HERITAGE - LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Heritage Connect

Libraries are not islands and the ability to connect to other departments is increasingly important. For example, personal data held in Management Information Systems is almost certainly required in the Library System too. Sharing data around the organisation avoids duplication of effort and ensures a greater consistency of data quality.

Heritage Connect is the collective name for a range of modules designed to take external sources of data and integrate them into the library requirement. There are three distinct categorisations within Heritage Connect and these are:

• Heritage Connect Live: 'real-time' data access
• Heritage Connect Import: an extensive library of data conversion template modules
• Heritage Connect ODBC: extract data from Heritage to external applications, such as Crystal Reports

Add the following document to your basket if you would like to find out more about Heritage Connect.

Heritage Connect - an Introduction

Heritage Connect Live

Offers a real-time update link between the Management Information System in your institution and your Heritage reader records. Call up the details of a borrower in Heritage and it will immediately update the record from your central database. Your HR, or Student Records Office take care of the maintenance and you get on with the business of running your library.

Heritage Connect Live uses ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) to link to other databases. This interface is available on nearly all database systems including those based on SQL such as SQL Server, Oracle, My SQL and SQL Anywhere.

Heritage Connect Import

This facility is for users who require a transfer and conversion of data from an external source into Heritage, but not necessarily live and in 'real-time'. This would be useful, for example, where the Management Information System in an institution is off-limits for networking or security reasons and therefore precludes the use of Heritage Connect Live. This suite of modules includes GRIM (Generic Reader Import Module), a highly flexible facility which can be tailored to match the data format output from virtually any Management Information System. However the chances are that we have already created a data import module for the MIS your institution uses and so the donkey work may well have been done for you already.

Catalogue data can also be imported with one of the many catalogue data import modules we have created over the years. The most well known and used of these is Quickcat Online, but we also have conversion modules for data source suppliers including: Askews, Bertram Library Services, BNB, Books for Students, Dawsons, Endnote, Heath Books, Holt Jackson, Inmagic, Kent Books, Parkers, Somertons, TES Bookfind and Whitakers.

Heritage Connect ODBC

Heritage Connect ODBC uses the Open Database Connectivity format to link to other databases or to pass library management data out to products such as Crystal Reports. This interface is available on nearly all database systems including those based on SQL such as SQL Server, Oracle, My SQL and SQL Anywhere.