As is the custom, the Wellington Liberty User Group Conference was preceded by a site visit. This year, Ailsa Parker, Librarian at the Ministry of Environment Library in Wellington was our generous host.

All those who could take advantage of the offer agreed it was a great way to spend an hour or so the afternoon before the conference day.

Softlink IC’s General Manager John Crook and Senior Developer Emily Schultz joined six visiting librarians.

Many of us were very interested to see how a sole-charge government library operates. The challenges faced by solo librarians are significant. How they manage can give everyone a clearer picture of how they prioritise and maximise service provision under a different kind of pressure!

Ailsa enjoyed hosting the group at her library and was happy that it went so well. Everyone took the opportunity to discuss the ways they approached and managed essential tasks using Liberty.

She commented, “There was a good mixture of libraries and librarians represented. We could compare how our libraries handled serials, inter-loans, acquisitions, and reference and research.”

The ability to be flexible in approaches and functions when using Liberty is advantageous and revealing judging by the discussions. Better still, it gave Emily and John, in particular, some valuable insights into what will ensure the system continues to deliver cutting edge functionality.

Softlink Information Centres and those who visited the Ministry of Environment Library would like to take this opportunity thank Ailsa for the chance to visit the Ministry of Environment Library.