The Fashion Retail Academy was the first National Skills academy to be opened in the UK in September 2006 and is backed by the retail industry’s big hitters, Arcadia, Marks & Spencer, Next and Tesco. Lecturers at the Academy all have diverse retail experience, offering a huge wealth of knowledge about the industry as well as contacts and networks in the industry.

What range of media do you hold in your library? Is it all catalogued on Heritage?

Non-fiction, fiction, market reports, look books (trend publications), magazines, dvds, laptops, cameras, stationery packs, accessibility equipment, newspapers. All catalogued on Heritage. Also, all databases, online resources and weblinks we have on Moodle are catalogued on Heritage.

Can you remember where you first heard about Heritage? Did you look at our website before contacting us?

I have used Heritage at another Further Education College.

Do you remember how many library management systems you looked closely at?

Three

What were you looking for in a library management system? What were your priorities?

Usability, functionality and reporting were essential. Interoperability with other Fashion Retail Academy systems. The ability to grow and anticipate future library and IT developments. Support – including remote access as standard and head office location for support and development. Service agreement – including free upgrades as standard. RFID compliant. Cost – including support and licensing over a 5 year period

Why did you choose Heritage over the other systems you were considering?

Heritage met the above criteria. Having used it previously, I had a working knowledge of the system. Heritage was preferred by our IT and the other library staff. High number of Further Education colleges use Heritage. Cost – quote given was the most competitive.

What are your overall impressions of ISOxford staff (this includes Sales, Training and Support staff, plus any Developers you may have dealt with)?

I always find the staff pleasant and helpful and the response time for answering queries is good.

How did the initial installation process of Heritage go? Did you find it straightforward?

The installation went well. As we were converting from another system ISOxford staff were very helpful recognising data problems that occurred during the migration such as duplication and were able to remove any unnecessary data.

What did you think of the Heritage training?

The trainer was helpful and friendly and I liked that we could request certain areas to be covered prior to the training taking place.

How have you found the support service from IS staff?

I find the support service very good.

Have you used the support website? How useful did you find it?

I use the support website mainly for accessing the help sheets. I think the new search feature makes finding the right help sheet easier. I’ve recently upgraded to 4.2.8 which was simple enough to do from the website.

Are you a member of Marvin, our list server? Do you find Marvin a useful service?

Yes, I’m a member and I do find it useful.

How has Heritage improved the day-to-day running of the library and services offered to your users?

Our previous LMS had poor reporting, the catalogue couldn’t be accessed through Moodle and service support was terrible so these problems were instantly fixed with the implementation of Heritage. The students and staff find Heritage Online easy to use and I’m able to produce better reporting and statistical analysis. Quickcat has improved our cataloguing output so we rarely have a backlog of resources and our RFID works much faster than it did with our previous LMS.

What are your favourite features in Heritage?

Quickcat, SDI and the reports module. I’m about to set up the Moodle block which I think will be really useful for students and staff.

Have you linked Heritage to any other systems in your institution, such as Moodle, Sharepoint, Aquabrowser, MyPC, Txtools, Screenreader software, a management information system or similar? If so, any comments about the integration process or success of the integration?

I am about to link Heritage with Moodle and begin implementation of Heritage Connect.

Do you have any other comments you would like to make about ISOxford or Heritage? Would you recommend it/us to other libraries?

I’ve used a wide range of library management systems both in educational and public libraries. Both being very different, requiring different types and levels of functionality. I think Heritage is very well suited to educational libraries, especially the Further Education sector. It has good usability and our students and the staff find Heritage Online easy to search and use. I would recommend it to other college libraries.

The Fashion Retail Academy have been using Heritage since 2008. They currently have four additional full access licences, the Reader Import Module, the Fines Module, the Self Service (SIP2) Module, the Heritage Connect Module, the Serials Cataloguing Module, the Quickcat Online Module and Heritage Online (Small).