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.

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 at mark.travis@capita.co.uk with any ideas you may have.

Recently we have been working on ways to improve the ways to read Panlibus Magazine online and are pleased to announce our new online web viewer.

The new web version is available to view below (and on the Panlibus website) and provides an easy to read alternative to downloading the PDF version. It is also optimised for viewing on tablet and mobile devices.

The latest issue of Panlibus Magazine is available to read online today.

The theme for this issue is ‘libraries online’, focusing on tools and media that public and academic libraries can utilise.

Library websites are more than a marketing tool and should be viewed as an extension to the library itself. Amy York from Middle Tennessee State University is a prominent figure in the library
website world and offers us an insight into transforming the library website.

For public libraries, making the most of your online presence is imperative; it’s the third most popular reason for citizens to visit their local authority website. Socitm Insight share the findings from Better connected 2012 report, which looked at local
authority and library websites, and gives some examples of how to improve your online library service.

Could the use of video provide the additional value required to keep visitors coming back to your site? A team from the University of Sheffield has been looking into the ease of use of video in libraries and what can be achieved from “this dominant
medium”.

We also look at products and services available to improve libraries’ online presence, from Capita’s Prism software to our Additions Partners EBSCO, SOLUS, Bretford and Talis Education.

There is plenty more besides. 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 the editor at mark.travis@capita.co.uk with any ideas you may have.

The latest issue of Panlibus Magazine is available to read online today.

Having focused on academic libraries last issue, we now turn our attention to public libraries. With a lot of attention on the immediate perils of closing public libraries, their long term future can easily be overlooked. Our lead article from Ken Chad refocuses the mind on the need for strategic direction.

Councils up and down the land are using online services to take payments for a whole host of services. Academic libraries are using online services to take payments for fees and fines. Are public libraries missing a trick by not having online payments? In this issue we take a look at the feasibility of public libraries extending their range of payment methods to include online.

‘What does the LMS look like in the future?’ is a question we are often asked. Capita’s head of product development, Anthony Whitford, gives an overview of where he sees the LMS heading and the technology being used to deliver it.

We haven’t forgotten the academic librarians among our readers and hope you’ll find the article on the new library at Aberdeen University interesting. On opening the library, one of the students stated ‘if Apple built libraries they’d be like this: white and shiny and intuitive’. A fantastic quote and endorsement for all involved up at Aberdeen University.

Subscribe to receive your own hard-copy or online version.

There is plenty more beside these features for you. We hope you enjoy this issue, and as always, encourage you to get in touch with your thoughts on any of the articles. If you have any topics you would like to write about, we would be extremely pleased to hear them. Please contact the editor at mark.travis@capita.co.uk.

I recently had the privilege of attending and exhibiting at the EDGE conference in Edinburgh and I have to say in the current climate of the austerity measures and other constraints facing the library sector in Scotland, how refreshing it was to be involved in a conference where there was so much optimism, innovative ideas and can do attitude. Liz McGettigan and the EDGE team certainly seem to understand the key issues facing the Scottish Library sector and were able to create a thought provoking conference agenda that gave some fantastic foresight into what other thought leaders are doing to survive the cuts and suggest innovative ways on enhancing services. With over 150 delegates attending and plenty of breakout sessions (not to mention Thursday night refreshments) it was great to have the opportunity to network with sector colleagues and gain a better understanding of the key issues they are focused on addressing.

The two days were packed with presentations covering key aspects of pushing the boundaries of the public sector delivery, some of my favourites were:

• Neil Wishart from Solus UK Ltd and Eric Grosshans held an informal open session over drinks at to explore how mobile technology can be utilised to improve the experience of the virtual and physical library user, showcasing how the Smart Phone can be used to interface with other hardware to bring efficiencies to the library service
• Christopher Platt came all the way from new York Public Library and presented on “The E-book Ecosystem: Where do Libraries Fit? As Libraries, publishers, and all parties in between are still feeling their way toward a happy e-book medium and with the library copy is just a click away from the retail version, Christopher asked the question “can the traditional model of sales to libraries hold”? He also discussed the new opportunities for promoting books through libraries and new ways to increase author visibility, making works more discoverable and available than ever before.
• Lester Madden, presented on Augmented Reality and we had the opportunity to witness some ideas of the future, giving an insight into how we can possibly use digital technology in the future to enhance many aspects of the library service, including increasing the borrows experience.
• And our own Karen Reece, delivered an insight into “Libraries and the Cloud”. With cloud computing transforming the way organisations operate, we looked at how will this affect libraries? Karen gave a thought provoking presentation on how cloud computing is the natural evolution of library technology, and not about throwing out the experience and rich data that has built up over time within the LMS.

All in all it was fantastic conference and one I look forward to attending again.

Post from Karen Reece, head of sales at Capita, from the recent issue of Panlibus Magazine (Issue 23).

From reading both the computing and the library press it seems that “cloud computing”, “software as a service” and “hosted services” have become the magic pixie dust that will solve all the library service’s IT problems, and make all of our lives easier. Needless to say, the realists amongst us know to take this with a pinch of salt however. Using the “cloud” does have some real advantages for libraries and like all ‘new’ inventions it’s not as ‘new’ as it portrays itself to be.

One thing is for certain, library users are already taking advantage of the storage that ‘cloud applications’ provide. If you cast your mind back 20 years, storage on floppy discs was the way to safely transport data from one system to another. These were quickly replaced with CDs, then DVDs and finally flash drives as the need for greater amounts of storage and speed of access grew. Now, a number of applications are born in the cloud, services like Flickr, Dropbox and Google Docs, all hosted in the cloud, holding large amounts of data and being accessed by millions of people over the web, all with huge storage capacity compared to those floppy discs 20 years ago.

These new technologies mean that large amounts of data can be used in a library context and some of the social software like Library Thing (the social cataloguing web application) is an example of how apps can be used in a library context. However, I’d argue that Capita’s library business has been using cloud or cloud-like solutions for a number of years. Perhaps the oldest example is Base, the bibliographic database that holds some 30 million bibliographic records. Not only do these hold commercial datasets, but also a large number of records that have been catalogued by staff in libraries and contributed back for the benefit of the library community. It’s also always been a hosted service.

The second example is our resource discovery system – Prism – which is used by over 90 libraries in the UK and Ireland and was launched four years ago. It’s a cloud based system that benefits from regular releases of new features (currently about every six weeks) and libraries can take advantage of these releases immediately. It’s an application that allows library services to benefit from the rich data contained within the modern amazon-like interface as well as mobile phone enabled interfaces. All without the need for any additional hardware or overheads for libraries to manage, allowing the technology to provide your users with an intuitive interface to access resources.

The final piece in the jigsaw has been the release of Chorus, the Capita Library Management System (LMS) as a Service. This has all the benefits that you’d expect from a hosted service, including security, reliability, scaling to meet the requirements of the library service as it grows, and also reducing the overall total cost of ownership in providing the LMS that libraries need. It has removed the need for locally deployed hardware on premise and meets the needs of both individual and consortium based library services. At Capita we see this as the natural evolution of technology which we have been helping our customers with for in excess of 40 years. This isn’t about throwing out the experience and rich data that has built up over time within the LMS, but taking advantage of the way in which cloud services can be applied to the LMS for the benefit of those customers who choose to move to this environment. Cloud computing isn’t a paradigm shift, it’s about evolution and not revolution.

The latest issue of Panlibus Magazine is available to read online today.

Technology and libraries have always gone hand in hand and with the two becoming increasingly entwined, this issue offers an array of views and opinions from many prominent voices in the library technology community.

Brian Kelly from UKOLN (p6) notes that rapid technological developments, combined with the financial crisis, will transform the nature of the services provided. Brian gives his technological predictions for 2012 and describes approaches for planning for the future. Peter Kilbourn of Book Industry Communication (p4) believes that technology can be used to protect the best of the library tradition and exploit the existing network of buildings, but in a way that doesn’t put pressure on rapidly dwindling funds.

The emergence of mainstream cloud computing over the last couple of years has prompted libraries to ask how this will affect them and what benefits it will bring. Erik Mitchell, a prominent figure in the world of cloud computing in libraries, discusses its impact and offers some guidance on balancing the issues and implications when evaluating cloud for libraries (p14). We also take a look at some of the practical applications of cloud in use in libraries currently (p8).

Capita’s Additions Partners provide a wide range of technology designed to improve your library service. In this issue we have articles from 3M, introducing SIP 3.0; Edinburgh libraries and Solus, outlining how they together achieved significant growth for the virtual library; and PSP Security Protection, introducing themselves to the Panlibus readers.

Subscribe to receive your own hard-copy or online version.

Survey

Thank you to all who filled out our recent survey. The answers have all now been collated and are being analysed. One of the things that has come out so far is introducing a ‘letters to the editor’ page which I am very keen to introduce. If you would like to send a letter for publication please email me at mark.travis@capita.co.uk.

Finally, the winner of the survey prize draw is Helen Standish from Manchester Metropolitan University, who takes home a Kindle. Congratulation to Helen.

Mark Travis, Editor, Panlibus Magazine

Guest post from Edinburgh City Libraries and Capita Additions Partner Solus (Panlibus Magazine Issue 23)

For years libraries have been under increasing pressure. Faced with static or falling visitor numbers, budgetary constraints, competition from “stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” retailers and etailers, and the rise of the ereader, commentators have long predicted their demise.

Rather than roll over and accept this, the City of Edinburgh has chosen to harness the very technology cited as a threat and engage with new audiences in new ways. The primary aim has always been to attract physical users to their facilities, however if this is not possible then the next best thing is to engage digitally with their audience.

If you think about citizens in a new way, as mobile, digitally accessible, yet unique and focused on receiving the service that they want whenever they want it, technology gives them and you the opportunity to build a new relationship. Once in place, it also enables you to market your services free of charge, increasingly important in these austere times.

Liz McGettigan, Library and Information Services Manager at the City of Edinburgh Council realised the requirement to engage with developments in web 2.0 services, or risk being left behind in an increasingly digital world. She saw the opportunities for promotion that social media enabled and created a team of people within the library to pull all electronic resources into one location. Finally she employed the best technology available to engage with Edinburgh’s citizens, in facilities, on the web, socially and on the go.

Libraries now lead the way in Edinburgh, with other departments continually looking to implement their successful strategy.

• Your Library: the Web Portal – This unique portal unites all digital resources including catalogues, databases and other websites
• Tales of One City – Is an integrated approach to social media engaging citizens and local communities with Edinburgh’s blog, Facebook site, Twitter feed, Flickr and YouTube sites. It’s push and pull communication that connects with their audience
• SOLUS – Gives Edinburgh the power to schedule content from their Web based Content Management System to: digital signage, web & desktop video players, a library app and to social media channels

SOLUS, a member of Capita’s Additions Partner Programme, provides Edinburgh with a unique digital communications capability and helps maximise efficiency in a market where cost saving and best value is critical. Jim Thompson, Edinburgh’s Development and Quality Manager, stated, “the premise behind SOLUS is the ability to create once and schedule many. SOLUS allows us to use one system to upload a promotional video file to our digital signage network, make it available to view across our desktops, embed it into our web portal and intranet, schedule it to our mobile app and distribute it automatically to all our social media channels.”

SOLUS has also fully integrated with Capita’s LMS to provide functionality for “Your Library App” and this has enabled additional benefits. Most recently added and most popular stock can now be automatically promoted across other platforms managed by SOLUS, such as digital signage and social media.

Neil Wishart, Director of SOLUS, was recently at Downing Street, discussing the potential of “Your Library App” with Nick Jones, Director of Digital Communications for No. 10 and The Cabinet Office. Following the meeting Neil commented:

“One of the key requirements for government at all levels is to engage more efficiently and effectively with citizens. The digital citizen is real and their dependency on technology is increasing. Rather than being a threat, it provides libraries with the biggest opportunity in a generation to engage with new users in increasing numbers. At the same time, it will let them do this more efficiently and effectively. For the citizen, libraries can offer easy and immediate access to services that can save them money. If people are cutting back due to their personal budgets being squeezed, libraries can take advantage.”

To take advantage, access must be 24/7, slick and with instant gratification. V2 of Edinburgh’s Library App will allow users to scan a barcode in a shop and automatically search the library catalogue. This is already reality, the recently launched Haringey Library App which is powered by SOLUS allows users to scan, search and reserve within seconds. If they don’t know how to get to the reserved item, the app will take them there and if an Ebook is available, users can get that instant gratification!

Of course, the proof is in the pudding and Liz McGettigan has solid evidence to prove this innovative use of technology is working. In the last year digital visits have increased by 135,000, PC usage is up by 145,000 sessions, attendance at events has increased, up 32% and significantly, the decline in physical visits has been reversed with an extra 30,000 people attending libraries. Wishart stated, “it’s a classic case of inbound marketing, where effective online positioning has a direct impact on offline behaviour. It’s fantastic for Liz to be able to report back to her stakeholders that she has improved access to services and achieved a direct return on investment, both in relation to time and money.” Success has also culminated in national recognition with the efforts of Liz, Jim and the team bringing a shortlist for the www.ukpublicsectordigitalawards.co.uk2011.

What’s next? Creating an app, using social media, installing a digital signage network are all great foundations, but maximum uptake can only be ensured through effective on going promotion. The next step in the partnership between Edinburgh Libraries and SOLUS is to develop a range of collaterals to shout about libraries. Liz commented, “There is no point in having the world’s best kept secret, we want as many physical and digital users as we can possibly attract. We are actively working on materials with SOLUS to promote our App and these will be resources that can be shared with other libraries across the UK. There is no point replicating spend – if we can all make further efficiency savings and at the same time develop really exciting material, it benefits the whole library community.”

See more from Solus and Edinburgh Libraries later this week at EDGE 2012.

Southwark Council has opened Canada Water Library, a new £14m pound super library that will become the hub of the community.

In a first for London, visitors to the library will not only have access to some 40,000 books, music CDs & films but will also have spaces to host theatre performances and evening courses.

From January, local citizens will be able to access council services such as benefits and council tax help. They’ll also be able to take in the amazing views of the historic Canada Water basin, which it overhangs.

The library’s wi-fi network, with nearly 30 laptops available for hire, reflects the growing trend towards the ‘library as living room’ ethos. Across Southwark’s libraries members currently clock up more than 10,000 hours of internet use each month on their wi-fi network alone.

Cllr Veronica Ward, cabinet member for culture, leisure, sport and the Olympics at Southwark Council commented at the opening:

“The new Canada Water library is the latest chapter in Southwark Councils library programme. It is going to be a hub for the whole community. It’s a unique building that offers opportunities for learning, cultural activities and social events and will form the heart of a new planned town centre. We have worked with Capita to deliver our IT solutions as the library is self-service, fully wi-fi enabled and offers a full range of online resources.”

Renowned architect Piers Gough commented that the new library was “a small site with a hugely ambitious library” and that “libraries still hold the capability to take you to other realms”.

The latest issue on Panlibus Magazine is available to read online today.

In this issue we look at shared services in detail and consider what the path to a successful library shared service will look like (p. 4-5). The groundbreaking tri-borough plan between three London councils (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and Westminster City Council) is still in the early stages, but we see how this will pan out from the library perspective (p. 6-7). Another innovative project underway is the unique library shared service with Worcestershire Council and the University of Worcester (p. 24-25).

Capita has recently launched its LMS as a Service, Chorus: a cloud based solution that will manage all of the services that libraries currently benefit from. Andy Latham, Head of Development at Capita, outlines how this will work and the benefits it will bring to libraries. As well as this, we have articles from Capita’s Additions Partners Nielsen and Lorensbergs, case studies and product updates to keep you up-to-date with the latest from Capita’s library division.

In order to improve Panlibus Magazine we are currently undertaking a readership survey. Please fill the survey in online and be in with a chance of winning a Kindle.