Library Product News & Best Practices July 2009

Case Study

It's clear that public libraries are being impacted by the economy. Increasingly communities are turning to libraries for information and entertainment. At the very same time, libraries are struggling to defend their budgets as cuts are made to compensate for financial instability at city, county, state, and even federal levels.

As the number of library users increases, the number of library staff members often does not. In such a situation, library staff members are taking on additional tasks. Suddenly, the question becomes not only "How do I save money?" but, "How do I save time?"

For the Henderson District Public Libraries (Nevada) and other libraries, the answer has come from Evanced Solutions. Using Evanced’s Events, Room Reserve and Summer Reader software has increased the time staff members can devote to other projects.

Events, Room Reserve and Summer Reader provide public libraries with web-based tools to help them manage event/program calendars, room booking, and all aspect of summer reading programs. Products can be purchased individually or as a package to help libraries manage their interactions with their communities quickly and effectively.

A Staff Time-Saving Solution

For Joy Gunn, Virtual Branch Manager for Henderson Libraries, Events and Room Reserve have cut down the time needed to add programs and events to the library website. "The Events calendar and Room Reserve modules definitely help cut back the time I used to devote to keying in information for events on our website. The ability to have one central calendar for all events, room bookings and staff meetings had undeniably helped our staff," explained Joy.

Events also saves time for patrons by letting them automatically know their status for class sign-up. Library users don't have to wait for busy staff members to register them for programs as Joy explains, "Using Evanced Solutions products has greatly cut staff involvement when registering patrons for events. With patrons having the capabilities to sign themselves up online, our staff has more time to devote to other projects. "

The Events function not only serves library users, but also makes staff training sign-up easier. By marking events as private and only allowing staff access, staff members are able to view a library system training calendar and can register for training at times and locations that are best for them. The function allows administrators and training staff to keep attendance and ensure that all library employees are receiving the instruction they need.

Increased Use and Increased Savings

Registration with the Events software became so easy, that patron sign-up for library events actually increased for Henderson. Laurie Orton, head of the Malcolm Library in the Henderson Libraries system noted that her computer class registration became easier to manage and that more library users were signing up to participate. “My attendance at computer classes more than doubled from one year to the next because of the use of the waiting list and easy access to patron contact info,” Laurie explained. “If they missed one class, I called to confirm their attendance at their next scheduled class. If they couldn’t confirm, I cancelled them and added the first person from the waiting list. I had far fewer ‘no shows’ for classes that this way.”

An added cost savings of Summer Reader was the ability to monitor how prizes were being distributed to the public. At Henderson Libraries, the prize management function became a valued function of the software “as some unscrupulous patrons would try and receive multiple summer reading prizes” by visiting multiple branches in the system.

For staff and community members alike, the easy-to-use event registration is a time saver, allowing a simple form to be filled out quickly and easily. The ability to sort by similar events and to view events by key work or branch are just a few of the features that help both staff and library users.

The capability to create custom questions allows for library staff to gather statistical information easily through all three products and to run reports in moments. By saving reports as excel files, they can be reviewed and shared with other staff, the board, etc. with the click of a button.

More Savings: How the Numbers Add Up

Evanced Solutions offers an option to host its products for libraries or allows libraries to buy the software and host it on their own server. With the purchase of the software there is an annual fee that covers updates and support services. Many libraries choose to let Evanced host their products as another cost saving option, thus eliminating the cost of purchasing additional servers and allows busy library IT departments to work on other projects that their institutions need.

Training and customer support are always free to Evanced Solutions’ customers. As new employees are hired by libraries or software upgrades are made, staff can be trained easily or simply get a quick refresher. The option to join live webinars or view previous recorded sessions allows libraries to provide training on a schedule that fits their needs, but still provides a personalized experience.

Below you’ll find a breakdown of the hours associated with typical events and room reservation tasks. Based on a population of 15,000-100,000, the difference in time savings is clear:

Learn More about Henderson Libraries and Evanced Solutions

To view the Henderson Libraries and how they’re using Evanced software visit:

Henderson Events Calendar: http://events.hdpl.org/evanced/lib/eventcalendar.asp

Henderson Summer Reader: http://www.mypubliclibrary.com/programs/srp09.html

Additional examples of how libraries are implementing Events, Room Reserve and Summer Reader can be found on the Evanced customer page at http://www.e-vancedsolutions.com/our_customers.asp  and the Evanced blog at http://evanced.blogspot.com/.

For more information about Evanced Solutions and its products, contact Evanced at sales@evancedsolutions.com. Sign up for a free (and pressure-free) webinar by visiting http://www.evanced.info/lyp.

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