HB Williams

At a Glance

I really liked the Liberty interface and its cataloguing features.

Melbourne Cricket Club Librarian, David Studham

At a Glance

H.B. Williams Memorial Library, Library Manager Pene Walsh said it is a vibrant community library with a rich history.

‘Our vision is to promote community connection and equal access to information, knowledge and our stories for everybody in the district.’

With this vision in mind, it was important that the H.B. Williams Memorial Library have a library management system that could meet the growing digital needs of an urban/rural community spread out over a large area and be able to improve service offering and deliver genuine value for all residents no matter where they live.

Liberty v5 was selected to ensure the library meets the Gisborne and East Coast district’s needs both now and in the future.

‘It is a very busy library. We need a robust, future focussed system to support our services to the community and vision for the future,’ Pene said.

Promoting community use

The team at H.B. Williams Memorial Library is enjoying the many ways Liberty v5 assists them to increase community use and make it easier for their patrons to get the most from their library resources.
Customer Services Librarian, Kerry Higgins, said patrons love that they can easily check their own reading history, the Google previews, and recommended reads.

“We are finding it very intuitive. All of the eBooks are synced into the catalogue which makes it easier to show eBooks off to patrons and also to promote them via social media.”

The team believe that Liberty v5’s circulation desk makes it easy to provide great service as well.

‘The main circulation screen is fabulous. It’s easy to access information pertinent to patrons, like how far down they are on a reserve list,’ Kerry said.

Liberty’s range of search functionalities, caters to different user requirements and search skills within the community.

Reference Services librarian Adrienne Simpson said that search features like predictive text save everybody time.

‘We don’t get the queries now about items that “aren’t in the catalogue”, due to mis-spelling or not quite having the title or author correct,’ she said.

The team at H.B. Williams Memorial Library are finding the basic search function very user friendly for patrons with basic computer knowledge but are also enjoying providing more advanced functionality to advanced users.
Patrons who wish to use Federated Search now have a much more streamlined experience because online resources can be embedded into the catalogue.

Servicing the community

With Liberty v5, the team at H.B. Williams Memorial Library are able to provide an even more comprehensive service to their community.

Customer Services Librarian Raschel Ease-Danes said the ability for patrons to access account information on the self-issue machines is fantastic both for the borrowers and for the library.

“Before we implemented Liberty v5, it was easy for regular self-issuers to lose track of their rental charges, reservations and fees, now they can see straight away.”

Being able to set up email alert messages to borrowers has had a positive impact on the library and the community as well.

‘The patrons appreciate receiving the alert messages, because it stops their books becoming more overdue, ’ Raschel said.

Younger members of the community have the opportunity to use the junior-specific interface, Orbit.

The Orbit interface provides simple search options and enables children to personalise their library search page by choosing their own background, avatar or colour scheme.

‘It’s easier for young library users to use and the personalisation aspect makes it more engaging and fun for them,’ said Pene Walsh, Library Manager.

Streamlining staff activities and reducing administrative workload

Liberty v5 has provided H.B. Williams Memorial Library with many opportunities to streamline their workflow practices and save time on administrative tasks.

Day to day processes have been sped up with easy to use functionality that meets the needs of the library.

Client Services Librarian, Shar Wharehinga said that Liberty v5 simplifies administration processes, for example making it easy to sign families up as new members.

‘Information can be shared so we only have to enter these details once. This is great when signing up a large family as new members,’ she said.

Library Manager Pene Walsh said Liberty v5 has been set up as a cloud hosted system to ensure maximum results with minimal workload.

“Our system is cloud hosted, which enables direct response times from Softlink and provides cost savings to Gisborne District Council through reduced need for inhouse IT resources and reduced risk of breakdown of connection with local server.”

The H.B. Williams Memorial Library offers a number of services including children’s library programmes and school visits, Homebound client services, Interlibrary loans, reference queries, Wifi and Internet access.

Pene said that Version 5 enables staff to spend more time working with people and not processes.