Part of HERA’s role is to facilitate connection, collaboration and knowledge sharing for our NZ metals industry. And while we do this with vigour, we have to admit that access to such information hasn’t always been the easiest.
Well, brace yourself – as things are about to change! Because… our library has gone digital!
Why the change?
Our surveys continually tell us that our library resources are one of the key offerings our members value. Ranking as one of our most frequently used resource by both our welding fabrication and consulting engineering members.
But – did you know that we’ve got over 30,000 technical information resources available for our membership to borrow?
Of course you didn’t. You’d have to be psychic. That’s because up until now, tapping into our resources has been a relatively manual process. Reliant on one of three things:
- You having the knowledge that we have the resource on hand,
- You taking a punt and calling us to enquire if we might have resources for the area you’re interested in, or
- For it to be one of the 20 odd resources we actively promote.
Continuing our resource offerings like this wouldn’t have been smart. And certainly, wouldn’t have portrayed us as the catalyst for innovation we want to be for you. It was clearly time for us to step up! Earlier this year securing our new Librarian Mussarat Begum to drive this change.
Since then, we’ve been on a journey to digitise our services to not only arm our staff more effectively in the services they offer, but also our members too.
Digital proliferation
You’d have to be living under a rock not to notice that the world is going digital at an exponential pace. As users, we expect information to be easy to find and available at the click of a mouse. And this is exactly what our new online library system allows us to offer you.
It’s a powerful feature-rich tool that constantly evolves and upgrades. Giving users access to not only our information resources – but others both locally and abroad. It has also allowed us to convert all our resources into a large collection within a single accurate database for real-time access to information. Providing clear navigation, ease of use, and an efficient operating system.
This is a much more interactive service that will allow you to personalise your dashboard, set preferences and receive notifications when new resources of interest become available.
Having this understanding on hand will also ensure we’re able to respond promptly and thoroughly to your enquiries – particularly research ones.
“Liberty is an easy to use system, with clear navigation and reliability. I find it a great resource management solution which I’m sure our members will love,” Information Officer & Librarian Musarrat Begum.
Test drive our online library platform today!
Libraries like ours provide a unique and valuable service to industry and play an integral role in informing business and research outcomes.
That’s why we’re so excited to make our information experience for our members more interactive and easier to access so they can work smarter and more efficiently.
The best part – it’s ready for you to use today! You can go check it out and give it a test drive by heading here.
Next steps
Our digital library is still developing out, so at this stage not all of our resources are in digital format and will still come to you in hard copy form. Moving forward we plan to do future upgrades like electronic formats, custom access to meet different needs, and improved navigation – so stay tuned.
In the meantime, we’d love to get your feedback on your user experience so we can continue to improve. Perhaps there’s something we’ve missed or haven’t got quite right?
We’d also like to encourage you to suggest specific resources you think would be beneficial to our catalogue so we can expand our library’s value to you.
To do so, get in contact with our Librarian Musarrat Begum.
