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17 March 2004
Review by Kylie Jarrett
On Wednesday 24th March I went along to SALIN’s Technology Trends:
in the palm of your hand in public libraries seminar, held at CPA
house in the city. First up we had Mark van der Pennen, the project
manager of Adelaide City Council Library and Community Centres,
giving a talk about the RFID technology at the library. He started
off by talking about the structure of the project, which has seen
the shift from the old Kintore Avenue library to the Libraries and
Community Centres with themed public library sites.
To take on the RFID (radio frequency identification) technology was
to be out-there and innovate, ‘boldly going where no one’s gone
before’ with self-checkout and automatic book chute facilities. It
is the second library in Australia to adopt the technology, with
Baulkham Hills being the first. Unfortunately Adelaide had to take a
step back on the book chute RFID terminals because they weren’t
checking items in consistently enough and causing an inconvenience
to customers, such as when the antenna wasn’t reading the library
item in order for the chute to open. The RFID book drop was in fact
a world first, and they may return to it in the future. However, the
project was much more about taking great steps forward, and the
self-checkout stations have been well received by the library
customers. Mark went on to talk about the stages of hiring young
people to place all the tags in the library collection, and the
training of staff in the new technologies before the mid-winter
opening last year.
How does the tag in the library item work? It is much like
information stored on a barcode, but instead of wanding the barcode,
the antenna built into the radio frequency pad reads the title
written onto the tag, which also has an antenna part, to check in or
check out the item. The look of the software is a consistent and
user friendly GUI for both customers and staff. Instead of magnetic
strips in items, the RFID tag also disarms or arms the item so as to
set off the alarm at the gates.
Mark referred to the leading edge technology and the whole project
of the new libraries and community centres as ‘bleeding edge’ also,
with its next generation hardware teething problems, but that
overall the project has been successful. This has been due to good
planning, and great support from Council and staff members. It is
true to say that the library service, with its new technology and
the modern look of the sites, is being leading edge and interesting,
and out-there!
The next speaker of the evening was Dee O'Loughlin from Adelaide
Hills Council Library Service. This library has a theme and
accompanying brochure called 'Busy people @ the library', where you
can 'Get connected @ your library' through the CAPSAT technology on
their Hills mobile library, and the increasingly popular SMS text
messaging. These offer alternatives to the physical library.
The Capsat is a semi-spherical satellite unit that sits on a
hydraulic mechanism on the mobile library's roof. It is the solution
to the library's concerns about the hills and its cut-out spots for
mobile phones, and it provides online services for the staff and
customers who use it. The Capsat was designed for ships at sea, and
works very well apart from on days of heavy rain and locations with
too many overhanging trees. The technology enables the Internet for
staff and patron use, and access to the VPN for such staff
applications as Spydus, the library management software. They also
have real time access to the library catalogue and council services
including rate paying. Access on Spydus can be slow sometimes and
there is a slight limit on the amount of downloading that can take
place, but the Capsat unit is multidirectional, staff have
flexibility with where they can park the mobile and Internet access
is fast.
The 'Busy people @ the library' initiative recognises that a lot of
Adelaide Hills people are busy and commute to and from the city. So
there are electronic options available to them to make life easy,
with access to the online catalogue where people can build up a
profile of their favourite topics and authors, for starters. People
can receive hold and overdue notifications, and the newsletter if
they wish, via email. The SMS text messaging service offered is
going well. Dee explained that the Telstra messaging is a
value-added service but Adelaide Hills Council pays for it as a
gesture of goodwill. Only hold notifications are sent at the moment,
besides, who would want bad news from the library about overdue
items sent to their mobile phone? This works really well for people
on their way home from work, if they want to call into the library
to pick up their hold before they get home. Any failed SMS messages
bounce back for the library staff to action.
Now when staff register new members, they can ask if they wish to
have the option of receiving text messages, and people are
responding well to the range of options available to them. Here is a
good example of the 'clicks and mortar' idea, where library users
can choose options ranging from the physical and face-to-face
aspects of the service, through to those which represent all that
snazzy leading-edge technology we've been talking about.
The third person to speak to us was Ian Hildebrand from the Mount
Barker Community Library. He really presented us with some food for
thought about virtual libraries. He opened with asking are they
really a possibility? No. A feasibility study was carried out on
Hindmarsh library and the emerging user group in our society,
related to WebPACs, portals such as the South Australian libraries
web site, and e-books. He suggested that it isn’t really clear what
a virtual library is anyway, yet in contrast to online environments,
‘physical libraries are vibrant, dynamic and social’, he said. In
determining if the proposed electronic information resource centre
was sustainable for Hindmarsh in Charles Sturt, they looked at
downloadable e-book stations and applications such as Dreamweaver
and sound editing software. This would have been coupled with up
skilling the staff and offering training sessions for the patrons.
The location would have also been a coordination point for a book
delivery service, because of course, people like books.
However, the electronic information resource centre did not go
ahead. One reason why was that library users expect a library to
have shelves full of books, and that is how they want them to be.
Ian went on from here to talk about how e-books haven’t really taken
off in Australia, and that libraries tend not to have specialist
‘cybrarians’ on their teams. IT departments of an organisation are
available instead, and would know their Java application well, for
example. He highlighted some characteristics of the emerging user,
namely the person in their early twenties who had access to the web
throughout their high school years and is a prolific text messager.
Tech savvy, but not necessarily information literate, which is where
library staff can come in to assist. Ian also mentioned busy people
who are taking advantage of technologies that are convenient, such
as DVD rentals and banking online. His example was amusing that
people like netbanking because banks aren’t much fun, and sure
enough people like using physical libraries, so this should continue
to happen despite online convenience.
This is the point where Ian’s solution to the virtual public
libraries question was put forward. To merge online and physical
services, and through PLAIN would be great. A next generation
interface of PLAIN’s database so that members of the public can
reserve items over the Internet, and have them delivered to their
door for a small fee, just like the DVD rental people who are
currently doing it. Users could subscribe to it and build up a wish
list of favourite items. You can see what I mean that it is food for
thought, what do you think?
Ian concluded his talk by mentioning again the fact of IT staff
dominance over applications in libraries, and how it will continue.
But the focus he is excited about is that libraries can enhance
their services and increase access by offering different ways of
getting messages to busy customers. He is talking about the hybrid
of the traditional staff support and a good use of the web, which I
think is evolving well right now.
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