Andrew Jackson, ICT Team Lead for Community Applications at Manchester City Council and David Green, Manchester Central Library Customer Services Manager, discuss how they worked with Lorensbergs throughout their Central Library’s major renovation project. They also cover how netloan PC booking supports their management of public computer access across all district library sites.
Background – a greater shift towards self-service
In 2010 Manchester Central Library closed its door to begin a massive renovation and refurbishment project. At this time the City Council was beginning a channel shift towards self-service. Budgets were shrinking and the Council needed to adapt by exploring new ways to reduce customers’ reliance on staff assistance. Upon its reopening, the Central Library would need to operate with less staff despite having a substantial increase in public space to manage as a result of the renovation work. Even so, the management team recognised that if self-service was approached in the right way this could bring advantages to customers.
The netloan PC booking solution was already in use throughout Manchester City Council Libraries but it was recognised that the Central Library’s needs would be quite different from the other branch libraries. In addition to the self-service element, the netloan installation needed to complement the expansive scale of the redeveloped building’s design and layout, to support customers as they explored and discovered the facilities available. It also needed to support their objectives around sustainability with auto shutdown functionality and the ability to achieve a quick evacuation of the building in an emergency.
The team spoke with Lorensbergs’ account and technical staff to discuss possible approaches. “Lorensbergs offer really good levels of support and
consultancy. There was a lot of advice and input on advising us on the best way forward and the right solutions,” comments Andrew.
The team decided that a ‘walk up and book’ approach to PC access would support their objectives, whereby users secure and begin their session by logging on directly to the PC required.
“The great thing is that netloan has a number of solutions that lets us put in place what best suits customers. And what we decided here was that ‘walk up and book’ was the right solution and we’ve never had any reason to go back and change it. It just works.”
New technology supports a new way of working
During the project, the Council’s ICT team took the opportunity to explore how a new deployment of netloan could support a more efficient method of maintaining their estate of public PCs, with over 400 PCs across their district branches in addition to those at the Central Library.
“As part of the central library project, we needed to look at how we delivered our public access computer service,” Andrew explains. “Lorensbergs offered us advice in how to deliver exactly the solution we wanted – a centrally managed solution with better control and the ability to automatically deploy software and antivirus updates. Netloan supports this model to use new improved technologies. We now aspire to roll out the same PC deployment model to our other library sites.”
While working on the new netloan deployment, Lorensbergs’ representatives made onsite visits and were available for plenty of follow up conversations and testing. This partnership approach ensured everyone was confident that the new set up would run smoothly for the reopening day.
“Lorensbergs works very closely with our technical teams and offers first class advice. After every installation, they’re available for follow up conversations so we are assisted with everything – the testing, the training – and so upon opening we were very confident about our PC
service,” says Andrew. “There was so much change and it was great to have confidence that for PC access all would go smoothly. This was one of the big IT issues that we had to get right.”
Reopening day – meeting customers’ needs
On 22nd March 2014 the reopening was a huge success, with all going smoothly as customers filed through the doors and began exploring and using the new facilities.
The Library provides 170 public access PCs, each allowing customers to walk up, book and begin their session right away. This enables each visitor to find the best spot in the library before beginning their computer session. Areas vary in liveliness, noise, and lighting, and the PC walk up and book approach suits more freedom of movement so that, in the Central Library environment, individual needs and preferences can be met.
The Library and its services have been extremely well received since the reopening. In the first year, it has seen 1.3 million visits, with up to 6,000 visitors per day. There are six entrances/exits to the Library, and it’s important that customers can enter and get started on a computer
without needing to find a member of staff or locate the enquiry desk. Netloan offers a very intuitive method to access the service, with only the usual library borrower number and PIN required to begin a computer session. A computer session length restriction of one hour ensures that there is fair access to resources. Meanwhile, senior citizens are allowed two hours and there are three hour sessions available for people with visual impairments. Customers find there is usually sufficient capacity to get on a computer without needing to wait.
This may be in contrast to some of the other library sites, where at smaller branches demand may often outstrip supply. For these sites, the ability to book computer sessions ahead online via netloan or at a kiosk terminal provides customers with the certainty that their library visit will be successful in getting time on a computer.
A system that supports library staff
With netloan’s intuitive booking and login processes, library staff are freed up to help customers with other enquiries or tasks. This is particularly important in the Central Library as staff often have greater demands on them due to the variety of different library users. The
Library buildings combine a number of services including a police station, council customer services and an employers’ recruitment centre. The Library works in partnership with these services, offering enquiry support and computer time to service users. The self-service aspects of the netloan service enable staff to focus on other activities.
“Netloan is so reliable, it does exactly what we want. It’s great because it’s a system that we don’t really need to think about. It’s self-service, it works, customers understand it. It’s what staff and customers want so they can get on and deal with other tasks or enquiries,”
comments Andrew.
When it comes to system administration staff find netloan easy to use, and there is no need for any dedicated training. This is particularly important given the Council’s policy of staff rotation and its joined up approach to offering services. Co-location of services isn’t limited to the Central Library. The branch libraries also sit alongside other facilities such as a leisure centre, a young people’s Academy and an adult education centre. Even staff with no prior library experience can pick up using the netloan system quickly and intuitively
“Over several years of using netloan, it’s been really stable and reliable. Unlike other packages, we’ve not had any issues with it,” says David. “It has a lot of useful features – it’s really useful to be able to make PC bookings across multiple sites, for example for customers visiting the central branch but requiring another session at their local branch.
“As for the management of time, we just couldn’t really operate without it. Everything’s automated around use such as the number of hours and the ability to control session length by type of user, whether you’re a regular user, a pensioner or visually impaired. It allows us to occasionally suspend users and it has useful features such as group bookings that we set up for events.
“At the end of the day it really comes into its own, with the automated shutdown and giving PC users plenty of warnings that there are only so many minutes left until the end of their sessions.”
What next?
Further development work continues within and around the library, including a second metrolink crossing, a link to the Town Hall and a second Library café. With so much to explore and further increases in visitors anticipated, the team is looking at varying session length restrictions according to PC location. Shorter sessions on PCs towards the front of the building will encourage visitors to explore further inside while allowing those users with quicker tasks more opportunity to grab a ‘short stay’ slot.
Netloan supports future planning as Andrew explains: “Every quarter, the management team are really interested to see the PC usage statistics. Netloan standard reports give managers everything they need. They can see the level of use by library area with PC usage being the yardstick. Some areas are more heavily used than others, and the PC usage figures highlight these trends. Netloan supports the management team in developing strategies to move people through the building. We’ve got books, exhibitions, a local history museum. It’s important that customers make the most of their visits and that we remove bottlenecks.”
The Library is also planning to introduce laptop loans via netloan. This had previously been offered for use onsite but the demand has been so high that netloan is required to manage these portable devices in addition to the PCs.
In summary
Manchester City Council Libraries and the Council’s ICT team have enjoyed a long relationship of working with Lorensbergs and using the netloan PC booking system. The success of the Central Library project is testimony to Lorensbergs’ expertise, and the effectiveness of their collaborative and supportive way of working with netloan customers.
“Lorensbergs’ staff are very professional and quick to respond to requests for information,” says Andrew. “It’s a relationship that we are 100%
positive about – how Lorensbergs have developed the product and also the way in which we’ve been supported throughout the central library project.
“Working with Lorensbergs is a partnership where both parties strive for the same thing which is offering a top quality service to customers. I feel we’ve always worked well together and a project like the Central Library is an ideal example of how their input, advice and solutions make all the difference,” concludes Andrew.
