5 Steps on the Journey to a New Library Management System
Is your current library management system having trouble coping with the exciting challenges your knowledge center staff face? Is a new library management system the answer? If so, Softlink IC believes Liberty is the system for you. It will meet your current and future needs. But we do understand you might want to do a bit of research and evaluation before you take our word for it!
5 Easy Steps to Digitization in Your Library
The digital revolution has transformed the way we access and interact with information. For libraries, knowledge and information centers, this revolution presents a unique opportunity to extend their reach and impact. By digitizing your collection, you can make your resources more accessible and relevant in today’s digital world. Follow these five easy steps to successfully start digitizing your library.
Beginner’s Guide to Reporting in Your Library
Reports are a librarian’s best friend and extracting verifiable data from their integrated library management system (ILMS) is increasingly non-negotiable. Reporting ensures you are all over the information you and your management team need. Best of all, reports prove the value of a library!
There’s another reason why reporting in your library is vital. Have you ever had to argue a case for increases to budgets, new technology, an up-to-date ILMS, additional eResources, or additional staff? Asking for more like David Copperfield with a bowl in his hands, won’t work for librarians any more than it did for him!
Softlink IC understands the real value of reporting. Our customers love Liberty’s Reporting and Analytics features. So, if you are a beginner and part of your responsibility is to produce various reports, where do you begin? Here are a few tips that may help!
Liberty Link: The Key to a 24/7 Library in Your Pocket
In today’s digital era, libraries are adapting to new technologies to enhance their services and user engagement. Softlink IC’s mobile app Liberty Link is designed to provide easy access to your Liberty catalog directly from your mobile device.
7 Ways Law Libraries Save Law Firms Money
Law libraries accommodate all manner of resources, both digital and physical, to help lawyers in their research. More and more, law firms are relying on the internet, online databases, and web-based services for research, but there is still a need for physical publications.
Top 3 Tools Libraries Use for Patrons With Visual Impairment
It is easy for most of us to walk into a library and search for a resource, use a computer, or read a journal. However, doing so is not always easy for those with a visual impairment. How accessible is the library’s information to those users?
10 Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Public Library’s Digital Future
Public libraries are evolving rapidly, and expectations from both local councils and communities continue to grow.. Councils want clear evidence that their libraries deliver meaningful outcomes for ratepayers, while patrons expect modern digital experiences that are easy to access and use.
Is Free Library Software Really Free in 2026? What Special Libraries Need to Know Before Choosing a System
In 2020, many special libraries were still operating primarily on-site. Digital collections existed, but they were often small or siloed, and often loosely connected to wider organizational systems.
5 Library System Features You Could Be Using (But You Probably Aren’t)
Today, most special libraries and archives aren’t taking full advantage of their current library management systems. Not because the tools aren’t there, but because it’s time consuming to explore everything between daily tasks like urgent research requests, maintaining compliance, or supporting internal projects.
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.
Libraries Lead the Way: Inside Softlink IC’s AI Library Challenge
Could AI help solve everyday library challenges? That’s the question Softlink IC posed during this year’s User Group Meetings (UGMs) – and the results were surprising.
Unlocking the Hidden Value in Your Library Collection
As a law or government librarian, your collection is one of your greatest assets – second only to your expertise and knowledge. But even the most carefully curated resources can sit underutilized if your users and stakeholders don’t know they exist. While many libraries spend significant budgets on collections, the real value comes when those resources are actively used to inform research, support decisions, and drive your organization’s goals.
Libraries Leading Change: The Greater Whitsunday Alliance Crescendo Event
This week, the Greater Whitsunday Alliance Crescendo event brought together library leaders and system partners in Mackay, Queensland for a collaborative discussion on the evolving needs of regional libraries.
Why You Should Always Encourage Patrons to Explore Digital Archives First
In today’s fast-paced digital world, it’s essential for corporate, legal, government, and special libraries to encourage teams and stakeholders to explore digital archives first for smarter, more secure, and more efficient research. With solutions like Liberty Digital, you can collect, preserve, and provide long-term access to digitized or born-digital materials, making critical information available anytime, anywhere. Whether it’s case files, reports, policy papers, or multimedia records, digital archives offer a searchable, organized alternative to physical files – saving time and supporting better discovery. Promoting these resources early helps staff find what they need faster, reduces wear on physical collections, and meets modern expectations for on-demand access and compliance.
Effective Library Management for Health Libraries – A Guide to Increasing Usage
Your health library’s homepage is often the first point of access for clinicians, researchers, or students, and a strong digital presence is essential. Without effective visibility, even your most valuable digital resources can go unnoticed. Here’s how Softlink’s effective library management strategies can help your library shine.
It’s Time to Change Your Integrated Library System to Liberty Digital (If You Haven’t Already)
Deciding to change your Integrated Library System (ILS) is a significant decision and many library professionals often wrestle with the question,
“Is it time to move on from our current ILS?”
If you’re dealing with inflexible legacy systems, limited support, or rising hidden costs, it might be. Here are some of the warning signs:
Ensure Security and Privacy in Your Library System
In today’s digital age, security and privacy in library systems are paramount. This guide gives an overview of key security practices in libraries and information centers and how they can safeguard their data and resources.
5 Mistakes to Avoid in Your Library This Year
Solo librarians juggle multiple roles, balancing marketing, support, research, and library
management.
The Solo Librarian’s Secret Weapon: How to Boost Library Engagement
Solo librarians juggle multiple roles, balancing marketing, support, research, and library management. While balancing all of this, how can you transform your library into a dynamic, engaging hub? This blog recaps some of the practical strategies we covered in a recent webinar that will make your library irresistible.
Tidy Up Your Library: 7 Simple Steps for a Clean Catalog
Over time, even the best-maintained systems can benefit from a little spring cleaning. Tidying up your library management system (LMS) is a great way to keep things in top shape. While data cleanup might sound like a big task, it’s easier than you think – and crucial for ensuring your system runs efficiently.
Power Up Your Library with These 6 Tools: The Ultimate AI Toolkit for Librarians
The AI revolution isn’t just knocking on the library door—it’s already browsing the shelves! More and more, librarians are uncovering cutting-edge ways to harness AI’s transformative power. From managing vast information resources to assisting patrons with precision, AI tools are redefining library operations. Ready to level up your library’s game? Let’s explore some of the game-changing AI tools we’ve found that every forward-thinking librarian should have in their toolkit.
5 Things You Didn’t Know Your Library System Could Do
Integrated Library Systems (ILS) have come a long way and our ILS, Liberty, is at the forefront of this evolution. Over the years, Liberty has introduced many innovative features designed to make managing your library’s resources easier and more efficient.
5 Essential Strategies to Fortify Your Data Security – Insights From Softlink Information Centers
During a time when digital threats loom larger than ever, securing sensitive information has become paramount for organizations across the globe. Recent high-profile data breaches have only highlighted the urgency of this mission, prompting a surge in searches for robust data security solutions.
Revolutionizing Law Libraries – Essential Features of Library Management Tools
In the ever-evolving landscape of legal libraries, the integration of advanced library management software is emerging as a crucial element in modernizing these knowledge hubs. With legal professionals grappling with increasingly complex research demands, selecting the right Integrated Library System (ILS) is becoming essential. This blog explores seven key features of an ideal law library management system.
Discovering Your Ideal ILMS: Key Factors to Consider
In today’s digital age, libraries are constantly looking for ways to enhance their efficiency and productivity. One solution that is a proven winner is the adoption of an Integrated Library Management System (ILMS).
Scanning for Success: How Using QR Codes Can Transform your Library
Are you ready to bring your library to the next level? Look no further than QR codes! As we embrace the digital age, libraries are constantly exploring innovative ways to showcase their services and collections to patrons. These nifty little squares can instantly connect patrons to a wealth of information about the library or knowledge center, events, collections, and so much more – all with a simple scan from their smartphone.
Lift Your Library to New Heights: 5 Reasons to Use Library Management Systems
Library Management System (LMS) software is an effective solution to help companies manage their corporate content with ease, granting access to a diverse collection of research material, eBooks, manuals, journals, documents, and books. But why should businesses purchase LMS software? This blog will provide you with five great reasons why an LMS can be beneficial for organizations of any size!
Liberty’s Dashboard: Uncovering Hidden Insights in Your Library
We’re thrilled to present the Liberty v5 Build 8.056 release. With this release, users can take advantage of a range of new features and enhancements, including the highly anticipated Dashboard View!
5 Things You Didn’t Know Your Library System Could Do
Integrated Library Systems (ILS) have come a long way and our ILS, Liberty, is at the forefront of this evolution. Over the years, Liberty has introduced many innovative features designed to make managing your library’s resources easier and more efficient. Here are five interesting capabilities of Liberty that you might not be aware of:
Enhance Your Catalog Homepage in Just 10 Minutes!
If your library doesn’t have a brand yet, it’s time to think about what would make the space recognizable. Can users and non-users alike easily recognize your homepage? If not, then there is room for improvement!
Queensland Museum Chooses Softlink IC’s Liberty
The Queensland Museum recently chose Softlink Information Centres’ (Softlink IC) Liberty as their integrated library software. Liberty offers a variety of features to the museum library such as a discovery and federated search, mobile app, multi-factor authentication and the capability to perform OCR on PDF files. This certainly ticked all the boxes for the museum library’s needs!
Exploring the World of Legal Librarians
In our earlier blog, we explored the world of parliamentary librarians and looked at a few of the essential soft skills for your overall success as a librarian. In summary, librarians should have research, communication, organizational and interpersonal skills to effectively assist borrowers or users.
Exploring the World of Parliamentary Librarians
Libraries are some of the most exciting places to work, and as a librarian, you get to use a variety of skills every day. In this blog series, we’ll look at the types of skills and knowledge necessary for working in a library, knowledge or resource center. And we’ll showcase some specific sectors where you’re bound to find a librarian! We’ll start off with the work librarians do in a parliamentary setting. So, if you’ve ever wondered about working in a library, keep reading to learn more about the skills you’ll need to succeed!
Who Has the Best Library Homepage? Here Are Our Top Picks!
This is a blog with a twist. We know Liberty Digital is packed full of fantastic features and functionality. One of its best features is the flexible and customizable homepage which means you can create a homepage or OPAC (online public access catalog) as unique as your organization.
Waikato Regional Council Case Study
Our wonderful Liberty customers from Waikato Regional Council (WRC) started a revolution with their move to Liberty v5! As long-standing users of Liberty (since 2005), 2020 was the year for a big change. An overview of their case study is the focus of this blog, and the full case study will be published soon.
How to Increase Your Library Clicks! Read Our 5 Top Tips!
Libraries are literally knowledge centers that serve corporations, specialized research disciplines, academia, and members of the public. But how do you let people know what you’ve got? And how can they get to it?
Fill Your Library with Digital Content!
It’s no secret libraries are evolving, the 21st century is all about digital content in your catalog! Increasingly, libraries are focused on managing digital information. Not only is data increasingly being produced in digital format, more and more people expect access to information anywhere, anytime. Softlink IC’s Liberty Digital can bring your newly digitized content and other electronic files to life for your users with an easy to navigate homepage you can get to anytime, anywhere.
4 Tips for Setting Up Your Library Blog
Have you been trying to find ways to promote your library other than through newsletters, mailouts, and reminder notices? Have you thought about blogs? Blogging is a way to promote your library and its services or distribute news that may be of interest to library users. Time dedicated to blogging can vary depending on how in-depth or short and newsy you want your blogs (articles) to be.
The House of Commons Library Chooses Softlink IC’s illumin
Softlink Information Centres (Softlink IC) is pleased to announce the House of Commons Library recently selected illumin as their customer requests and enquiries management system.
Secrets & Keyboard Shortcuts …Are You Paying Attention?
If you’re baking, using shortcuts might not always result in a perfect cake.
But, for busy library staff, an integrated library management system (ILMS) with lots of keyboard shortcuts is the way to get the results you want quickly. They make navigating to different screens and functions very efficient. Did you know your Liberty ILMS provides lots of shortcuts?
Tips and Treats – Craft a Carousel
Last, but by no means least, we come to the fourth and final blog in our Tips and Treats series. In this series, we’ve looked at changes you may have been meaning to do for a while, followed by a holiday treat. The holiday period, when many of your users are on a short break, is a great time just do them!
Tips and Tricks – A Vibrant Video
The holiday season only comes once a year. As we mentioned in our earlier blogs in this series, it can also be a great time, while many of your users are on a short break, to tackle some of the changes you’ve been meaning to do for a while.
Offering Digital Resources in Your Library
Librarians understand digital resource collections are an increasingly important way to increase their reach and value to their library users. But what do librarians need to consider and how do they go about providing digital resources? Softlink IC gives librarians a brief overview of how to ensure their library embraces the digital library resources revolution.
Holiday Tips and Treats – Simplify Your Search Box
The holiday season comes but once a year and for our Liberty users, there’s all those end-of-year tasks to complete. But while many of your users are on a short break, it can be a great time to tackle some of the changes you may have been thinking about for a while.
Legal Librarians Love Current Awareness
Legal librarians manage a diverse set of information requirements from a diverse range of staff. It’s why they love an efficient and effective way to automatically inform their firm’s staff of the latest information of interest. A current awareness service (CAS) is necessary tool in their kit of user focused services.
3 Ways to Make New Employees Love Your Library
Your integrated library management system (ILMS) fits everyone’s needs like a glove. You’ve ensured access to the library’s dynamic homepage is easy and honed your outreach processes. As a result, the organization’s existing staff recognize the library as the invaluable asset it is and are already love and support the library.
Reference Interviews – Time and Cost Expensive or Not?
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.
How to Promote Your Library to Your Target Audience
Think of the major brands that are recognizable by their logo, their color scheme, the product they sell, and the message they deliver. Then think about whether your library is recognizable to your users and non-users in the same way. If not, you need to consider how you “brand” your library.
How to Source eBooks for Your Library
Are you wanting to increase your library’s eBook offerings? You’re not alone. Libraries are increasingly offering digital as well as hard copy resources. EBooks are just one of a wide variety of eresources that are an increasingly common offering in all types of libraries, from specials to public. But where can librarians, who want to provide more eBooks to their users, buy them?
Using RSS Feeds to Boost Your Digital Resource Offerings
Librarians love finding ways to increase information offerings to their users. There is so much content on the internet that is regularly created, posted, and broadcast, on a regular and semi-regular basis. There is much of that content, librarians would love to add to their catalog.
Magisterial Services Library Goes Live With Liberty
In late April, Papua New Guinea’s Magisterial Services Library installed Liberty to meet their need for a fully web-based integrated library management system (ILMS). Last week they completed training and are looking forward to working smarter with Liberty. Softlink IC is delighted to welcome them and we look forward to a long and successful partnership.
I Never Knew I Could Do That!
The Liberty library management system is feature and functionality packed. So much so that many of these features can slip your memory! So we thought a few tips and reminders of a selection of time saving and effective functionality might be useful!
Softlink IC Welcomes the Queensland Parliamentary Library
Softlink Information Centres is delighted the Queensland Parliamentary Library (QPL) selected Liberty as their new library management system and illumin as their research management system.
Top 3 Tools Libraries Use for Patrons with Visual Impairment
Whether your library uses Liberty or illumin, you may have one or more users with some degree of visual impairment.
For Librarians, Sharing Knowledge is Sharing Power
It’s hard to imagine a time when most of us could not, relatively easily, access information. There was a time, when all the general population knew only what was told to them by those in positions of power. For those in power, controlling information, and therefore knowledge, was what kept them in their position. Fortunately, for many of us, times have changed!
Discovering Your Ideal ILMS: Key Factors to Consider
In today’s digital age, libraries are constantly looking for ways to enhance their efficiency and productivity. One solution that is a proven winner is the adoption of an Integrated Library Management System (ILMS). However, choosing the right ILMS can be a daunting task. In this blog, we will explore the key factors to consider when discovering your ideal ILMS.
6 Reasons Our Cloud-based Library Management System is the One
Let’s get down to the nitty gritty! There are library management systems (LMSs) and then there’s our Liberty cloud-based library management system. And, by the way, it’s been fully cloud-based for eons. Every LMS does the basics. Softlink IC’s Liberty takes those basics to a whole new level. Then there’s the ‘love to have’ features, many that have come standard for years. Bit of a trailblazer really.
Central Land Council Goes Live with Liberty v5 and Orbit, Library Management System!
On December 2nd, 2020 the Alice Springs based Central Land Council (CLC), went live with Softlink IC’s Liberty v5. The event was promoted as the exciting result of a long journey.
4 Benefits of a Corporate Digital Library
Digital libraries in organizations of all kinds have been critical to the development of an even more valuable workforce. The advantages to corporations results in the increased communication skills, brain agility, innovative thinking and wellbeing of their staff.
Are You Getting Real Value from Your Library Home Page?
Are you taking the fullest advantage of your Liberty library management system (LMS) Home page? We know investing in library software to manage and promote your collection and services is significant, so getting real value is crucial!
5 Ways Our Customers Get Their Organization Involved With Liberty
Once Softlink IC’s customers decided it was well and truly time to implement Liberty as their new library management system (LMS) they identified 5 major tasks to ensure their users’ support. Picking their new system was the result of a lot of time, energy, and preparation so buy-in from everyone in the organization, not just the library staff, was crucial.
10 Advantages of Softlink’s Cloud Hosting for Your Liberty & illumin Systems
We at Softlink IC believe hosting your Liberty or illumin system with us is a hassle-free, cost-effective option. To convince you, we list 10 advantages, grouped into three categories that highlight the benefits of hosting your cloud-based library management and research management systems with us.
4 Important Email Notifications You Should be Sending Your Library Users
Regular contact with your library and information center users is vital. This means keeping them informed of research services, reminding them about their loaned items, or planned events. It reinforces your value to them. Making sure you keep in contact via email is the ideal way to do that. If you use our Liberty Library Management System, it’s a breeze.
So How’s Your Current Library Reporting Tool Working For You?
Statistics are important! For knowledge specialists, generating your resource center’s vital statistical data can be very time-consuming when you don’t have the right library reporting tool. An Excel spreadsheet has many uses, but recording statistics in a spreadsheet is not an efficient and cost-effective way to spend your valuable time.
Legal Librarians – Always a Law Firm’s Valued Asset!
Technology has and continues to impact all business sectors. It is presenting challenges within the legal industry. Has technology provided a boon for legal library staff in strengthening their position as a valuable asset within their firms? Softlink believes so.
3 Reasons to Embed Librarians in Clinical Teams
When creating clinical teams, including medical and paramedical staff in these teams is an obvious step. What may not seem quite so obvious is including a librarian. We often think of librarians as… well… stuck in libraries. But, with advanced mobile connectivity, librarians literally carry their library with them. Embedding a librarian into a clinical team provides a huge advantage. Librarians ensure relevant information for rounds is available, and can access research and information efficiently. That is the skill set they bring to a clinical team.
Library Software – Making Libraries Accessible to Everyone
Just as we have the right to freedom of action and expression, we should have the right to gain knowledge. This means making knowledge accessible to everyone. Our levels of physical or learning ability, should not bar us from accessing knowledge.
Tips to Succeed as a Solo Librarian – Part 2
Some further tips for you as a solo librarian! You will be fulfilling many functions — tasks that in a much larger library would be undertaken by different departments. There is quite a bit on your plate; on top of that, you are dealing face to face with members of the public and fielding requests, overseeing circulation of resources, and developing library reference collections.
How live chat can benefit librarians!
Providing real-time support is an important part of customer service for all companies. The emergence of the live chat feature by library software vendors is making customer support even more effective. It provides their customers with the advantage of access to real-time support without having to wait on the phone, or wait for an email reply to a query.
How Software Can Help Support the Changing Role of Academic Librarians
Like many industries, new technologies have resulted in the implementation of significant change. The academic library is no exception. The academic library is no exception. Academic librarians are re-thinking their management of collection, curation, and acquisitions. As a result, changes to the librarian’s role are dramatic.
Tips to succeed as a Solo Librarian
Being a solo librarian can be difficult. Even experienced librarians find it very challenging to run and manage libraries all by themselves. Those who take on the role require not only the willingness but an understanding of the diverse skills that they will need to acquire to successfully manage the role. After all, many career opportunities nowadays require solo librarians.
Mobile Apps in the Law Library
Released as Library Link in 2013, Softlink’s enhanced mobile app for libraries has been renamed Liberty Link, and we are excited to be bringing it you for ALLA 2018!
Plan Before You Scan: Considerations for launching a digital archive project
The American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR)’s new photo archive project aims to bring a collection of 30,000 photos documenting the archaeological and cultural heritage of the Middle East to the public eye. But where do you even begin to digitize 30,000 slides, negatives, and prints?
ACOR is one of the many diverse libraries who use Softlink’s Liberty library management system. In 2016 they were awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Education through the competitive American Overseas Research Centers grant program which will support the ACOR Library Photographic Archive. As a guest blogger for Softlink, Corrie Commisso, Senior Archival Consultant for ACOR, shares her experiences with launching the digital archive project.