Heritage Cirqa Flagship Programme

In Sept 2015, IS Oxford – the developers of Heritage, our LMS – launched theHeritage Cirqa Flagship Programme. This was a series of 10 monthly assessments designed to utilise a variety of functions within the software. I registered as soon as I heard of the course and was really chuffed to be within the first wave of ‘graduates’ announced in June. The main aim of the programme was to encourage library staff to make use of functions they may not already utilise. Each month saw a different task – here is a basic list of each topic covered: 

HUG Summer Meeting 16

Last week was the annual Summer Meeting of the Heritage User Group, held at Conference Aston in Birmingham. I am a solo librarian and do not have many opportunities to meet other library people. I go to the HUG meetings once a year and really appreciate the networking opportunities it creates. This year, it seems networking opportunities are like busses – you wait ages for one and then two arrive at once! The HUG event was the day after the ARLG conference.

I attended my first HUG event in 2011 and they are always useful and interesting days. As always, the morning session featured a member of staff from ISOxford, the LMS developers. The latest information regarding the upcoming My Cirqas app was both interesting and useful. Although the app is free, usage will require Heritage licences so this is something for us to look into. We have long been considering upgrading out licence size and this may be the additional evidence required for our 'business justification' to be approved. 

Two year anniversary

Image taken by Leo Reynolds

My boyfriend believes that blogging is mostly self-indulgent waffle-tosh of little value to anyone else. Usually I disagree with him on this topic, but I’m afraid this post may well prove him right…

 Last week marked the second anniversary in my current job. It gave me cause to ponder the last two years and all that has happened since I left my last post. I found redundancy to be a very traumatic experience and hope I never have to go through it again. It affected me in all manner of ways I didn’t think possible; the majority of these are too personal to share in a public blog, but I admit I found it distressing and fundamentally sad. I refused to take redundancy lying down and treated finding a new job like going to war – I was determined to succeed and go out fighting. I managed to secure a new post within 10 weeks but will long remember the feelings of sheer relief and utter elation. When I received the call telling me I was the successful candidate, I’m embarrassed to say I actually jumped with joy!

HUG WM 2013

HUG venue - Friends Meeting House, London

Earlier this week I attended the Heritage User Group(HUG) winter meeting. It was held at the Quakers’ Friends Meeting House,directly opposite Euston train station. I’ve been here for previous HUG eventsand I’m always struck by the excellence of the venue. It’s in a prime locationand has a beautiful little garden in front of the entrance – a tiny havenamidst the noise that is London.

Heritage is the LMS used by our library, but HUG is completely independent ofIS Oxford (the developers of Heritage). It is run by a committee of Heritageusers from throughout the country, and now that I am on a committee myself, Iappreciate the job they do organising sterling events such as this.

Musings of 2012

It's the end of a year once more, and I've taken a few minutes to look back over my blog posts, specifically Fingers crossed. When I review my aims for 2012, I see that life hasn't necessarily taken me in those directions, but I've still learnt a lot this year. You can make plans til the cows come home, but despite all your best intentions, sometimes you just end up on a different path. Not knowing what was to happen in life used to be a source of concern for me, but nowadays I find it one of the great joys of life; things happen which are out of your control, you roll with the punches and come out of it better for the experience. You never know what's around the corner and there is always a positive to be found, even in the darkest of times.

Systems integrations – ups and downs

Image by James Cridland

One of the achievements I am most proud of in my current role is the integration between the LMS and the computer booking system. As Systems Librarian, it is my responsibility to manage the systems we use in the library and earlier in the year these two main systems were integrated.

In March, I attended a MyPC user group session. Whilst there, I met Sue Walsgrove who works in the library at City of Wolverhampton College and operates an integrated Heritage and MyPC system. I arranged a visit and spent an afternoon grilling her about the nitty-gritty of integration. During the Easter half term break, I secured the services of an IT Technician and we set about linking these two systems. It took the best part of a week to complete, most of which was trial and error. We followed guidance from ISOxford and ITS; both covered the same steps but were incredibly different! After a necessary remote access session with ITS, all that was left was altering the settings to establish the access management limits we required.

My First Anniversary

Image taken by nubobo

Last week was the one year anniversary of my starting work in my current job and the time seems right for a mini-reflection. Initially, I didn’t plan to stay very long in my current job - the commute is long and the petrol bill high - but I find myself liking the library, the college and the people.

Whilst I loved my previous job, it was no longer challenging. I wonder how long it will be before I start to see this role in the same way? At the moment I can’t ever imagine feeling that, even after a year I still feel as though I am learning how to do things. I can genuinely say that almost every day is a learning curve for me in one way or another and whilst that can be tiring, it’s also stimulating and enjoyable. Trying to narrow it down is quite tricky, but here are the main activities which I think have helped me develop the most over the past few months:*

Free hugs

Image by Jesslee Cuizon

Free hugs make everyone feel better...

The Heritage User Group is commonly known as HUG. It supports libraries that operate Heritage LMS, and runs two free meetings a year. Yesterday saw one of these events held at the Friends Meeting House directly opposite Euston train station.

The morning housed a technical session from Heritage mastermind Neville Jones. His knowledge is somewhat infamous amongst the IT Techies at work, so it was nice to finally see him in the flesh (as opposed to on the Marvin advice forums). He spoke about a new product called Cirqa, which will eventually replace Heritage. I have mixed feelings about this, but am trying to soak up as much info as I can.

In the afternoon there was a quick sticks AGM (no committee changes), followed by a presentation about the advanced booking module on Heritage. The final presentation covered library considerations when two colleges merge. This was very interesting and I could identify with this having recently worked through an amalgamation of two secondary schools.


Image by Jesslee Cuizon

As I don’t manage to get to as many events as I’d like, I enjoy reading people’s tweets which help to amplify event proceedings. Yesterday I thought I’d have a bash at this myself. There was no hashtag, so I don’t presume my tweets reached the people who would be interested in them, but it was fun to try anyway.

I get so much out of these HUG meetings. I pick up tips from the presentations as well as the other Heritage users present. My confidence increases and I leave buzzing with ideas. I like HUG and I like free events. Therefore, in Cara logic, I want more free hugs – they make me smile.

Day in the life (R8) part 4

Friday 3 February 2012
Today I am based at the Hinckley library all day. As I explained in yesterday’s blog post, it’s much quieter at this campus so I have more time to work on projects. Or at least, that was my plan...

Arrive at work 8.15am and discover the Heritage server is down. It means nobody can perform circulation duties or search the catalogue. Judging from the particular error messages, I know the server needs a reboot but I don’t have full access so I call upon the IT Technicians. Except it’s their team meeting, so we are without our LMS for almost 2 hours. Good start to the day. Surely it can only be onwards and upwards from here...?

While the system is down I take the chance to design new spine labels for our careers library, changing over to the Careers Resource Classification Index. I’m familiar with it having used it in my previous employment and introducing it here is something that should have happened years ago. Better late than never. 

When Heritage is back up I start work on two global changes. Although I’ve tackled global changes before it was with the help of an IT Technician and whenever I attempt them on my own I have less success. I spend far too long on this, and get absolutely nowhere. For the life of me I just cannot work out where I am going wrong. I want to add DVD as a keyword to the 1116 DVDs we house, and change the loan period on 1335 books. It’s time to hold my hands up and admit I’m stumped. I email Heritage Support for guidance and receive an email almost immediately. I’ll look at it again on Monday – for the third time. I get frustrated with myself when I fail to do something like this and I have to actively remind myself that I’m still learning.

Do a bit more work on tidying up the media files on the catalogue and have much better success with this – something actually goes right!

Whenever I have days like this, where things keeps going wrong, I look at my collection of Lego mini-figures; I wanted something fun on my desk that would make me smile, and these do just the job.
 

Fingers Crossed

Image by Discoodoni

Well, it seems that bloggers all over the universe are posting about what they hope to achieve in 2012. I’ve read several posts like this and have enjoyed them all (I’m far too nosey for my own good!). So, with this in mind, I’m taking a running jump on the bandwagon and doing the same.

1. Kindle: I had the new Kindle model for my birthday a few weeks ago. I’ve only used it to read fiction on, but would really like to utilise the other features it offers. I find it handy, portable and convenient, and by the end of the year I hope to be fully conversant with all aspects of the Kindle. Not a major resolution, but it takes me ages to get be comfy with new gadgets.

2. The work-related aim: As Systems Librarian, I administer and maintain Heritage LMS. However, at the moment I am unfamiliar with the majority of the modules. I’d really like to get to grips with the reports and stocktaking options. I’d feel much more confident with my Heritage knowledge (and performance at work) once I’ve got these nailed.

Time to reflect

Image by Irargerich

It’s December now, which means I’ve hit the six month mark in my new job. Thought I’d have a little ponder and reflect on my time here so far.

Initially, I wasn’t sure how long I’d stay in this role as it entails a 65 mile round trip to one campus and an 80 mile round trip to the other campus. I find the drive draining, and although I try to use it as ‘down time’ I’m not really succeeding with that just yet. I live in hope that one day I’ll find the commute relaxing.

Looking back, I can see I’ve developed skills I didn’t make much use of in my previous role as a School Librarian. I spend a fair amount of my working week classifying new stock, although it is constantly a bottle neck in the book-processing procedure. It’s nice to get my teeth into Dewey again, I didn’t realise how much I missed it while I was at the school. There are some books for which I simply I can’t decide upon class numbers, and these tend to have extended stays on our classification shelf in the office; I know this is a weakness of mine, I shouldn’t pick and choose the books I classify, I’ll try to be more inclusive in the new year.

Light at the end of the tunnel...

When I started my new job four months ago, I became a super user of Heritage LMS. My previous experience had been with OLIB and Eclipse, and although I had often heard of Heritage I had never really seen it action.

Image taken by ComedyNose

For the first three months of this job I found Heritage totally overwhelming; it is a huge piece of software encompassing many different modules and I found it quite intimidating. As Systems Librarian is it my job to maintain Heritage – keep it updated, ensure it runs smoothly and is both accessible and useful to our users. Not having ever used Heritage before I had no idea how to do any of this. I tried to learn as much as I could myself, but found even the helpsheets and manuals too complicated for a beginner. To say I was wading through mud would have been an understatement.

This began to slowly change last month after I attended the Heritage Open Day. I found it incredibly valuable and blogged about it here. It helped me realise that Heritage users come from all manner of libraries and we all use it in different ways. It helped me to relax a little and panic less.

Heritage Open Day

On Thursday 18 Aug, I went along to a Heritage LMS open day held at the IS Oxford headquarters. Each institution could have two places free of charge, so our Graduate Trainee came along with me.

Neither of us are overly familiar with the software and, from my point-of-view, it was quite a valuable day. There were presentations by IS Oxford staff tackling issues such as reports, global changes and the new Heritage Cirqa software. I made 6 pages of notes and there are several things I hope to follow up. I left the presentations feeling as though I’d picked up some good tips and some valuable action-points. Today, all attendees received an email containing information, helpsheets and links to do with those topics discussed during the presentations. Although my involvement with the company has been quite basic until now, I must admit to finding IS Oxford user-friendly and approachable.

I am a follower of Heritage on Facebook and this week it proved to be quite fun. They built up the event over the preceding days by posting statuses about the buffet (which was top notch) and providing updated weather reports for the day itself. On the train heading to Oxford I was browsing Facebook and there were updates of early-bird open day visitors arriving. Staff took a number of photos during the day and I’m hoping these will soon be posted to Facebook. I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, but I am a fan of this social network and Heritage having a page somehow closes the distance between ‘them and us.’





Image supplied by IS Oxford

 

HUG

From the name, HUG sounds as though it should be some sort of love-in session, but no; it is the infamous Heritage User Group. HUG is independent of Heritage and is a platform for users to work with developers IS Oxford to provide feedback and share experiences.

Image taken by Jo-h

As part of my new job I am required to be a superuser of Heritage, a LMS I am completely new to. I am discovering it is a huge piece of software and I find the reports functionality to be quite intimidating, but I must - and will! - get to grips with it.

Yesterday was the bi-annual meeting of HUG so I went along. It was held in a conference centre at Aston University which is quite local to where I live (= nice morning lie-in). There were approximately 35 Heritage users present spanning a variety of library sectors. It was a chance to meet others and I'm really glad I went.

The day consisted of a number of presentations from other users describing innovative uses of the software, plus a detailed session from IS Oxford outlining Cirqa (which will eventually replace Heritage). During the afternoon we separated into smaller focus groups to discuss what we like/dislike about Heritage, and I was comforted to realise I am not alone in my failure to immediately gel with the reports module. Hurrah! Unfortunately, it was disappointing to be told that my suggestion of making Heritage Online smartphone/tablet friendly is not on IS Oxford's actin plan for the forseeable future. If they don't embrace non-windows based technology they may start to falter.

The next HUG meeting is during the winter and I think I'd find attendance there to be equally as valuable. I believe it's usually held in London rather than Brum, so I'll have to see how healthy the staff development budget is looking nearer the time...