As part of our Strategy to develop “The Right Information Technology Tools”, and led by Suliang Feng, our Manager of Virtual Services, we are making great progress in improving and expanding the MPL Virtual Branch.
What is the Virtual Branch?
Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year, the Virtual Branch is the library branch that never closes.
Studies show that Canadians average 17 hours per week online. Through our Virtual Branch, we can meet our customers where they are spending so much of their time, on the Internet.
The Virtual Branch starts with our website – our homepage is the front door and hallway of our Virtual Branch, leading our customers into what will become a whole series of virtual spaces or rooms where customers can access our collections and services.
NEW & FORTHCOMING:
Federated Search Launched
Federated Search is the door that opens onto our Virtual Branch’s vast room of information databases. Through our new product “Webfeat”, customers can now search almost all our databases with one easy keyword search – a huge step forward in making it easy for customers to access our virtual information sources. Suliang and the Virtual Branch Team continue to work on improving and optimizing the look and functionality of Federated Search.
Email Notification – Coming Soon
One aspect of our Virtual Branch is how we communicate with customers about their accounts. Soon customers will have a new option – to receive notifications regarding holds or overdues by email, rather than by a phonecall or a mailed notice. This new service is being tested now. When we are ready to go live, talking points will be provided so that you can guide customers to this new service.
Overdrive – Coming Soon
Now being tested, Overdrive will provide our customers with virtual access to downloadable digital audiobooks. From home, work, or wherever they are, customers will be able to visit the audiobook collections room of our Virtual Branch to browse our digital audiobook collection and download (“check out”) Overdrive audiobooks from the MPL Virtual Branch. The launch of Overdrive is scheduled for December 1st.
Symphony – our new ILS (Integrated Library System) – Migration Project in 2009
Our Integrated Library System (ILS) is the foundation that supports and manages all our business and technical operations – circulation, acquisitions, cataloguing, and our OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog). In 2009, we will migrate from Horizon, our current ILS, onto the latest SirsiDynix ILS product – Symphony. Symphony will bring us many new benefits and new services, including printed hold slips and an RSS feeder module that will enable customers to automate and personalize the building of their reading lists. Suliang and the Virtual Branch Team will lead the migration process – working with SirsiDynix to plan the project, training, testing module by module, and making decisions about the look and feel of Symphony for MPL. This will be a huge project, lasting many months – you will be hearing much more about it.
Website Improvements
The Virtual Branch Team is still working on the selection of the best solution for our website development. There are many options to explore, including a SirsiDynix product called EPS, which can be installed only after we have fully migrated to Symphony. So as a short term solution, while we continue to evaluate the options for our ultimate website solution, we are planning a clean-up of the structure of our existing website. Our IT client advisor June Frywill be guiding us through this process.
No comments:
Post a Comment