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What can Heritage Cirqa offer school libraries?

School libraries are ideally placed to collect and distribute information and it is our job to help you convince the 'Google Generation' that you're worth visiting! We like to provide a wealth of options, but it is completely up to you which of the following features and services you decide to offer in your library. All come as standard in Heritage Cirqa.

  • Tailored interface – you can divide your library users into groups and have different views for different users (staff and older students may see more options than younger students, for example). If a user is visually-impaired they can set their own text size and, if necessary, high-contrast colour scheme.
  • Any media can be catalogued – books, websites, DVDs, ebook, PDFs, CDs, toys, artwork … the list goes on!
  • Free book, CD and DVD covers provided from Amazon and Google Books (and you can add your own thumbnail images if necessary, which is handy if you’re cataloguing toys or artefacts – just take a photo!). Google previews are also displayed where available.
  • Search hints allow you to help the student find the information they are looking for (e.g. on ‘war’: ‘Your search term is very broad – are you looking for information on a particular war?’ or on ‘Macbeth’: ‘For past exam papers on Shakespeare please go to Mrs Daulton’).
  • If you use a VLE such as Frog or Moodle you can integrate your catalogue, therefore bringing the library back into the heart of the learning environment. Each student can have their own account.
  • A ‘Library news’ facility to keep pupils up to date with school events and library policies.
  • Your pupils can tell Heritage which subjects they are interested in so they are informed of new stock and can be given targeted news about relevant book groups, local productions and school events.
  • Reviews and star ratings – and don’t worry, if pupils review items their entries can be moderated by library staff before publication!
  • Reading lists – teachers can create and share lists of items with their pupils (and the pupils themselves can save lists of items that they are particularly interested in if they wish).
  • LinksPlus Marc and ClickView import modules are provided (if you subscribe to these services).
  • A Reader Import Module which imports your borrower information from the data exported from your school administration system (a csv or other delimited file is required) and which can be scheduled to update on a regular basis.
  • A ‘quick loan’ facility where you can loan uncatalogued items (even your scissors or calculator)!
  • A stock management facility, where you can set expiry dates for items so you are reminded by email to remove them from the shelves when they are no longer useful.
  • Over 1,000 reports supplied with the system. Many you won’t ever need, but hopefully everything you will ever need will be there waiting for you! You can edit them or write your own if you’re really keen.
  • A job scheduler means you can schedule regular tasks to happen automatically (e.g. emailing overdues and other notices and producing reports).
  • We send out a weekly email to the librarian with hints and tips on how to get the best out of Heritage Cirqa. These emails are really popular with our users as often they don’t have time to research new features, so drip feeding one piece of information a week is easily manageable!
  • Upgrades are free! Once you have Heritage Cirqa you won’t need to pay again for future upgrades to it - all you need is a current support contract to qualify.
  • We have a friendly support team, all based in the Chapel in Oxford (and all in the same open plan office as the development team, so we can be very responsive), backed up by a support website where you can download helpsheets and keep an eye on the status of your support calls.
  • We have three Open Days a year with free training and opportunities to meet the staff and other users.

All this, and our prices are incredibly reasonable (the software prices haven't changed for over seven years), you can spread the payment interest-free across two years.

Why not try it? We are really happy to provide demonstrations of Heritage Cirqa on request.

 
 

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