Welcome to a New Era: Liberty Digital Unleashed

Softlink Information Centers is excited to introduce Liberty Digital, an innovative platform set to redefine the landscape of library and archive management. Launched at our recent Virtual Open Day on May 30, 2024, Liberty Digital joins our suite of products, which includes Liberty (an Integrated Library System or ILS) and illumin (a research and reference management tool). The best news of all? It’s available now for your library or archive, read on to find out more! 

A Day in the Life of a Legal Librarian

Kelley Bocell Legal Librarian

See how Vinson & Elkins built a centralized, searchable resource portal for 800 attorneys — and gave their research team the data to prove their department’s value.

Highlights from Our 2025 User Group Meetings in Brisbane, Melbourne & Wellington

Each year, we bring our community together through our User Group Meetings (UGMs) – one of our favourite ways to connect with customers, share updates, and celebrate the innovation happening in libraries. In October 2025, the Softlink IC team hosted UGMs across Brisbane, Melbourne, and Wellington, bringing together professionals from every sector to learn, collaborate, and discuss what’s next for Liberty Digital and illumin.

How to Make Research Faster with Filters, Search, and Pinned Views In illumin

A Knowledge and Research Management System helps research teams organize their workflows efficiently, reducing time spent searching for information and increasing productivity. Softlink IC’s illumin, provides features such as filters, advanced search, and pinning views so teams can streamline their research workflows, track requests, and surface the insights that matter. Here’s a closer look at how these features help research teams work smarter.

Top Research Team Tools: How illumin and Onelog Save Time and Boost Efficiency

Research professionals face constant pressure to deliver accurate, timely insights under tight deadlines. From managing requests to juggling tools and tracking outputs, the real challenge isn’t just doing the work, it’s doing it efficiently. Success now depends on doing more with less and streamlining tasks to drive results.

Why Traditional Ticketing Solutions Fail Research Teams

In our fast-paced digital world, the roles of researchers and research librarians are evolving more rapidly than ever. The important task of tracking and managing research requests can’t be left to traditional ticketing software. While a staple in query management and user assistance, traditional ticketing software often falls short in meeting the specialized demands of research centers.

Elevate Your Library Game – Let Our Helpdesk Level You Up

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At some point in our lives, we all encounter situations where a little assistance can go a long way. In the realm of libraries, the same holds true. As a Softlink IC customer using our integrated library management system Liberty, or our knowledge and research management software illumin, regardless of if you’re a newcomer seeking guidance or an experienced solo librarian in need of fresh ideas, our helpdesk is here to provide support and solutions. Let’s explore 5 outside the box reasons why you might want to reach out to our helpdesk.

Does Your Library or Research System Provide Integration Options?

Integrating a library management or request and research system with third-party solutions can have a huge impact on efficiency and user experiences. Liberty Digital and illumin offer a wide range of integrations to help manage resources, requests and research.

How to Bring a Customer Focus to Your Research Team

At its core, customer service is about building relationships. It’s about understanding what your customer or users’ needs are and then going above and beyond to meet those needs. The same philosophy can and should be applied to the research process. It’s a risk that some research teams get bogged down in the details and lose sight of the bigger picture: their customers or users.

Why Our Customer Support Team Is Everything to Us

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At Softlink Information Centres, you probably know we provide library, knowledge and research management solutions. Our products, Liberty and illumin, are used by hundreds of businesses around the world from some of the largest multi-branch law firms to single branch non-profit organizations.

Emails vs a Research Management System? There’s No Contest!

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As libraries turn to a more digital presence, libraries and knowledge centers are receiving more email requests for their research services. Are you and your research staff still managing and tracking your research load via emails, and maybe a spreadsheet? Does it make managing your increasing research load even more inefficient now? There’s got to be a better way!

The Future of Library Access and Digital Resources is Now

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A significant increase in access to libraries online – their homepage, search options and digital resources was already evidenced prior to COVID-19’s impact. This was borne out by the results of Softlink IC’s #gotknowledge2020 survey.

4 Reasons Why Dashboards are Critical to Business

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Dashboards are an increasingly essential data visualization management tool. They can be customized to visually display data applicable to different departments and segments of a business. Dashboards are an objective way to measure business requirements from tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) to the status of current tasks to ensure required outcomes are achieved.

Our Top 4 Working from Home Tips for Liberty and illumin Users

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Did you expect to love the flexibility of working from home or is it your idea of a nightmare? Have you found that you are enjoying your new work environment but finding it more of a challenge than you expected? Are you juggling other tasks like childcare or home schooling, or tempted to “just do xyz because it is distracting me”?

Does Your Law Firm Have the Competitive Research Edge?

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Information is power. It can be the difference between winning and losing. That’s why your law firm needs access to the right information and FAST! Leveraging the information sourced by your knowledge researchers, using the most up-to-date library management tools, will give your firm the competitive research edge.

Data Conversion – Why Softlink Information Centres Does it Better

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The Softlink Information Centres’ data conversion team understands the apprehension felt by new Liberty and illumin customers when facing the prospect of converting data from their old library or knowledge management system. Justin Westacott, our Senior Conversion Analyst, gives us a glimpse of our data conversion process and why we do it better than others.

Reference Interviews – Time and Cost Expensive or Not?

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The reference interview is neither a new concept nor a rarely applied process. It is a valuable tool in the research specialist’s skill set to ensure they understand exactly what information their customer requires. But, sometimes the “interview” is undervalued by those who seek the research specialist’s assistance. Many find the “barrage” of questions asked of them to be time expensive. However, the benefits of a reference interview are significant. The relatively short amount of time required to answer some targeted questions reduces the time a researcher needs to find and retrieve the right information.

Appraisal Institute Solves Business Challenges With Liberty and illumin

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The Appraisal Institute, based in Chicago, is a global association of professional real estate appraisers, with 19,000 members and 80 chapters worldwide. The Institute funds and operates the Y.T. and Louise Lee Lum Library, which provides members with reference services in all areas of real estate appraisal.

6 Reasons Why Law Firms Need a Powerful Request Management Solution

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The amount of accurate information required by legal staff is phenomenal. How do legal staff communicate their needs to research center staff? How do research center staff efficiently manage the volume of daily requests for the research services they receive? How do they ensure requesters are updated promptly?