+inc+Papakura.JPG)
At the recent IUG Conference in Washington D.C. the eLGAR team picked up some exciting tidbits of innovation and initiative happening in libraries around the world. Here is a summary of the best.
New Kids Catalogue – Mid-Hudson Library Consortium
Mid-Hudson a large consortium in New York State, has developed a unique kids' catalogue designed for children to navigate using a highly graphic presentation and results display.
This Kids' Catalogue was the first place winner in the WebPac category of the Be Innovative Awards. Check it out on http://gigcat.midhudson.org:90/search~S2. Note: some library firewalls block this url but it is well worth taking a look at from your home computer.
Wiki Site for Staff Competencies
West Palm Beach a Florida based local library, has produced a wiki-based skills programme for staff.
The wiki provides training materials and tracks progress on core Millennium competencies. It has been so successful that there are expansion plans to cover other areas of library technology use.
Events Calendar using Patron API
Hong Kong Baptist University has come up with a clever way of using the Innovative Patron API to enable notification of due dates and reserve pickups etc to be sent direct to patron's web calendars or Outlook style diaries. They can also be advised of library events or programmes and register online without logging in to the library website. eLGAR currently uses the Patron API for Pay online.
American libraries particularly public, seem to be very programme focussed. There are a few quite interesting developments in proactive event marketing. Innovative have a Programme Registration module and there are a few other options using various Web 2.0 features like RSS and Atom feeds to alert customers to what’s on at their library.
Innovative have made several enhancements to its Programme Registration module making it one option for eLGAR however several other third party products also exist.
Facebook Library Search Application
Ryerson in Toronto, Canada is one of the larger Millennium universities. Facebook is absolutely pervasive in the U.S. university world as it was originally created by students to keep track of friends. On the basis of going where your audience already is, many libraries have catalogue search functions on Facebook but Ryerson has extended their functionality to render the results within Facebook rather than linking out to the OPAC in separate browser windows.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Future of On-Line Browsing
There must be a better way for us to show off the collections in the OPAC, especially for the person at home that we are looking to deliver items to in the future. I had a really "thats it" moment when I saw zoomii.com.
Built to interface with Amazon books, zoomii shows you virtual bookshelves to browse online, just like you would in a bookshop or library. It just seemed right to me. You can interact with the "books" by zooming in & out in a way that feels natural.
If you look at the site, and I recommend you do, you can watch a video about zoomii. Then just imagine LibraryThing and zoomii-type browsing together in our OPAC.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Communicating with eLGAR Programme Office
We have recently discovered a very serious issue with all email replies inbound to the eLGAR office.
About the 20th of April, prior to leaving for IUG we added the programme office blog address to all our signature files as a means of publicising the blog and getting a wider audience.
The Auckland City network, of which elgar.govt.nz is part, uses a third party spam-filter service. This service has a list of banned words, which includes name of the Google subsidiary which is the largest blog site in the world.
The filter has been deleting all incoming replies to any eLGAR emails because our original message contained the banned word in the signature file.
This has only affected replies to our emails, not incoming "new" emails, so a steady stream of emails have been getting to us, disguising the problem for some time.
Some of you have probably been receiving increasingly exasperated emails from us asking for information you may well have already provided. Unfortunately we will not have received your reply to the follow-ups either so have been in a vicious circle.
We have today removed the offensive word from our email signature, and so do not expect any further issues. If you have a blog address in your email signature, you may have similar issues trying to send email to the aucklandcity or eLGAR domains.
We do apologise for any inconvenience and/or offence caused.
About the 20th of April, prior to leaving for IUG we added the programme office blog address to all our signature files as a means of publicising the blog and getting a wider audience.
The Auckland City network, of which elgar.govt.nz is part, uses a third party spam-filter service. This service has a list of banned words, which includes name of the Google subsidiary which is the largest blog site in the world.
The filter has been deleting all incoming replies to any eLGAR emails because our original message contained the banned word in the signature file.
This has only affected replies to our emails, not incoming "new" emails, so a steady stream of emails have been getting to us, disguising the problem for some time.
Some of you have probably been receiving increasingly exasperated emails from us asking for information you may well have already provided. Unfortunately we will not have received your reply to the follow-ups either so have been in a vicious circle.
We have today removed the offensive word from our email signature, and so do not expect any further issues. If you have a blog address in your email signature, you may have similar issues trying to send email to the aucklandcity or eLGAR domains.
We do apologise for any inconvenience and/or offence caused.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Pay Online (eCommerce) Launch Rescheduled
The past week has been a very difficult one in terms of keeping the Pay online project on track for our launch of 3rd June.
There have been a significant number of issues during the IT build phase in the last two weeks which have impacted on the delivery of the test server within the elgar network. These delays have meant that to maintain our projected go-live date, our testing and familiarisation phase would have to be reduced to an unacceptably short period.
Based on the best advice I have, I have made the decision to delay the go-live date by two weeks from the 3rd to the 16th June. I would like to thank everyone for their efforts to date to meet the original deadline, and a revised project testing plan will be circulated to those involved shortly.
There have been a significant number of issues during the IT build phase in the last two weeks which have impacted on the delivery of the test server within the elgar network. These delays have meant that to maintain our projected go-live date, our testing and familiarisation phase would have to be reduced to an unacceptably short period.
Based on the best advice I have, I have made the decision to delay the go-live date by two weeks from the 3rd to the 16th June. I would like to thank everyone for their efforts to date to meet the original deadline, and a revised project testing plan will be circulated to those involved shortly.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Latest addition to the Millennium Systems Support Team!
Sienna Eva Jordan, born May 3rd, 9.5lb and already sleeping from midnight to 7am. There's a carefully-negotiated service level agreement!Dan's project implementation review declares that Sienna was delivered "... slightly later than schedule, on budget, and technically perfect."
Ask for the latest baby news when you call the Millennium Helpdesk
Friday, May 16, 2008
eLGAR Strategy - progressing the next steps
Remember the eLGAR Customer Strategy published in November 2007? It was adopted by the Board as the eLGAR Strategy in recognition of the commitment made to benchmark all streams of work undertaken by libraries against a customer-centric strategy.
Since November the eLGAR Strategy has been progressed in a series of sessions by the Board, eLLF (the Library Leadership teams) and the original Customer Strategy Project Team examining current local and regional projects and where they align with objectives set out in three time strategic horizons.
Idenitifcation and gap analysis is currently underway. Determining alignment to the first objective of the Strategy will be on the agenda for group work at the next eLLF workshop in July. This objective is: "to define and measure the best eLGAR experience and how we are delivering on it". The process of defining the Customer Experience in terms of pivotal touchpoints with the library service was the subject of a workshop held on 29th May.
Since November the eLGAR Strategy has been progressed in a series of sessions by the Board, eLLF (the Library Leadership teams) and the original Customer Strategy Project Team examining current local and regional projects and where they align with objectives set out in three time strategic horizons.
Horizon 1: 18 months - Understanding the customer and removing barriers
Horizon 2: 36 months - Building capability
Horizon 3: 48 months - Extending the reach
Idenitifcation and gap analysis is currently underway. Determining alignment to the first objective of the Strategy will be on the agenda for group work at the next eLLF workshop in July. This objective is: "to define and measure the best eLGAR experience and how we are delivering on it". The process of defining the Customer Experience in terms of pivotal touchpoints with the library service was the subject of a workshop held on 29th May.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Pay online - coming soon to a website near you
Pay online is the latest eLGAR collaboration offering set to enhance our library service to customers from 1 June 2008.
The new OPAC feature will allow customers to make a credit card payment on any outstanding fines or charges within their My Info account. It is designed to be secure and offer a convenient and easy to use payment option.
Pay online is in the final testing stage and will be available before go-live for staff to explore how easy it is to use. Go-live for Manukau, Rodney, North Shore and Waitakere libraries is set for 1 June with Auckland to follow in conjunction with the re-launch of their website.
A how-to and FAQ’s guide will be circulated prior to go-live to assist all front-line staff. In addition a re-design of the My Info brochure promoting the new feature will be delivered to libraries in time for the public launch. A synchronised press release is also planned.
The launch will provide an occasion for staff to interact with customers and encourage them to make use of all the features offered in My Info. This is also an opportunity to ensure that customer contact details are up to date. Providing this new feature paves the way for libraries to offer other services such as Held Item Delivery.
Further updates will follow as we approach the launch date.
The new OPAC feature will allow customers to make a credit card payment on any outstanding fines or charges within their My Info account. It is designed to be secure and offer a convenient and easy to use payment option.
Pay online is in the final testing stage and will be available before go-live for staff to explore how easy it is to use. Go-live for Manukau, Rodney, North Shore and Waitakere libraries is set for 1 June with Auckland to follow in conjunction with the re-launch of their website.
A how-to and FAQ’s guide will be circulated prior to go-live to assist all front-line staff. In addition a re-design of the My Info brochure promoting the new feature will be delivered to libraries in time for the public launch. A synchronised press release is also planned.
The launch will provide an occasion for staff to interact with customers and encourage them to make use of all the features offered in My Info. This is also an opportunity to ensure that customer contact details are up to date. Providing this new feature paves the way for libraries to offer other services such as Held Item Delivery.
Further updates will follow as we approach the launch date.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
