Minutes of the ICT
Item
1. Attendance &
Apologies
Special Interest Group held on 11 April 2014.
Minutes
Action
Attended: Michelle McLean (Casey-Cardinia), Anita Morris (Yarra), Vi Truong (Melton), John
Crennan (Wyndham), Meredith Reidy (Maribyrnong), Hugh Rundle (Boroondara)
Apologies: Les Firth (Yarra Plenty), Jennie Bishop (Boroondara), Brad Cooper (Greater
Dandenong), Tara Hossack and Sam Gray (Ballarat), Paul Hatcher (Whitehorse-Manningham),
Sara Wisnia, Nicky Klein, Erin Stewart (Moonee Valley), Tom Edwards (Wyndham)
2. Confirmation of
Minutes.
Minutes confirmed by John Crennan and Anita Morris
3. Business Arising
Noted that Zon Chen has left Port Phillip and will be starting at Melbourne soon. Darren
Ryan is filling in at present at Port Phillip.
4. Digital Content
Seminar
59 people attended the seminar (had over 70 booked).
Have received 18 feedback forms so far, the summary is included at the end of the minutes.
By
Besides the feedback forms, those at the meeting reported that they had received good
reports from the staff who attended.
Majority of the comments were general about the value of the seminar or about how the
presentations were scheduled on the day. This feedback will be kept in mind when
organising future events.
The PowerPoint slides from the morning presentations are available on the PLVN ICT SIG
Slideshare page at http://www.slideshare.net/PLVNICT/.
5. Next event
We discussed the potential for a new event, either late this year or early next year.
Considered an Emerging Technology Forum type event, but could not really come up with
anything that could be considered Emerging Technology.
Then decided that the biggest thing at present is security and privacy of data, both for library
users and online technology and libraries with their systems now being shipped off into the
cloud.
So are looking at running a Privacy and Security in an Online World event in mid to late
November. Suggestions for topics and/or speakers required – please pass onto to Michelle
ASAP.
6. Parliamentary
Library
ALL
Feedback on this
arrangement to
Michelle ASAP
ALL
Michelle was approached by Terri Aquino, now at Parliamentary Library about the possibility of their
staff attending our meetings. The group agreed that there would be value in the exchange which
would be possible between the two groups and were happy for them to attend our meetings.
Any more feedback on this to Michelle ASAP please.
7. Library Reports
Suggestions for
topics and
speakers for this
event required
Hugh Rundle - Boroondara
Major contracts ending later in the year eg. Civica is no longer supporting their RFID, so they will have
to go elsewhere for this. Tomorrow’s Library hangs over their heads in all this. Got the go ahead to
have a separate website from Council and have funding to do so - looking at using Word Press, want it
to be publishing daily. Have subscribed to Collection HQ. Boroondara using volunteers to run one on
one training for some technology programs.
Meredith Reidy (Maribyrnong)
Going live with RFID in May and June – smaller libraries first then Footscray goes live June 16. Still lot
of work in next 7 Weeks, finalising new desks, one smart bin at Footscray with 5 Kiosks. Rolled out
Zinio and about to rollout Freegal and Indie Flicks. About to develop a technology plan along with
Council IT. Public and staff PCs still running on XP, but they are looking to upgrade staff pcs to
Windows 7 and looking at what to do with public PCs. Printing from Wi-Fi coming. Working on having
EFTPOS ON THEIR KIOSKS. Looking at using an API between Pharos and FE (RFID kiosks) to pay fines.
Have also subscribed to Collection HQ.
Vi Truong (Melton)
Melton is settling - finally got their smart bin; hope to get one at Carolyn Springs soon. Have made
their 3M kiosks work in offline mode. Printing problems traced to terrible ADSL upload speeds, they
are working on it. Will have a small outpost at Diggers Rest coming later this month, within a Council
facility with 300 items, staffed once or twice a week.
John Crennan (Wyndham)
Enterprise and ERC are live for staff (soft launch), whilst they finalise layout. Are going with a basic
site to start with and will add content as they go. Ran an event - your library everywhere, with all their
online resources, and which also had reps from Bolinda and Your Tutor attending, they also offered
tech help, which took over to a certain extent. It was very busy and mostly attendees were 35 +. As a
result, they are organising e-book champions for each branch to run one-on-one sessions on
downloading e-books. Been playing EDI ordering and invoicing, they have it working with Baker and
Taylor, but still working with Bennett's - ordering is working, but not the invoicing. Look at working
with Wheelers on this too. Ordering is not much different time wise, but invoicing is huge time saver.
Also has good integration with Horizon. RFID units are starting to fail and there are delays in getting
things repaired, looking at whether to upgrade or keep repairing.
Anita Morris (Yarra)
Have installed Sirsi Dynix’s Mobile Circ, on Samsung Galaxy Tabs, but camera is not focusing so at
present keying in. Looking at getting Bluetooth scanners. ERC is live with Overdrive and soon with One
Click Digital. Hope to go to tender for RFID in June or July. Have upgraded PCs to Windows 7, but
there are still issues, eg. Language settings, plug-ins etc., but can't be fixed until new financial year.
Wi-Fi capacity being upgraded soon, possibly moving from Blue Socket to Aruba. Possibly will be
getting a new stand alone website in the new financial year.
Michelle McLean (Casey-Cardinia)
Have started seriously looking at moving our website to Enterprise, as its use is going up and website
use is going down. Due to the platform fees for e-resources, our overall database budget is reduced,
so will be losing some under-utilised resources. Public PCs with Windows 8.1 and touch screens have
been successfully rolled out at three branches. When upgrading OPACs will be going with large touch
screen PCs. Community Tech project is being finalised for the year and will include specialist PCs with
CAD and statistical software, two large touch tables, Adobe Acrobat on selected PCs , Skype and
iTunes on all public PCs, headphones for use with Skype, A1 Printer/Plotter centrally located, but able
to take jobs from branches and public, typing tutorial online from all PCs, along with job searching
related content and a subscription to Treehouse – the online programming/web skills training site.
Are waiting on Mobile Circ, will go live with ERC with Axis 360 once the last issue has been fixed (lack
of holds button) and looking at online payments etc. Having our own IT Expo with Help Desk as part of
program and hope to have Wi-Fi printing with new copiers roll out.
Paul Hatcher – Whitehorse Manningham (by email)
 Public touch screen Windows 8 pcs fully implemented. WML found that the introduction of
touch screen pcs and the new SOE of Windows 8 has increased the patron usage of fixed PC’s
significantly. In October 2013 prior to PC replacement we recorded 7271 fixed public pc
sessions for the month across all our branches. With the technology refresh including
Windows 8 and touch screens we saw an increase to 10357 sessions in February 2014.
Historically October is our busiest time of the year for fixed pc usage and February – June is
our quietest time frame leading to expectations of further growth in fixed pc usage in the
upcoming months.

Internet bandwidth demand at WML is continually growing also. With an average in excess of
36,000 wireless sessions a month and 10,000+ fixed pc sessions a month the public demand
for internet bandwidth is exceeding 3TB of internet download a month. To keep up with the
demand WML have recently extended the Internet Bandwidth to 90 Mb/s for public usage
which at our busiest time of day is exceeding 80% utilisation. As any future hope for NBN is
doubtful the anticipated bandwidth requirements for the provision of public internet into the
future is anticipated to require internet access at download speeds exceeding 1Gb/s mid
2017.

Dedicated Genealogy CD-ROM pcs have been decommissioned due to end of life support for
Windows XP and the lack of development and supportable operating systems of the Digger
software.

Recent database subscription to “The British Newspaper Archives”.
Brad Cooper – Greater Dandenong (via email)
New Dandenong branch was opened on the 17th of March and has been very popular with over
17,000 people attending in the first week and over 350 new members.
The new branch has over 40 public PC’s, 3 IMacs, Game Consoles; Kids touch screens for eResource
promotion, Wi-Fi access, and Apple and Android devices. There is still some further equipment to be
rolled out in our Genealogy/Local History section with a digital microfilm scanner also to be
implemented.
Tara Hossack – Ballarat (via email)
The main thing that we are currently focusing on is our RFID implementation. After each of our
libraries was closed for one week, we were able to tag every item in the collection that was on shelf.
We are now working through the returns and tagging them. While the self-check machines are not
yet installed in the libraries, staff are already noticing a difference in the work processes just by using
the Circ pads when doing returns. We are hoping to have everything up and running by June.
We are currently working on our first online story time - we have filmed the staff member reading a
story and we are using iMovie to put the film together and it will then be uploaded to YouTube. We
are also holding some stop motion workshops and have created a 30 second promotional clip also
using ..... stop motion!
8. Other business
No other business.
Meeting closed at 11.30am. Next Meeting: Thursday 5 June, 10.00am -12.00noon at Dandenong Library.
PLVN ICT SIG - Digital Content Seminar - Wed 26 March 2014
The information presented was relevant and informative
Strongly Agree
9
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
9
The public library speakers in the morning presented useful and informative content
Strongly Agree
9
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
9
The external speakers in the afternoon presented useful and informative content
Strongly Agree
6
Agree
Neutral
9
2
Disagree
1
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
The venue was suitable and easy to access
Strongly Agree
10
Agree
Neutral
7
1
I will take information from this seminar and apply it to my library
Strongly Agree
8
Agree
Neutral
9
1
How did you hear about this seminar?
PLVN Email
PLVN Website
Word of mouth
Other
15
3
Other comments
Please consider scheduling a short break in the morning session - there was a lot to take in
Thought the speakers needed to use a microphone. I was only a few rows back and heard everything okay, but I wonder about those at the back.
Also projector needed to have the filter cleaned or a different cable - as yellow projections on occasions. perhaps the lights could have been dimmed
or the blinds
closed.
i know it was a tight schedule but a morning tea break would also have been good..
But overall a great seminar.
I heard about the seminar originally from Anita Morris at work, then also from the PLVN email. A great day - I really loved the wide-ranging scope,
from simple movies filmed on iPads to the major undertakings of PROV and SLV. We are living in such 'interesting times' that it's really helpful to see
what other libraries are up to, and be able to talk to other staff about what they're doing. Even if the projects others are undertaking aren't quite what
you'd want to do yourself, it's a great springboard for ideas.
I would have liked a tea break in the morning - I spend a lot of time on rostered desk shifts, and am not used to sitting for long periods! But that is
being ridiculously picky. It was a great day, thank you so much to the organisers.
I wasn't able to attend the afternoon session, lots of ideas in the morning, thanks
I felt that the last two speakers presentations may have worked better if they had been broken up, perhaps one in the morning and one in the
afternoon.
It was great to listen to librarians who were passionate about their roles, programs and digital technology!
It was great to see the diversity of things that people are doing in public libraries as this often leads to the creation of new ideas for your own library.
Excellent presentations with topical and practical applications.