May 14th, 2012

Library & Learning Restructure

Over the last several years our Asia Library & Learning business has been experiencing significant growth, notably in the pivotal lines of business being Process Services delivered on the back of the Civica market leading Library solutions. Civica has recently taken the decision to further leverage the Singapore success and bring more of Civica’s offerings into the rapidly expanding Asia market. We have created the new position Managing Director – Civica South East Asia, to lead this initiative.

Phil Barr has agreed to take up this position effective immediately.

Naturally this change in focus necessitates some modifications to the Library & Learning organisational structure, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. In due course we will be filling the leadership role for the Australia and New Zealand business unit, however in the interim I will be managing this part of the business directly. During this period, the current management team will assist me in the day to day operation of the business unit.

For our customers everything is business as usual. During this period Phil will continue to be involved in the business and of course both of us will be available for our customers as needed.

Regards

Peter Anderson
Chief Executive Officer
Civica Pty. Limited

April 30th, 2012

Roebourne Shire Goes Live on Spydus

We’d like to welcome Roebourne Shire in the Pilbara region of WA. Roebourne went live with Spydus this week and is our very first managed services customer in Western Australia. Roebourne came from a joint-use library with Pilbara TAFE.  By all accounts it was a great achievement from Civica’s implementation staff in Melbourne who  had their very first project meeting with Roebourne on 28 March with a view to going live within the next month.

We look forward to seeing Roebourne staff at WA SPUN meetings and other events, and also on the SPUN e-list.

April 30th, 2012

Farewell and good luck Louise Pitcher

Civica wishes to acknowledge and thank Louise Pitcher for her continued support, contribution, passion and enthusiasm that will now be greatly missed in her retirement.  Louise’s relationship with Civica began more than 20 years ago, firstly as a colleague having joined the company in the former days of AWA, and then as a most valued customer in her role at City of Boroondara Libraries and SPUN.

Her dedication and contribution to the Spydus product development has been invaluable. We will all miss Louise and would like to wish her a wonderful retirement and enjoy the time to follow all her other passions – Lachlan, extended family, travel, sewing, gardening, leisure, new puppy and everything else.

We look forward to seeing Louise again at the SPUN conference dinner in Melbourne later this year.

April 25th, 2012

Managing Your Desktop

- a report by Nigel Wing,  Executive Director, Product at Civica Library and Learning -

Continuing the occasional series of product features the developers are proud of, this month I will touch on the relatively new Desktop Management module.

Some time ago, we added “PC Lockout”, which controls access to public PCs in a library. Importantly, this is done as part of Spydus so the borrower logon and booking is part of Spydus instead of external systems with all the complexities of managing interfaces.

Recently we revamped PC Lockout to become part of a broader solution – Desktop Management – that looks after PC access, printing and copying on public access PCs.

Desktop Management controls PCs, Printers, Copiers, and Scanners with full Spydus policy control of charges.  For example, a borrower can be set up to be able to book a PC and use colour printing provided they have no outstanding loans. However, they cannot print unless they have credit balance on their Spydus account, but they can book a PC with the charges accumulating even if they do not have credit balance.

As part of the revamp, we have implemented an innovative way of handling photocopying.  Using modern, fast scanners, we scan the documents and print them under the control of Spydus.  Optionally, the borrower is sent a PDF copy of what they have scanned.  The solution is then run from ordinary PCs or through PCs configured as a kiosk.  The individual library can commission the user interface to suit their needs.

Desktop Management works especially well when the institution uses eCommerce. This makes it easier for borrowers to top up their Spydus account to use chargeable PCs, Printers, and Copiers, as well as pay off other charges.