HERITAGE - LIBRARY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Heritage Technical Information

Heritage is designed to be administered by library staff without the need for a Systems Librarian. However, some technical competence is beneficial e.g. some understanding of how to create database reports and using Windows Explorer to find files.

A Comprehensive User Manual

Heritage comes with a comprehensive and easy to follow manual, describing all aspects of the system in an organised and logical way with an extensive index. The manual is available electronically as a searchable pdf or, optionally, as a hard copy version in a folder.

For a sample of how it looks, add the following document to your documents basket and we will send you some sample pages.

Sample manual pages

Heritage Support Website

One of the many advantages of having a Heritage maintenance contract is exclusive access to the Heritage Support website. Packed with helpsheets, downloads (including free upgrades) and advice, this one-stop-shop provides almost everything you will need for understanding processes and tasks in your library. For example if you are thinking about undertaking a major stock-take you will find resources on the website to help you navigate your way through this requirement. The Support Website is an invaluable resource for most Heritage users.

Information for your Technical Colleagues

Many prospective user find it helpful to have a sheet with many of the commonly requested answers to questions posed by your technical colleagues. Please add the following sheet to your basket if you would like a document to give to your technical colleagues.

Heritage Technical Reference Sheet

Heritage System requirements

There are three main hardware components to any Heritage system: workstation, fileserver and webserver. In smaller installations these may be combined onto just one or two computers. All three systems must run Windows operating systems in 32 bit compatibility mode. 

Heritage typically requires 100M to install, plus we suggest you allow 10M per 1,000 catalogue records to cover temporary requirements.

Workstation

Heritage has always performed well on low specification hardware and so it is not necessary to buy top of the range equipment to experience very good performance. It is not uncommon today to find users happily running computers that were at the lower end of what was available five or more years ago.

As Heritage is nearly always run from a fileserver, the workstation only needs temporary space, so we recommend 1G of free disk space for the workstation. 

The drivers and installer for biometrics are not current compatible with Windows 7.

Fileserver

The fileserver specification is dependent on the size of system and how many concurrent users there will be. Heritage can be run on virtualised hardware; this is particularly desirable if it allows Heritage to be installed on its own, dedicated, server.

Heritage can co-exist with other systems e.g. SQL-based databases on the same server. It comes with its own database.

The following gives some suggested specifications although we would advise you to talk to a member of our technical sales team about your proposed implementation and IT infrastructure before deciding on the exact configuration.

* we suggest that the recommended (not minimum) specifications from Microsoft are used. 

Webserver

A webserver is only required if running Heritage Online. It can be the same computer as the fileserver although this is not recommended if you are publishing to the internet when the webserver would typically be in a DMZ with the database on a server in the inner LAN. If you are not able to run your own webserver then IS Oxford can host Heritage Online for you. Heritage does not place much load on the webserver and so even the largest installations are unlikely to require a high specification server.

Networking

Heritage is typically run as a 'thick client' application. Low latency e.g. under 5ms, is more important than high bandwidth. The most common configuration would be based on a 100Mbit network. When run on a wide area network (WAN) it is common, but not essential, to run Heritage from a Terminal server or Citrix server, not least as bandwidth on WANs tends to be expensive and hence they are heavily utilised. We can provide some simple test software to help you evaluate which will be the most appropriate way to run Heritage on your infrastructure.

A forthcoming release of Heritage (due at the end of 2010) will offer a thin client version of Heritage whilst still presenting the same user interface.

Other hardware

Barcode Readers

Heritage will work with any barcode reader that will read your barcodes in to Windows Notepad or Word.

Biometrics

IS Oxford can supply biometrics hardware to operate with Heritage. The software for this is supplied by Biostore Ltd and is used by a number of other system suppliers. This means that the biometrics data need only be entered once to be used for mutiple applications.

Backups

Heritage installs to a single folder on the fileserver and likewise on the webserver. Backing up can be carried out using conventional Windows backup software such as BackupExec or Arcserve. The open files option will generally be needed with these if Heritage (or Heritage Online) will be running when it is backed up.

Self-service Hardware and RFID

IS Oxford does not supply self-service or RFID hardware, but there are Heritage installations working with all the main suppliers of self-service hardware (and RFID). These use the optional Heritage Self-service module.

Interoperability

Heritage can work with other systems and we have developed a number of modules and services to improve inter-operability. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Heritage Connect - links to other systems to retrieve data (e.g. borrower records from administration databases)
• Z39.50 Server Module - enables you to offer your Heritage catalogue for searching by users of Z39.50 clients
• Heritage Self-Service - uses the SIP2 protocol to integrate with self-issue systems
• Inter-Library Loans - for managing British Library ILLs (amongst others)
• LDAP User Authentication
• Heritage Connect Out - for extracting data from Heritage into other systems using ODBC (e.g. Crystal reports)
• Active Directory - for creating borrower records, validating borrowers for self-issue and identifying them to Heritage Online. It is also used for single-sign-on in Heritage online.
• Shibboleth and Athens - these can be integrated with Heritage for single-sign-on with Heritage Online.
• Managed Learning Environments (MLE) and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). Heritage has been successfully integrated with Blackboard, Moodle, Sharepoint and others.

A number of other export facilities, including XML, CSV or MARC formats are also available. Overdues information, other letters and reports can be sent by email or output in RTF or HTML formats.

More information

If you would like to know more about the benefits of the technology that Heritage uses over other library systems, just add the following document to your basket, or contact us for more information..

Heritage Technology