Kicking off a packed 2019 calendar was the first of the 2019 Liberty Northern and Southern Hemisphere Virtual User Group Meetings (VUGMs). Held on the 24th of January, attendance numbers for both meetings were heartening especially at a time of the year that brings with it so many tasks needing your attention.

As usual Maida Rubin, our Customer Community Manager hosted both Virtual User Group Meetings. Time differences can sometimes work in everyone’s favour! Everyone who attended the January meetings was treated to the added bonus of a guest presenter.

Our guest presenter for the Northern Hemisphere was Rebecca Blackbourn, Librarian at the Royal Academy of Dance in London. Rebecca began by giving everyone an overview of the RAD story, the purpose of the library and an overview of the types of users for whom the library caters.

Rebecca then discussed her approach to designing her library’s Home page to meet current needs before identifying some of the additional elements she would like to include on the RAD library Home page as time permits. Rebecca noted that the ease with which Liberty enables anyone to customise the library’s home page means she can approach that particular project without any stress!

Our guest presenter for the Southern hemisphere VUGM was Steve Cremer, the Librarian at Sea Power Centre Australia. He began by explaining why the organisation selected Liberty. He noted it was a cost-effective solution, which met the library’s requirements and provided a hassle-free hosting option. Softlink’s reputation for excellent technical support was also a significant factor.

Steve provided background on the Sea Power Centre, the library, its role of supporting the users who are specialists and researchers of naval history. He noted the library has used Liberty for 6 years and recently added their 6000th record into their Liberty system. Click here to read our blog article on this achievement.

Steve also presented a training strategy he devised to assist the library’s users to find the content they require. Using authors and subjects as examples, he illustrated how easy it is to use the available search options in Liberty. His strategy included a brief explanation of using Boolean search operators. It is a form of searching unfamiliar to many library users.

Maida received lots of positive feedback on our guests’ presentations. Maida and Softlink Information Centres thanks them both very much giving everyone the opportunity to learn how they use Liberty to maximise their resources and service provision.

We know that the demands placed on librarians and library staff leave them increasingly time-poor. It is a testament to their belief in sharing information that our Liberty customers are willing to find the time to share their experiences with others at the Virtual User Group Meetings.

Following the guest presentations, Maida provided an overview of Version 5 Build 8.031. The version includes a significant number of enhancements and features notably in the Liberty Search interface (OPAC).

Maida gave everyone a brief “show and tell” on the new version including:

• The redesign of the Search box and screen.
• The option to establish unique sets of information boxes based on borrower profiles.
• Additional functionality now included in the Borrower and Staff Management areas.
• How the display of embedded PDFs is now viewable in full-screen mode.
• Permalinks for curated resource Lists.

We have already provided links to the VUGM recordings of the meetings to those that attended the meetings. The links are now available to all Liberty users in the Video section of the Support Portal. You can log into the portal here.

Maida looks forward to catching up with you all again at the next VUGM. She would love to hear from anyone who is interested in sharing how you use Liberty. Just contact her at maida.rubin@softlinkint.com!