Softlink Information Centres Technical Services Manager Sarah Thompson returned to Papua New Guinea in the last week of July for 3 days of training on the Liberty library management system, followed by a User Group Meeting.

This time it was the turn of library staff from the Pacific Institute of Leadership and Governance (PILAG) and the University of Papua New Guinea’s School of Business and Public Policy to enjoy Sarah’s informative and interactive sessions.

Held in the well-resourced seminar room at PILAG’s new state of the art library, the training sessions, covered cataloguing, circulation and process workflows.

Sarah reiterated her conviction that on-site training not only provides,

“librarians with enhanced skills, valuable to their daily tasks, it also gives them the confidence, to apply what they have learned in their workplace.”

The User Group Meeting (UGM), also held at PILAG, was attended by over 40 enthusiastic Liberty users. Sarah demonstrated a number of new and enhanced features now available in Liberty, including those in Softlink’s mobile app, Liberty Link. The UGM provided the attendees with the opportunity to network, offer suggestions, share tips, and enjoy a wonderful lunch together.

Softlink Information Centres places a high priority on maintaining on-site services to the significant number of Liberty users, in government, academic and corporate libraries in Papua New Guinea with the team already planning for their 2019 on-site training visits to the South Pacific region,to be augmented with virtual training and UGMs. While face-to-face training continues to be the preferred option, Sarah commented that Information Centres,

“will continue to present more Virtual User Group Meetings (VUGMs) and online training to mitigate the expense or travel difficulties, some of our customers throughout the South Pacific region may experience, thereby ensuring as many users as possible can take part.”