HERITAGE - LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Heritage Cirqa* represents the next generation of the Heritage library software and is due for release in autumn 2011.

This version of the software is designed to work in conjunction with an IIS Heritage service so that it can be accessed remotely from anywhere over the internet. It is based on standard Windows Internet technologies yet is still easily maintainable by library staff. 

There is no need for any additional library staff training for those already familiar to Heritage as both the functionality and user interface will remain the same. Existing users can upgrade to it when they are ready and all new customers will receive it as a matter of course. Further information will be provided on our website as it becomes available.

You can find out more on how the name came about by reading "What's in a name: Cirqa or Circa".

Summary of Heritage Cirqa features and purpose

• There will be no cost for the upgrade for users already running Heritage Online.
• It represents a significant change in the internal aspects of the application which will enable distributed use of Heritage over the internet.
• Any Windows workstation that has a good internet connection will be capable of running all aspects of Heritage over the internet (if the Cirqa installation has been setup to run this way).
• These internals of Heritage will use established Windows technologies (.NET, IIS) to communicate via http/https.
• There will be a minimum of changes to the functionality and user-interface of Heritage. This will minimise the learning process involved with implementing the upgrade.
• Brand-new to the upgrade will be a highly sophisticated job scheduler. One use for this will be the running of reports as a background process, thus freeing up your local copy of Heritage for other tasks. More information about the advantages of Heritage reporting is available.
• Reports and batch processes will run faster since all the data retrieval and processing will happen on the server (rather than being subject to the client-server network bandwidth restrictions).
• Cirqa will at last enable us to provide a full hosting service to Heritage customers of any size. If you might be interested in us hosting all of Heritage for you please contact us for further details and an estimate of the likely costs.
• The new model will also facilitate our new 'eLibrarian' service, details of which can be found on our support website.

*formerly known as Heritage Anywhere, pronounced "circa"