Finding Accessit

Four years ago Saint Kentigern was looking for a single library management solution they could use across all of their schools, located on three campuses in Auckland, New Zealand.

At the time, they were using the Oliver library management system. Anita Vandenberghe, the Information Specialist of Saint Kentigern College, was part of a three-strong assessment team who visited four schools – two using the most recent Oliver upgrade and two using Accessit.

“Oliver were promoting a more intuitive system with their update, but we’d heard very good reports about Accessit, so we thought we’d look at both systems. Pretty quickly we saw Accessit was the way to go.”

“We liked the clean front end of the Accessit dashboard. It’s easy on the eye and easy for the students to use. The librarians told us they also have a very good back end with good support, and they hold a New Zealand roadshow annually – so you can go and ask questions and be supported in a way that we’d really missed with Oliver,” says Anita.

One system to please them all

Between them the four schools cater for more than 2650 students, from pre-schoolers through to eighteen year olds – as well as their parents, generalist and specialist teachers, and unique departments. Accessit’s ability to service this diverse range of users appealed to the Saint Kentigern assessment team. They wanted a library system responsive to all their users’ catalogue needs, including a great digital platform. The team knew there was an insatiable desire for all things digital and accessible 24/7 via Android, iPhone, desktop or laptop.

“Our customers can access our new catalogue from their car, library, home…wherever they have access to the Internet they have access to us. One click takes a user to the record and one click actions something.”

“For us the stocktaking feature running in the background is very valuable, and generating QR codes, when cataloguing links or PDFs, is handy too. Rapid entry means that with one scan of the ISBN number we have access to six major catalogue databases – such as the Library of Congress, SCIS and WorldCat – which saves heaps of time.”

“Accessit makes it very easy to be organised and see where you are. Actual items – which include magazines, DVDs, ebooks, e-audiobooks and technology items like cameras or iPads – can be in different physical locations. We’ve secured all our items and connected them to the catalogue.”

“I would say to anyone, ‘go to a forward-thinking school and ask their Librarians or Information Specialists, who are working with Accessit, about the system and make yourself familiar with it’. I’d also say, ‘visit the Accessit roadshow’. Colleagues come with questions you didn’t even know you wanted to ask,” says Anita.

From woeful to wonderful

Culford School in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England is set in 480 acres of beautiful parkland, with an 18th Century mansion at its centre and three separate schools – the Pre-prep and Nursery (ages 3 to 7), the Prep School (ages 7-13) and the Senior School (ages 13-18). In 2015 Culford was proud to open its new £2.2 million landmark library building. Lesley Martin is the Culford School Librarian and Head of Careers. Back in 2004, the school was facing ongoing issues with their existing library management system and were concerned enough to start looking at potential alternatives. Lesley talked to other school librarians and visited libraries to see different systems in action. But it was a trip to the Library and Information Show that first put Accessit on Lesley’s radar. At the trade show, Lesley was impressed with the Accessit demonstration. And when she spoke to other librarians using it, they all seemed to be overwhelmingly positive.

“I liked that the interface was more adult than other school library management systems,” says Lesley. For Lesley, Accessit had the functionality she needed, and was intuitive, flexible and easy to use. Many of the other systems at that time were being offered on a modular basis, but Accessit was all-inclusive and very competitively priced. “Moving from our old system was easy too. Accessit handled the transfer of the entire catalogue and management records without any problems,” recalls Lesley.

So many things to like

Lesley says, “There are so many things I like about Accessit. It’s easy for students and teachers to use and the dashboard is a fantastic gateway to e-resources and websites to support research. It’s a great window for promoting book and printed resources too. Being able to give our students year-round, off-site access to our library resources is wonderful.”

For Lesley, being able to design and update the home dashboard herself makes it super easy to promote particular resources, ensure students have the information they need, and keep it interesting and fresh.

“On the management side, I can run a range of reports for senior management and monitor my own statistics. I can add virtually anything to the library catalogue. And when we installed RFID security and self-issue, it was straightforward to update Accessit to integrate seamlessly. Automatic overdues have saved me hours of work, and our teachers appreciate the regular notifications of new additions in their subject area,” says Lesley.

No looking back

Culford School and Accessit have had a long and successful partnership. It’s been over ten years now since Culford chose Accessit for their library. For Lesley “it was a great decision”.

“A lot has changed over that time. It used to be that the library was the one place to go for information, and that’s no longer the case. Students want to access the library with their digital devices and now we’re facing the issues of ‘fake news’ and unreliable sources of information, as use of Google and social media rise. That’s where Accessit’s One Search function is so powerful – in that it outperforms Google in this regard. We’re teaching our students to use Accessit as their search engine and be more discriminating about the information they find on the web. Giving students the skills to undertake high quality, independent research is something that’s important at Culford.”

“Accessit has kept pace with changes and supported us every step of the way. The system is continually being improved and updated, with small tweaks and improvements happening automatically and major updates at least every few years. We feel so well supported. The Accessit team has been responsive to any suggestions we have had, and the help desk are always quick to get back to me.”

Lesley would definitely recommend Accessit to any school looking for a new library management system. She says, “I hear a lot of other school librarians complaining about their library system and the service they receive. I’m pleased that we have Accessit, and that I no longer have these issues to deal with.”