Halesowen College has a reputation for high standards and high student achievement. It consistently appears in the top 10% of colleges for examination performance. Members of the public are able to access the library service via the Dudley inspire scheme.

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

We have books, CDs journals, maps, DVDs, Wii and DS games, DSi console, DVD player, laptops, ASUS laptops and magnifier – all are catalogued on Heritage along with e-books and subscription websites.

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

The Library Officer had used Heritage in a previous job, plus we saw it showcased at Library and Information Show a few years ago. We looked at the website which was very informative. We also visited 3 local Colleges to see it in action.

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

We looked at two other library management systems before choosing Heritage.

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

We wanted something that was easy to use, accurate reporting facilities, a more modern looking catalogue for students to use. We also wanted a simplistic system that could easily be interrogated.

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

The price was a factor but also the amount of things which could be achieved with Heritage e.g. reports. We also wanted a system that our staff could pick up quickly to minimise the disruption to our service.

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

The staff are helpful, a reply is usually sent back promptly, often on the same day. The training day was good, the trainers were knowledgeable and happy to answer any queries.

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

On the whole this went well, though we did have to re-install it as we had a problem with the initial installation. The data conversion [from OLIB] was smooth and it highlighted a number of issues we previously were unaware of.

What did you think of the Heritage training?

This was very good, several staff attended the management side of the training so there was less time to cover the basic functions of the system, however with the help of some of the helpsheets it did not take long to grasp the basic everyday running of the system.

How have you found the support service from IS staff?

They have been helpful when we have phoned for assistance and we usually have a response very quickly.

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

The website is very useful as there are lots of helpsheets which cover many aspects of the system. The guides are easy to follow but it might be easier if when searching for help it could ask you which version you are running and then filter down the guides applicable to your version.

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

Yes we are and it is a useful service but we can usually get by using the guides.

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

We now have a user friendly catalogue for our students and teaching staff, which was lacking in our last LMS. We have personalised the catalogue by adding our logo to the site in place of the Heritage logo and we do not use the splash screen, instead our users log straight into the catalogue. We have also renamed it “Library Resources” instead of “Heritage Online” and we have taken all of the information from our library intranet pages and included it on this page e.g. we have added more links to quick links e.g. a link to book a PC using MyPC and also we have added to the Opening times widget so that we have a link to our LRC opening times which differ from the main library. We decided that the basic/general search was not that useful to our students so we changed the default search to be the advanced search option that appeared. We have added some search tips underneath the search box to encourage users to limit their search to see fewer results. We have also recently added in the name of who recommended an item into the catalogue record, and added the recommender field to the dropdown “search in” list so users can search by a particular lecturer to find recommended books. We have access to the e-books provided by the JISC E-books for FE project and have added the records into Heritage by downloading the files from the support site. We had a problem with our overdue system in our previous LMS, with Heritage we have personalised the overdue letters easily and we are now able to print them without any problems. The reports have been excellent and we can now produce accurate statistics across our service.

What are your favourite features in Heritage?

Front covers of books and DVDs are very useful when finding the correct book that a user requires. The catalogue as a whole is much easier to use than our previous catalogue and we hope to make more use of it in the new academic year by highlighting it at subject based user education sessions. The amount of reports are useful.

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?

We have linked it with Moodle, which works well as it shows the student when they are logged in which books they have taken out and we are hoping to link it with MyPC when we have an upgrade to MyPC 4.0.

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

We would strongly recommend Heritage to other libraries as our experience has been very positive.

Halesowen College have been using Heritage since January 2010. They currently have eleven full access licences, the Serials Management Module (including Acquisitions), Heritage Connect, the Reader Import Module, the Server Performance Pack, the Fines Module, the Marc21 Import & Export Module, the Quickcat Online Module and Heritage Online (Medium).