) lent by UK libraries contributing to the Nielsen LibScan panel in 2012 was 857,407, showing the huge range of books on offer. Library borrowings peaked in July and August, coinciding with school holidays and showing

Position

the key role of libraries as a resource for children and parents alike.

As we have seen previously the most popular books borrowed from UK libraries are from the Crime, Thriller & Adventure category, with some perennial picture books and general fiction completing the Top 10.

Lee Child’s The Affair was the most borrowed title of the year and the recent Jack Reacher movie starring Tom Cruise has boosted sales of his title One Shot in late 2012.

The 10 bestselling titles in the UK in 2012, as measured through Nielsen BookScan’s TCM (Total Consumer Market) panel were

Title

FIND OUT MORE Web: www.nielsenbookscan.co.uk

Author

Volume

1

The Affair: Jack Reacher

Lee Child

24,512

2

Aliens Love Underpants!

Claire Freedman

18,069

3

The Litigators

John Grisham

17,871

4

The Drop

Michael Connelly

17,359

5

The Impossible Dead

Ian Rankin

16,887

6

The Gruffalo

Julia Donaldson

16,779

7

Kill Me If You Can

James Patterson

16,662

8

The Help

Kathryn Stockett

16,343

9

Private Games

James Patterson

15,429

10

The Soldier’s Wife

Joanna Trollope

15,294

©2013 Nielsen Book Services Limited [trading as: Nielsen BookScan]

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dominated by two trilogies – Fifty Shades from E. L. James and The Hunger Games from Suzanne Collins. Whilst these books didn’t make the LibScan Top 10 for 2012, total Library lendings of the Fifty Shades trilogy reached 31.5k, whilst The Hunger Games trilogy clocked up 29.4k lendings. The TCM Top 10 features another erotic title, Bared to You by Sylvia Day, cook books from Jamie Oliver and the Hairy Bikers and is completed

by Guinness World Records 2013.

Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

Achieve a better standard of self-service

Over 100 public authorities and academic UK libraries have chosen lorensbergs. Providing unrivalled online booking and self-service solutions for PC access, print management, Wi-Fi and other resources, the result is better run libraries. And with near 100% customer retention, you’ll find our own service record speaks for itself.

Call: 01992 415505 Visit: www.lorensbergs.co.uk Email: enquiries@lorensbergs.co.uk Follow us: @lorensbergs

Partner news

Partner news Shaping the future together: Capita’s Additions Partner Programme The Additions Partner Programme builds strong relationships with companies providing third-party products that extend the functionality of Capita’s library management system. The relationship between Capita and partners delivers the benefits of integrated products, ensuring you can save time and money while continuing to improve customer experience.

In this issue of Panlibus, we bring you highlights from some of our partners:

Positive investment in Irish libraries Government Minister Phil Hogan officially opened Tullamore Library in Offaly, Ireland on 4th February 2013. Open to the public since August 2012, it has proved extremely popular with 70,000 books, DVDs and games issued on loan and 4,500 new members signing up.

The library has also made a successful move to self-service including customised 2CQR Totems, and it’s reported that some 70 per cent of library transactions in Tullamore are now self-service. Demonstrating a commitment to the future, this €2.2m open plan library includes a multi-purpose ICT and e-learning space, meeting areas, event and study areas and a new digital collection.

Aston University Library implements selfservice laptop loans The library at Aston University made the decision to move to a completely self-service solution to offer their students laptop loans using the LapSafe® Diplomat™ LMS selfservice charging locker. Implementing the Diplomat™ LMS unit means that students

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have the flexibility to borrow laptops whenever required during the library’s 24 hours a day, six days a week opening times. The locker connects to the library management system, allowing administrators to track and manage who has borrowed a laptop, when and for how long, and even issue fines if necessary. Read the full case study www.lapsafe.com/about-us/ case-studies

Bibliotheca secures RFID project with Northumberland County Council Northumberland County Council (NCC) has recently awarded Bibliotheca a contract to deploy RFID solutions across their library service. The project, which will be over multiple years, focuses on the introduction of selfservice terminals that are capable of offering shared services solutions. The implementation will include integrating RFID into the library management system (LMS) and integrating Bibliotheca’s shared services software, mycommunity™, into the Capita AIM system facilitating select Council Payments. The library service aims to deploy Bibliotheca’s solutions across a variety of locations from traditional libraries to community centres offering a range of Council services. The project will also allow the Council to offer greater levels of service through the use of technology and redeploy staff to different roles within Council departments.

VENDIT Library Book Vending Machine installed at George Eliot Hospital, Warwickshire NHS D-Tech International Ltd has been selected

by Warwickshire County Council to design, supply and install a library book vending machine to the George Eliot Hospital in the

Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

Nuneaton area of Warwickshire. The VENDIT™ unit is the first of its kind to be installed in the UK and will provide hospital staff, visitors and patients who are Warwickshire Library members self service access to literature 24/7. Transformation and Engagement Officer Alison Insley explains: “As part of the Transformation Programme, Warwickshire Library & Information Service are seeking to utilise new technology to enhance service provision and to make more efficient use of its resources. The purchase of a Library Book Vending Machine is part of the transformation agenda with the objective to test out and pilot a new delivery mechanism for the Library & Information Service.”

Innovation in self-service booking solutions netloan, the PC booking and session management solution from lorensbergs, has enhanced its print facility to provide easier and faster printer administration for libraries.

Following a release earlier this month, the new functionality speeds up the process of rolling out or changing print pricing options across library sites. The result is improved control of print services. netloan is compatible with Capita’s LMS. Also from lorensbergs, connect2 online bookings for resources, rooms, appointments and events now offers enhanced notification functionality, for improved customer engagement.

Contact lorensbergs on 01992 415505, email enquiries@lorensbergs.co.uk or visit www.lorensbergs.co.uk.

‘Protecting Library Services’ How technology can help library services face their current challenges head on.

Capita white paper out 12 March 2013 Library services in the UK are facing the biggest set of challenges they have ever had to face in their history. The white paper looks at some of the most innovative practice within this sector – including shared services, the online library and social media – and examines how technology is helping libraries adapt, survive and innovate to defend front-line services in this time of change.

“Library services are about much more than buildings, and the most important issue is finding creative ways to preserve and, if possible, enhance library service.”

John Whittingdale, MP, Chair of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee

Download the white paper from 12 March at www.capita-software.co.uk/protectinglibraryservices.

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Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

Upcoming events

Events CILIP Scotland Conference 2013, Dundee - 3-4 June

Umbrella 2013, Manchester - 2-3 July

We will again be exhibiting at CILIPS Annual Conference on 3-4 June 2013. The Conference returns to Dundee for the second year running with an exciting programme of presentations featuring thought leaders and field experts on libraries: making a difference. Come and see us in the exhibition hall.

We are pleased to again be sponsoring CILIP’s flagship Umbrella Conference which will take place at the University of Manchester on 2-3 July 2013 in their state of the art campus on Oxford Road.

SCONUL Summer Conference, Dublin - 20-21 June We are pleased to be sponsoring this year’s SCONUL Summer Conference, on the theme of Living with the new fees regime: impact and experience. The event is being held at the Radison Blu Royal Hotel, Dublin on 20-21 June 2013.

Fore more information on all our upcoming events, visit www.capita-libraries.co.uk/events.

The conference will see a number of exciting changes, more plenary sessions, high profile speakers and focussed sessions. Come and see us on stand 34.

CILIP LMS Supplier Showcase, London - 8 November We will be exhibiting at the CILIP LMS Showcase in London on 8 November 2013. The event is taking place at CILIP HQ, 7 Ridgmount Street, London. Visit us on stand 13 in the Charter Suite throughout the day and talk to our representatives, who will be on hand to answer your questions, and be in with a chance to win an amazon voucher. The showcase is free to attend; register your place with CILIP today.

Webinars This comprehensive set of webinars is specifically designed to demonstrate software solutions that improve the service your library offers to users, as well as providing on-going efficiency gains. Register for any of the webinars at www.capita-libraries.co.uk/webinars.

Streamlining the management of your library finances 14 March 2013

Integrate your student registry system with Alto 25 April 2013

Automate your online library payment 16 April 2013

Implementing managed services to reduce IT costs 15 May 2013

Building your Prism interface 18 April 2013

Integrate your leisure system with Alto 23 May 2013

Chorus – your LMS in a hosted environment 24 April 2013

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Panlibus Magazine | Spring 2013 | www.capita.co.uk/libraries

RFID • EM Self-service • Security • Stock control Promotion • Software • Consultancy Installation • Maintenance Over two decades dedicated to improving performance in libraries across the UK and Ireland.

Can we help to move your library forward?

Bigger, brighter, more sophisticated.

Our popular ”Baby” is one of the unique products that keep delivering.

2CQR House Triangle Business Park Long Bennington Lincolnshire NG23 5JR T: 0845 88 22 778 F: 0845 88 22 779 info@2CQR.com www.2cqr.com

Thinking Libraries S O L U T I O N S

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