Newham University Hospital NHS Trust is an Acute Trust caring for one of the youngest, fastest-growing and most diverse populations in the country. They are nationally recognised for their work in communications, Patient and Public Involvement and good corporate citizenship.

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

 

Books, Journals, DVDs, ebooks, pedometers. 

 

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

 

I certainly was involved in the process around selecting Heritage as one of the approved systems for the NHS framework purchasing agreement. I looked at your website before making the decision to purchase Heritage.

 

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

 

I concentrated on the five included in the NHS framework agreement.

 

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

 

Affordability, modernity / development, online OPAC.

 

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

 

Price, seemed to do all the things I needed, pleased with contact I had with firm.

 

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

 

Very helpful and knowledgeable. Not remote in the way you might expect a technical company to be sometimes.

 

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

 

Installation was fairly smooth. There were some delays over data conversion but this was fairly successful so worth the time. I found initial setup could have been better supported. I worked a lot of stuff out for myself and feel in some cases I was making decisions that might be hard to alter later with insufficient knowledge of the implications. Heritage can be a little obscure – go down three menus and put a number 1 in box C – things are possible but not always evident.

 

Q. What did you think of the Heritage training?

 

We had one day of training. It was pretty good – tailored to our needs.

 

Q. How have you found the support service from IS Oxford staff?

 

Generally excellent. On occasion more difficult enquiries can go very quiet for a time but they are generally returned to. Interaction of support staff on Marvin is very helpful.

 

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

 

Regularly. Some times hard to find help sheets – particularly since the new design but generally reasonably straightforward to use. It might be nice to have a “Frequently Asked Questions” particularly around set up.

 

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

 

See above. Very much a useful service.

 

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

 

A vast improvement from admittedly a rather low base. Much better control of loans, easier reservations, emailed overdues, rapid administration of loans, self renewal and desktop search via Heritage Online, integration of ebooks. Really our users got access to the benefits of a full modern system for the first time. A clear increase in usage of loan materials was a result. QuickCat also helped cut time spent cataloguing. The only real disappointment was a lot of time spent setting up serials for this to really not work as we needed it to.

 

Q. What are your favourite features in Heritage?

 

Heritage Online – looking forward to the enhancements in 3.3.

 

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

 

I would recommend Heritage and ISOxford to other libraries. During the brief time I have been using the product it has made significant development advances on top of a solid core functionality. I have found IS Oxford a reliable company with a good team.

 

Newham University Hospitals NHS Trust (now merged with Barts Health NHS Trust) have been using Heritage since 2006. They currently have three additional full access licences, the Serials Management Module (including Acquisitions), the Quickcat Online Module and Heritage Online (Small).