cardiff county council

before netloan...
We had an in-house system using a spreadsheet.  It helped to organise how people were using the PC’s, but we still had to monitor it ourselves.  People could get round the system, it wasn’t very reliable and it wasn’t foolproof.

putting netloan in place
Once netloan had been chosen a demo was given to us by lorensbergs.  It was explained and shown very clearly.  It was nice to know the workings behind the system when you are then going to train staff.

The netloan solution was then rolled out across the 18 libraries in February 2005.  Putting the system into practice was much easier than we thought, there are always things that crop up but they were more about policies rather that the netloan system, for instance the number of hours allowed for use. 

There are such clear guidelines as to how netloan operates that it can be seen to be a fair system by all members of the public.  It is obvious to them that the rules are the same for everyone.

The staff are very happy with it.  When it was first mentioned they couldn’t believe it would actually be able to help, but it has made their working life much easier. These feelings are consistent across all the libraries involved.

the introduction and training
When we first saw the demo we had concerns about how the system introduction would work, but by the time 95% of the staff had been trained I was convinced. I held my breath at the end of each week as the branch roll-out progressed,but there were very few problems.  I was amazed at how smoothly it went, and the public have been great too.

“It has freed staff up to be able to do other things and it also stopped members of the public becoming frustrated, especially those who need staff for tasks other than PC booking”

a summary
When picking the system Linda was asked what she needed.. Her response was “primarily a  system that would run itself.” She states that is what they have found with netloan.  When asked what she would say to someone thinking about buying netloan she summed it up nicely: “I’d recommend it!” 

For more information on how netloan could work for your organisation, give us a call on 01992 415500. 

To download this case study as a pdf, click here.