Last month our Librarian Musarrat Begum headed to Wellington to find out the latest software improvements for our members using our online library resource.
The two-day annual meeting was held at the National Library of New Zealand, and was facilitated by Softlink Information Centres – providers of library, knowledge and research management solutions.
Our online library was launched late 2018. Providing a modern, cloud-based library management system for our members to access our library catalogue.
Up until that time, tapping into our resources had been a relatively manual process, and was reliant on users having knowledge that we had the resource on hand or contacting us directly to search our database on their behalf.
Now, with our new digital capability – users are able to search our 30,000 technical information resources directly.
Future developments rolling out over the coming months
Over 30 libraries across New Zealand use the same library software as HERA – providing a rich source of data that our members can connect in to.
In the coming months, this will become much easier to access, with the introduction of a downloadable mobile app – Liberty Link.
While logged in, borrowers will be able to create their own ‘interests list’ via a ‘My portal interests’ option in the search interface. A housekeeping process then actively identifying applicable new resources and prompting email notifications to users when introduced to the database. An alert will also be sent to their app’s message portal.
A great feature relevant to our members, will be the ‘Chat with a librarian’, and ‘Library H3LP’ option. Making it easier for users to connect with a real person for more specific queries, as well as common trouble shooting assistance.
Our Librarian Musarrat saying: “This event was a fantastic opportunity to meet and discuss mutual issues experienced across resource libraries in Aotearoa, and to brainstorm how we could overcome them.”
“As a result, I’m proud to announce that a new ‘resource copyright module’ has been developed upon our request so that borrowers are clearly made aware of applicable copyright clauses to the resource they’re accessing before being permitted to view and download the files or attachment. This protects not only the user from unintentional breaches, but also the integrity of the resource itself.”
“Moving forward, we’ll also see a number of improvements in the back end of the database to improve the management of borrower records, homepage layout and the generation of statistics and reports as well,” she said.
Next steps
We’d like to strongly encourage our member’s who’d like to tap into our resources, to download the mobile app Liberty Link, so that you can search, reserve and borrow resources from your phone.
To set up, follow these steps:
- Download the Liberty Link app from Apple or Android stores
- Open Liberty Link and find the “Setup” button located along the bottom of the screen
- Once on the setup screen, tap the “Scan Setup Code” button
- Scan the QR barcode image viewable here while logged in
- Enter your password if required then tap Save
And, if you find yourself in Wellington – The National Library of New Zealand has several amazing exhibitions worth viewing:
- He Tohu – signatures that shaped New Zealand.
- Bird Fancy – showcases the work of four artists who took birds as their subjects.
- The 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition – a statue of Kate Sheppard made from 351 laser-cut clear, glass -edge acrylic sheets created by Hamish Fraser using the ‘Zbrush’ application.
