Colleges

Heritage College Case Study

The Heritage Library Management System has always been popular amongst educational establishments. A number of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges have used the system for over ten years. Since the release of the Windows version in 1997, Heritage has been the obvious choice for Colleges of Further and Higher Education throughout the UK.

Heritage offers all the features required by a busy college library – a clear, uncluttered user interface which can switch seamlessly between functions when there are large queues at the issue desk; overdues and current awareness information sent via email; customisable reports on all aspects of library use and the facility to catalogue electronic resources or incorporate the system into a Virtual Learning Environment.

Below are two case studies of Heritage at Hull and Reading colleges, but the FERL website also has a case study for Halton College of Further Education.

Hull College

The first of the featured libraries is Hull College. Located on three sites around Hull city centre with an additional site in Goole, all sites have their own library linked to a Heritage catalogue. They have a stock of over 70,000 items and subscribe to 185 journals.

Hull College LogoAngie Clark, installed Heritage at Hull College after Bookshelf was taken over by Specialist Computer Group in 1994, as she was forced to choose between Bookshelf, her system at that time, and Genesis, from Specialist Computer Group. Bookshelf, the predecessor to Heritage, was originally written by the same team that have continued to develop Heritage over the years.

Angie initially wrote a specification outlining all the features she wanted from a library management system, then sent it out to a number of prospective suppliers. She chose “all suppliers who fitted the specification in general after checking with VINE* at the Southbank University”. She then involved other senior members of staff in the procurement:

“Three suppliers were willing to tender and demonstrate their systems. I had the Head of Department, Head of IT, Head of Finance, Head of Academic department, Library staff and students attend presentations, got them to score them and after adding in technical weighting awarded by myself and the Head of IT, Heritage was the clear winner.”

In our experience, it is essential to involve colleagues in the initial stages of a purchase decision, so that the responsibility for the choice is shared and others feel like their opinions have been taken into consideration. Angie agrees:

“Without the backing of senior stakeholders it is foolish to make an investment of this size with proposed capital and oncosts involved.”

Following the demonstration stage, Angie requested an evaluation copy of Heritage for her staff to work with:

“At Hull College all my staff at the time looked at each system in rota. It took a lot of time but again staff support is another key implication in the successful implementation of new systems (Management of change principles).”

Hull College Park Street Angie and her staff were very impressed, not only with the functionality offered by Heritage but also with how it worked, and decided that it was the right solution for Hull College. They were also very happy with the level of service provided by IS Oxford, an opinion they still hold today. In addition Angie has been impressed that IS Oxford works alongside its existing customers to ensure that Heritage continues to meet their changing needs – others clearly agree, as over 90% of customers that have ever purchased Heritage still use the software to this day:

“IS Oxford staff have at all times been friendly, supportive and interested in issues I have. I blame myself for not always keeping up with some of the developments I am waiting for.”

Angie has since moved on from Hull College and is now the librarian at North & North East Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust. As soon as she moved to her new position she purchased Heritage to replace their existing system (for more details please see Heritage in Medical Libraries).

Hull College continue to use Heritage and are still very happy with the system. Emily Armstrong, the current librarian, is now looking at ways in which they can increase the level of service they offer, and therefore the library profile within the college using Heritage:

“Heritage helps us to run our library effectively by assisting us in managing our day-to-day routines. We hope to use it to extend our services to our customers in the near future by offering Heritage Online so they can search for resources from anywhere in the college.”

Emily is also very positive regarding her relationship with IS Oxford staff, describing them as “professional and effective”, particularly the support desk team, whom she has found to be “quick and helpful”. She has had no experience with the training team as yet, as “it has not been needed as Heritage is very easy to use”.

The Heritage Support Website has proved particularly useful to Hull College Queens GardensEmily; she describes it as her “first point of call before contacting support with a problem”. IS Oxford are constantly updating the website with helpsheets, frequently asked questions, upgrades and patches which can also be downloaded as required. A large support team including a technical author ensure that all Heritage documentation is up-to-date and available to all users via the website in future.

Heritage continues to be developed, extending its functionality whilst retaining its ease of use. Close contact with customers is vital to this process and IS Oxford welcome any suggestions made by customers regarding design or functionality improvements. Heritage development will always been customer-driven, as IS staff realise that this is what has made it the system it is today.

IS Oxford are confident that other college library managers will be as appreciative as Emily of the work put in to date:

“Having worked as an HE systems manager I am incredibly impressed by the reliability of Heritage and its easy-to-use interface”.

Hull College run Heritage on a Metaframe server with an unlimited user licence, the Heritage Online Server Module, the Fines Module and the Reader Import Module. They will be offering their catalogue via the Internet shortly. Their data was converted from Bookshelf by IS staff. Their MIS system is QLe and they operate a VLE using Tecknical’s Virtual Campus.

Reading College & School of Arts & Design

The second of the featured libraries is Reading College & School of Arts & Design, formed by the merger of Reading College of Arts and Technology, and the Berkshire College of Art and Design and now part of Thames Valley University. The College was founded in 1954 and comprises four Reading College Main BuildingFaculties: Education and Care (which includes EFL), Technology, Business and Service Industries, and the School of Arts & Design.

Located on two major campuses in Reading, both of which have a library, the college operates a union catalogue on Heritage. A wide variety of media are available in addition to the 70,000 volumes, including newspapers, journals, magazines, video and audio cassettes, slides and CD-ROMs.

Andy Turner, the College Librarian, began his search for a new library management system in the summer of 2000. The college had been using various versions of Calm since it was first automated in 1990 and Andy was increasingly unhappy with the performance of Calm 2000. So, rather than automatically upgrading to the latest version of Calm, he instead chose to consider purchasing a different system.

The Library & Information Show was his first port of call, where he visited various stands, had quick demonstrations of the products “to get an idea of whether I liked the look of them”, and ascertain “what was likely to be affordable (e.g. not TALIS which started at £50K!)”. This is where he first saw Heritage in action, although he had seen advertisements in the Library Association Record and had heard about the system from librarians at other colleges.

The next stage was to invite various suppliers in for demonstrations. Andy explains how he went about choosing the candidates:

“The latest CALM upgrade was the default option. Confidence in this was dented by comments on the user group email list, and poor support provided for the version we were currently using. Dented fatally when DS announced they were no longer marketing the product! We did look at AMLIB, their successor product, but were not particularly impressed.

I went to an all-day demo of newly launched Mikromarc, and was very impressed but had some reservations regarding the serials module, and the level of support if the company failed to establish a significant UK customer base. Did not actually pursue to get a full trial.”

Having seen Heritage at the Library + Information Show, Andy invited IS Oxford to visit and give a demonstration. He invited a number of his own library staff along to the presentation so that they could share in the decision-making process. This ensured that the replacement system would address the problems each member of the team encountered in their day to day work. He found IS personnel “professional, non-pushy and helpful”. Impressed with Heritage in the demonstration, he requested an evaluation copy to trial.

“We had trial software from Easter. This was invaluable – it gave us confidence that we could work with this system, and enabled us to prepare for the conversion of the data”

UsersHe involved his IT staff on the technical side and they tested the performance of the system across the college network. The tests went well, and Andy decided that Heritage would be the ideal solution for Reading College library. He approached other FE Colleges during this period for references, including:

“Telford College (who have a high reputation for their use of ILT in FE), Farnborough and Milton Keynes. The librarian at Farnborough was particularly complimentary”.

In May 2001 Andy submitted a budget bid for new library management system. As a major capital item, the purchase of any new system needed to be linked to their Business Plan.

“This fitted in reasonably well with our need to make any change of system out of term time in July – Aug, although it didn’t give much leeway for slow decision-making.”

Andy’s priorities when looking for a new system were as follows:

“System requirements

Efficient library management system allows:

A minimum of three quotations were required, “although we were not obliged to take the cheapest one as long as we could justify going for something more expensive”.

The following extract from his business plan outlines his reasons for choosing Heritage:

To ensure that the procurement went as smoothly and swiftly as possible, Andy decided to approach the decision-makers and persuade them of the benefits a new library management would bring. Andy explains:

“As the timescale was tight, I lobbied the Assistant Principal – Finance fairly vigorously to get an early decision. He questioned me on what was contained in the document I had produced, then passed it on to the Principal.

The Principal came to see me to question me for himself: his main concerns were that

The order was placed on 21st June, which was three weeks later than on my original draft timescale, but still gave us time to convert over the summer.”

Often, even with the best intentions, procurement project timescales will slip, but IS Oxford do their very best to ensure that prospective customers’ timescales can be accommodated. Andy outlines the difference between his procurement plan and the actual timetable of events below:

Proposed timescale:

Actual timescale:

There was a slight slippage in Andy’s case, but IS Oxford were flexible with data conversion work thus enabling staff still to have their training on their own converted data. This makes the training more realistic and therefore much more meaningful to library staff.

Learning resourcesReading College staff had three training days in IS Oxford’s training suite at their Oxford offices, two before they went live (one of which was on their own data) and the final one a few months later, in October, after they had been using Heritage for some time and more questions had arisen. They booked another refresher session for July 2002. Andy has found the training so far “all very useful”.

Andy also has praise for the standard of the data conversion work undertaken by IS:

“I spent a lot of time on this, and was very much helped by the detailed advice and breakdown of data supplied by IS Oxford. There were some problems with the trial data provided, but these were all sorted out for the final conversion.

I would recommend anyone changing to Heritage to spend as much time as it takes to get the data conversion right – much easier I’m sure than correcting mistakes after the event.”

As in the case of Emily at Hull College, Andy has used the Support website for downloading helpsheets and has found Marvin, the Heritage list server, very useful for picking up tips from other Heritage users. He hasn’t made many calls to the support desk since just after installing the system when library staff “screwed up” (Andy’s words!) their first import of student data. On the occasions he has called he is happy that, even when he can’t get an answer immediately, he can be confident “that we will get an email or phone call back within 24 hours”.

Heritage has already made a big difference to the way in which Andy and his staff work and the level of service that they can offer to library users:

“[Heritage has] helped us to improve efficiency of operations e.g. overdue reminders now go out on time; we are using Serials Management for the first time and finally ditching the paper system; it is easier to generate budget information; relocating stock is much easier than in the past. We are constantly discovering little tricks that help us to do things better. Also – a basic point – we don’t have the hassles we used to have just issuing and returning books (e.g. slow response, error messages) so the image of library service is improved.

“Heritage Online will help us to deliver good induction to new students, and encourage users to actually use the catalogue before asking staff. Again this enhances our image.

“I’m glad we changed to Heritage!”

Andy is confident that he has made the right choice. Staff at IS Oxford take great pride in both Heritage and the quality of service that they provide to customers and endorsements such as Andy’s are indications that they are close to reaching the high standards they set themselves.

 

Unfortunately, in June 2005 Reading College had to stop using Heritage as they were subsumed by Thames Valley University.and have moved to their system. This case study has been left on the website here until we publish a replacment.

For details of other college libraries that use Heritage please contact Emma Duffield on (01865) 481010 or email

*VINE is the information and library services journal published quarterly by South Bank University.