Emeryville, CA. Innovative announced today that The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County (OH) has selected the Sierra Services Platform, the Encore discovery application, AirPAC mobile solution and more to help realize the aims of its current strategic plan. The products will support a large, 41-location system with significant performance demands, while providing a flexible platform for future technology integration.
Strategic Plan
The Library's new strategic plan, which began implementation in 2011, began with "idea workshops" that drew 200 staff members from across the library and continued with customer surveys. The resulting goals included achieving financial security, excelling in customer service, and providing a comprehensive collection of resources accessible in multiple formats. Library staff then looked at what technology would support these ambitions.
Says Executive Director Kim Fender: "We looked at the balance of our staff ideas and asked ourselves: 'What needs to happen to make this work?' Our answer was: 'The catalog, the catalog, the catalog.' Our library users said the same thing. For a system our size, finding the right titles on the first page is critical. Finding, not searching, is important!" To this end, the Library selected the Encore discovery application, which will offer its community RightResult relevance ranking that provides the best possible results spanning material types and locations.
Mobilizing the Library
The Library also selected the AirPAC mobile catalog to support outstanding customer service. Says Fender: "We are absolutely determined to make the library easy to use and mobile has to be a part of it. We see the future potential for text messaging and all kinds of SMS interactions with the library. We should be using the tools that businesses are using to engage their customers"
Library API Integration
The Library is also taking advantage of the Sierra platform's flexibility, by extending the use of their Hot Authors service, with a RESTful API interface. This functionality, which makes automatic notification to users about their favorite author, will integrate with Sierra.
Comprehensive Solution
Only Innovative could meet both the scale of the Library's needs and its strategic plan, by providing a comprehensive solution. In addition to Sierra, Encore, and AirPAC, the library has selected:
- Customer Service
- My Sierra public catalog
- My Sierra patron empowerment suite
- Ecommerce for integrated fine payment
- RSS Feedbuilder to publish timely RSS feeds of new titles
- Online Registration for library card sign-up
- Staff Efficiency
- Sierra's elegant, roles-based staff functionality
- Sierra Dashboard for simple staff workflow
- Circa wireless inventory to make physical collection management faster
- Floating Collections to reduce in-transit workload and cost
Scale Matters
The Sierra platform will provide the scale of service which is crucial to the Library. With a square footage approaching one million, the library circulates 17 million items from its 9 million item collection each year. "Because our demands are so high, both at the staff and user level, we have the needs of both a sophisticated academic and a large public library," says Fender. "We know that Innovative has succeeded at libraries like ours and this was important to our decision."
Innovative's agreement also includes substantial in-library training for staff and implementation consulting.
RightResult is a trademark of Innovative Interfaces.
About the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
The mission of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County is to connect people with the world of ideas and information. Its vision is to excel in customer service, be the first choice for information, anticipate and meet changing needs, assure equitable access to the Library's resources and services, and be a dynamic force in the community. On the Web at: www.cincinnatilibrary.org.
About Innovative Interfaces
Innovative Interfaces creates cutting-edge products that allow libraries to succeed in a modern technology environment and the freedom to implement solutions that best meet their specific needs. The company's versatile and market-leading solutions include: the Sierra Services Platform, the Millennium ILS, the Encore Synergy discovery application, Electronic Resource Management, and INN-Reach resource sharing. An established company with a vision for the future, Innovative connects with thousands of libraries of all types in over 50 countries. Innovative's commitment to service is reflected by its 24/7/365 Help Desk, Innovative University, and the CSDirect Web support center. The company is located in Emeryville, California with offices around the world.
