SydneyPLUS International

Inmagic Joins The SydneyPLUS Group of Companies

2011-10-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

SydneyPLUS International, provider of Library KM software and solutions to Fortune 1000 companies, top law firms and government institutions has announced the acquisition of Inmagic's special library business. Inmagic, a pioneer in information management solutions, is known for its large customer base in special libraries, government agencies, commercial organizations, associations, and other non-profits. The library portion of the business includes Inmagic's DB/Text(R) Library Suite of products: DB/TextWorks(R), DB/Text(R) WebPublisher Pro, and Inmagic(R) Genie.

The addition of Inmagic's special library business to SydneyPLUS will extend SydneyPLUS' leadership position in knowledge management and library automation software markets. Phillip Green, former Inmagic, Inc. CTO, will join SydneyPLUS and lead the new division. He will be joined by Inmagic's co-founder Karen Brothers and other core members of Inmagic's special library team of sales, customer support, and engineering staff to form the new SydneyPLUS Inmagic division.

"We are thrilled about joining the SydneyPLUS family," said Phillip Green. "We share a commitment to long-term healthy and productive relationships with customers. We look forward to exploiting the synergies of our combined organizations to accelerate development, enhance customer service, and continue delivering world-class products to our global customer base."

"We at SydneyPLUS welcome everyone in the DB/Text and Genie communities to the SydneyPLUS family. Having our combined customer bases under one roof has been a long-time goal of mine," stated Ron Aspe, President of SydneyPLUS. "Inmagic and SydneyPLUS have long served similar markets, and I believe the combined expertise of both our companies will yield compelling solutions that will bring opportunity, innovation, and more choice to all."

The new Inmagic will continue to protect and reward its customers' investment in Inmagic products by adding new features and capabilities, as well as new applications. SydneyPLUS and its new Inmagic division remain dedicated to maintaining and increasing the qualities that their customers have come to expect--technical innovation, exceptional service, ease of use, outstanding reliability, and a lifelong reputation for integrity.

As part of this transaction, SydneyPLUS acquired the Inmagic trademark, which is strongly associated with the special library market. However, Inmagic, Inc. retains and will continue to market and sell its award-winning Presto technology and its products, Presto KnowledgeNet, Presto AssociatioNet, and Presto IdeaNet. Inmagic, Inc. will continue to use the Inmagic name until such time as a new company name is established.

Additionally, the companies are announcing a strategic partnership to co-market and support Inmagic's Presto for Social Libraries which is a Social Knowledge Network (SKN) application that integrates library workflow with knowledge-based content and the "wisdom of the community" to create a "Library 2.0" environment to support the research and business objectives of organizations.

"This is an extremely positive outcome for Inmagic's large base of library customers and business partners around the world," said Ron Matros, CEO of Inmagic, Inc. "SydneyPLUS has a long and successful history in the special library and knowledge management market and is a great home for Inmagic's library solutions business." For more information about Inmagic, visit www.Inmagic.com.

The SydneyPLUS Group of companies also includes, Incite Software Solutions, LawPort, Cuadra Associates, Inc, Questor Systems and Lookup Precision.

SydneyPLUS Continues to Expand and Seeks Knowledge Management Consultant

2011-09-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

SydneyPLUS International is expanding and wants to hire a Knowledge Management Consultant. And the job title reflects your many responsibilities here!

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT

Responsibilities:
As a librarian you know that the ultimate aim of our profession is to put the right information into the hands of the people when they need it. This is what SydneyPLUS KM software does. With our software you can play an integral part in the KM success of many of today’s top companies.

Working alongside our team of expert KM librarians you, as SydneyPLUS Knowledge Management Consultant, will be responsible for interviewing, researching and gaining a full understanding of client specific KM problems and then utilizing your creativity, ingenuity and in-depth understanding of our in-house software solutions will design, implement and roll out custom KM solutions. Leveraging your solutions within their organization, your clients will be able to maximize efficiency, help reduce costs and offer seamless enterprise access to their knowledge resources. Candidates must also be able to carry out sales and training support. These include,

Conduct product demonstrations and customer training sessions on all SydneyPLUS products and capabilities

Work with Sales and Marketing team to prepare and deliver unique software solution demonstrations

Consult with and advise customers on training and implementation process issues

Work with in-house team and managers to resolve problems

Stay abreast of SydneyPLUS product development and the Knowledge Management Industry

Always be learning

Requirements:
You have an MLIS degree, excellent communication and interpersonal skills, can work effectively with a variety of people in a variety of situations and possess a commitment to superior customer service. International travel required.
Salary:
Salary commensurate with capabilities.
Contact:
Your resume and accompanying letter can be sent on-line to mmaslowski@sydneyplus.com or Faxed to 604-278 9161.
We thank all candidates for their applications; however only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

ALA launches the S+ CE module

2010-12-29T12:29:00.000-08:00

ALA recently launched the SydneyPLUS Continuing Education (CE) module to further the professional development of its staff. The following post is derived from the December 2010 SydneyPLUS Client NewsLetter article available from the SydneyPLUS website.

Founded on October 6, 1876 during the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the American Library Association was created to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.

ALA succeeded in making it easier for the presenter and attendees to manage registrations. Described by ALA as “intuitive,” the SydneyPLUS CE module allows staff to register for courses through a “single click workflow,” which generates an e-mail confirming the registration to staff, along with notification by e-mail to the presenter of the number of seats left.

The SydneyPLUS CE module automatically manages a wait list on behalf of the presenter. As the number of registrations exceeds the number of seats available in the class, participants are wait-listed in order of registration. Any cancellation by a registrant frees up a space and the next person on the wait-list is enrolled and notified by e-mail.

SydneyPLUS provides more than a library system to ALA in that the SydneyPLUS Information Manager is used as the organization’s internal Knowledge Management System. SydneyPLUS CE is the latest initiative, which joins these other projects:

SydneyPLUS Calling Tree (i.e. a hierarchical representation of staff used to ensure proper communication of important news throughout the organization)
SydneyPLUS Expertise Management (i.e. staff can describe their expertise and skills to ensure the organization makes best use of them)
SydneyPLUS Virtual Reference (i.e. a virtual reference desk that automatically routes requests to experts in the organization)

How has ALA accomplished so much using SydneyPLUS? The secret to the successful partnership has been to invest in training, consultation, and even more training. In the last four years ALA has trained five times with SydneyPLUS: three times at SydneyPLUS headquarters and twice onsite at ALA.

SNUG 2010 Virtual Conference

2010-09-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

This year’s Sept 20 2010 SNUG (SydneyPLUS National Users Group) meeting was held as a virtual meeting for the second year in a row. The following post is derived from a full press release available from the SydneyPLUS website.

SNUG sessions started with a focus on reporting with a Crystal reports primer that showed how users can start creating their own reports, how they can enhance existing out-of-the-box reports and how they can best leverage their own data for reporting. The meeting’s focus then shifted to a review of how to make best use of Information Manager version 4.1.1. Among the many options explored during the review where; how to enhance a portal database with book jacket covers, how to access a collection via a mobile device and to how to generate reports with the portal’s own built in Report Writer. The final session of the meeting provided case study examples of innovative Information Manager Implementations. The examples showed how IM can be used to apply “terms of use control” by having users enter their network credentials before accessing sensitive corporate reports and how existing IM functionality can be calibrated to manage all aspects of electronic information subscriptions.

SydneyPLUS clients can further network by visiting the client supported SNUG wiki at https://snug.pbworks.com . They are also welcome to follow SydneyPLUS through Twitter at http://twitter.com/sydneyplus.

SydneyPLUS Seeks Librarian Consultant

2010-09-15T15:40:00.000-07:00

SydneyPLUS International is looking to hire a Librarian Sales Support / Training Consultant. And the job title reflects your many responsibilities here!

SydneyPLUS employs several librarians, so we asked them, "What do you like about your job?"

1. SydneyPLUS International's headquarters are located in beautiful Richmond, British Columbia and its neighbor, Vancouver, BC is ranked as the top Canadian city for quality of life.

2. SydneyPLUS also has librarians working in many top locations, such as New York, Nottingham (UK), etc. and it is an experience to work with staff around the world.

3. SydneyPLUS clients range from governments to corporations to non-profits, and every industry is represented by our clients, which allows us to meet experts in every field.

4. SydneyPLUS has supported special libraries, archives, and museums for thirty years, and many staff have worked in the company for all of these years.

SydneyPLUS SharePoint Web Part

2010-08-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

If your organization is pursuing SharePoint integration and implementation for the library, then you may want a range of options for that integration, including the best choice: a Web Part.

Based on the SydneyPLUS Information Manager platform, SydneyPLUS has supported integration with SharePoint through a number of measures to the extent that it has designed a Web Part specifically for providing access to any SydneyPLUS data through SharePoint.

The SydneyPLUS Web Part may be the best choice for clients using SharePoint for many reasons which we will discuss here. Before we outline the benefits of the Web Part, there are other measures available to clients that provide access to SydneyPLUS data through SharePoint:

· SydneyPLUS RSS Generator can publish RSS feeds for display in SharePoint.
· SharePoint BDC can also query the SydneyPLUS database.

Editor's note: The SharePoint BDC (Business Data Catalog) is also known as the Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint 2010.

SydneyPLUS Web Part capabilities:

1. The SydneyPLUS Web Part is easily configured by librarians. The SydneyPLUS Web Part is configurable to allow your administrator to determine what should be shown:

· Administrators can select any table and fields.
· Administrators can query using a search screen designed for librarians.
· Web Part uses the familiar SydneyPLUS Information Manager user interface.

2. The user does not have to leave SharePoint to interact with the library.

A number of actions are available to your users through the Web Part, which means that they will appreciate the convenience of staying on SharePoint.

· Users can renew items checked out in SydneyPLUS from SharePoint.
· Users can request items from SydneyPLUS through SharePoint.
· Users can search the SydneyPLUS database directly.

3. The SydneyPLUS Web Part can display relevant data based on user identity.

An important feature of the SydneyPLUS Web Part is its ability to display data that is specific to a user.

· Display resources specific to the person's department, office, etc.
· Display a list of journals that are being routed to the person.
· Display a list of requests made by that person.

If you have questions and want to find out more about SydneyPLUS SharePoint Web Part feel free to contact us at 604 278 6717 or email sales@sydneyplus.com

Editor's note: SydneyPLUS also provides intranets and extranets for law firms, and a competitive intelligence solution on the SharePoint platform.

If you would like to learn more about the extent of library-related vendors supporting SharePoint integration, then read this article:

Weldon, Lorette S.J. How is SharePoint used in Libraries? FUMSI, August 2010, online:
http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/use/4714

SydneyPLUS New Website

2010-06-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

SydneyPLUS International, provider of Library Knowledge Management software and solutions to Fortune 1000 companies, top law firms and government institutions is pleased to announce the launch of their new corporate website.

Rapidly created and deployed in less than two weeks by SydneyPLUS staff librarians, the new site sports a fresh "look and feel" delivering more information on the products and services available from SydneyPLUS, and the many partnerships that SydneyPLUS has forged with other companies that serve related industries.

A press release is available.

SydneyPLUS Welcomes LookUp Precision

2010-05-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

SydneyPLUS International would like to welcome the users of LookUp Precision to the SydneyPLUS family. The addition of LookUp Precision will leverage complementary technologies and accelerate innovation, delivering on a strategy of providing powerful, adaptable cost recovery solutions to the professional services sector.

SydneyPLUS and your LookUp Precision team remain dedicated to maintaining and enhancing the qualities their customers have come to expect—technical innovation, exceptional service, outstanding reliability and a lifelong reputation for integrity.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call us at 604 278 6717 or email us at sales@sydneyplus.com.

Best Practices at Conferences

2010-05-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

SydneyPLUS staff librarians attend many conferences throughout the year, including conferences that serve museums and archives. At every conference, there may be a session, workshop, or practice that really stands out. We want to share with you some experiences.

Here are some of the best practices for conferences that we have recently seen, which we hope every conference will consider adopting:

SCIP 2010 “Vendor Workshop”

While restricted to vendors, you may find it interesting to know that this workshop allows vendors to practice delivering pitches to our competitors - our peers - while the moderator provides feedback. The conference organizers also review basic interview techniques and measuring our ROI. Many conferences brief us on the most recent survey of the marketplace and demographics. The purpose of these types of workshops is to make your experience, the participants' experience, more productive when you visit our booths. Perhaps a conference will consider offering a similar workshop for the participants? It could be called “Tradeshow Bootcamp” and cover interview techniques, planning your path through the tradeshow floor, best times for private demonstrations, a list of new vendors this year, etc.

Museums and the Web 2010 - Crit Room

Imagine volunteering your portal (e.g. OPAC) up for critical review in front of a room full of your peers. (Your vendor sitting silently at the back of the room will beam with pride). You are only given a few minutes to provide an orientation to the web site, but the volunteers that are going to be asked to perform some tasks on it are waiting outside the room to put the site to its test. After you sit down, these volunteers ranging from end users to experts, attempt to use your portal while describing their experience. Yes, it is intimidating. Can it show you insight into the usability of your portal? Absolutely. We wish every conference offered this session.

Museums and the Web 2010 - Demonstrations

Vendors are always looking for ways to engage participants in the exhibit hall. At some conferences, SydneyPLUS sponsors a client to deliver a presentation. Museums and the Web conference had participants “take over” the exhibit hall floor for part of the day to offer presentations to other participants. While vendors could offer the presentations themselves, it was an opportunity for the vendor to invite one of their clients to occupy the booth. Instead of talking with the vendor, you had the chance to speak to the client using their product. The focus did not need to be on the product, but what the client had achieved with it. As a vendor, these demonstrations succeed in the desired “word of mouth” aspect of marketing products.

SLA “Hot Topic” Sessions

Among many sessions offered at SLA, the value of having sessions that bring you up to speed on developments in your industry is invaluable. Along with the “Ideas” bulletin boards, which allow you to share innovation with other participants, there are many efforts to foster discussion. With the growth in virtual participation among attendees updating blogs, wikis, Twitter, etc., the speed at which a good idea can spread among participants at a conference is astounding.

The Future of Conferences

Whether you are a museum, library, or archive, there is value in attending a conference in a related field. As a vendor, we have the privilege of experiencing the “best of the best.”

We have noticed some trends among recent conferences:

- rise in panels as participants want more perspectives in a shorter amount of time

- part of every conference is being left open for spontaneity (e.g. Museums and the Web offered an “Unconference Session” where the participants propose their own topics for discussion)

- use of portable technology is outpacing the infrastructure at many conference sites (e.g. ranging from saturating the Wi-Fi to not finding an available outlet for charing your device)

- memorizing the Flickr, Twitter, etc. tags is essential to participate online while at the conference, but many participates will participate after the conference

- organizers increasingly have to brand their Flickr, Twitter, etc. tags in their banners and prominently display them everywhere (e.g. web site, program, pre and post e-mail, etc.)

- vendors are increasingly offering more services and products in more disciplines, which is making it more challenging for participants to make comparisons on the tradeshow floor

SydneyPLUS Welcomes Questor

2010-04-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

SydneyPLUS International would like to welcome Questor employees and the users of Argus to the SydneyPLUS family. We are pleased with the opportunity of leveraging our complementary technologies to accelerate innovation and deliver on a shared vision of new, powerful and adaptable collection management solutions for the cultural and academic world.

In our partnership with Questor employees and Argus users, we continue our dedication to maintaining and enhancing a quality that all our customers have come to expect — technical innovation, exceptional service, outstanding reliability and a lifelong reputation for integrity.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call us at 310 316 9511 or email us at info@questorsys.com. A full press release is available here.

SydneyPLUS launches Competitive Intelligence Dashboard

2010-03-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

SydneyPLUS attended the 2010 SCIP Conference on March 10-12, 2010 which was held at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, D.C. The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals is an organization for everyone involved in creating and managing business knowledge. This was a milestone event for SydneyPLUS as we had the opportunity to launch our competitive intelligence product and solution offering, SydneyPLUS CI.

SydneyPLUS CI was met with a great deal of interest by myriad firms represented at the conference. SydneyPLUS' capabilities in enterprise class data aggregation, integration to both in-house and external content stores and research databases (public domain and subscribed), and our ability to deliver relevant information dynamically and instantaneously to those that need it set us apart from many solutions on the market.

SydneyPLUS Listens to Library Directors

2010-03-03T14:50:00.000-08:00

SydneyPLUS staff recently attended the Ark Group / Managing Partner Magazine's 4th Annual "Best Practice & Management Strategies for Law Firm Library & Information Service Centers" on February 25 held in New York.

The seminar was attended by more than 50 directors and managers of law firm libraries. Notably, 6 out of the 11 speakers were SydneyPLUS clients; it is always admirable to see our clients share with their peers! If you were not able to attend in person, then you may want to read the posting by Greg Lambert, Library & Records Manager, King & Spalding.

There were a number of KM initiatives discussed as means for the library to serve the business interests of the firm, including expertise management, which is the practice of providing a means of collecting the skills and experience of staff for the purpose of helping identify the right person for a given project. SydneyPLUS offers an expertise management system.

SydneyPLUS published an article in LibraryWorks describing such an expertise management system, which uses SydneyPLUS kmBuilder, our user interface for creating relational databases (SQL or Oracle), and SydneyPLUS Information Manager, our user interface for building a KM portal. The result is a flexible system for storing any data about a person's experience.

SydneyPLUS during the Olympic Games

2010-02-12T16:14:00.000-08:00

As you may know, SydneyPLUS has its headquarters near Vancouver, BC, which is the host of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. SydneyPLUS has taken steps ahead of the games to ensure service levels remain in place.

There is a lot of excitement surrounding the games, which you can see in this photograph of the torch being shared through Vancouver on its way to the Games.

Photograph credit: Alicia

Showcase Your Library to Senior Management

2010-02-05T15:19:00.000-08:00

Start 2010 with your best foot forward by reminding senior management of the high value service your library provides to your organization.

We are committed to helping you prepare for any presentation to senior management that involves SydneyPLUS. As part of that commitment, SydneyPLUS is offering to its library directors the services of its consultant librarians.

If you want to showcase your services or projects in SydneyPLUS, then we want to help you by assigning one of our consultant librarians to assist you. SydneyPLUS staff will assist you in a number of ways:

- creating PowerPoint presentations
- providing talking points

Some clients may prefer to have our consultant librarians partner with them during the presentation. SydneyPLUS can deliver the presentation on your behalf, or participate on a call as to answer questions.

Looking Inward to Expand Library Services Outward

2010-01-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

Libraries are always looking for ways to offer more services without increasing their workload, which often means making more use of existing products and services. In fact, special libraries have reported that librarians should market services that align themselves with the essential needs of the parent organization, which has proven to be one of the best ways to prevent downsizing and cost cutting during a recession. Where could we find a new service that we could market to the organization, while addressing the priorities of senior management? Special libraries should look within for inspiration, because information about their own firms’ staff - information more valuable than all of its books and journals combined - can be found there. Special libraries can help achieve their firms’ business objectives by providing senior management with the ability to identify such expertise.

Most special libraries have the potential to offer a new service at little to no additional cost without realizing it. The product of many libraries is access to organized information, which is stored in the catalog in the form of books, journals, etc. Your library may have already expanded the catalog to include a FAQ, competitive intelligence, continuing education courses, etc. There are obviously many uses for a catalog, in terms of providing access to information, that your parent organization needs. The distinguishing factor for expanding into these areas is the realization that your organization is already using other products and services, other vendors, and may even have internal departments set up to manage such information. Special libraries should compete to be the provider of these other uses for information. Senior management, if we are successful, should be left turning to the library as their first choice.

The thread that ties all these uses of information together is people. Whether it is circulating a book to a borrower, or conducting research on behalf of a patron, special libraries know a lot about the most valuable resource in an organization – their staff. At a minimum, your library probably has the name and contact information for the employees within the organization. Many special libraries are set up to receive an import from HR or IT departments to keep their borrower records current. Very few special libraries have made any effort to make their borrower records available on their intranets or internal portals.

While there is already a system in place for HR, these systems are rigid and defined for their application, which is to support payroll, medical benefits, and manage work performance. As librarians, we can see a much bigger picture when we look to social networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Facebook where individuals and organizations describe their expertise to market their services outwardly. There is an equally strong demand within any organization to know who the best person is for a particular job or client, but this is usually left to an informal process, such as the judgment call of a manager, which is more difficult in large organizations with many offices spread out across other divisions, such as language, time zones, etc....

There is a more detailed article by SydneyPLUS International in the January 2010 issue of LibraryWorks

Summary of 2010 predictions for legal technology

2010-01-06T16:03:00.000-08:00

Are you too busy to read all of the predictions for 2010 about the technology used by law firms? We asked our SydneyPLUS consultant librarians to take on the task of reading several blogs and articles for you and provide a summary.

Next, we decided to ask our team to report back to us a list of predictions that appeared on the majority of the sources we consulted. Here is what 2010 appears to hold for legal technology according to the "wisdom of the crowds" online:

1. More applications will be developed for mobile phones (e.g. iPhones, BlackBerry), more firms will support the use of these devices, and there will be more competition.

2. Social networking (e.g. LinkedIn) will become more important to firms.

Obviously, when you try to summarize so many sources, some of the details fall to the side, but feel free to read some of the many 2010 predictions made by the experts, editors, etc. working with legal technology, and we feel you will agree that these two predictions seemed to be shared.

When we asked one of our SydneyPLUS consultant librarians for the “most interesting” prediction of 2010 that he reviewed, he cited the prediction about the importance of touch screen technology, similar to tablet computing, in terms of the future development of web sites, a prediction made by many experts, such as Steven Matthews and Dennis Kennedy.

For a reality check, we compared the 2010 predictions in legal technology to the 2009 predictions by Dennis Kennedy. Spoiler alert: his predictions from 2009 are nearly identical to the predictions made for 2010, which can be interpreted many, many ways. The simplest explanation is that predicting what will happen in legal technology from year to year is naturally going to have some repetitiveness because it often takes more than a year for the predictions to come true, and it certainly takes time for predictions to become true for everyone.

-----------------

Some of the blogs and articles we consulted in no particular order:

Jason Plant, "Top 5 Legal IT Technologies of 2010," No Option for Law Firm!, 1 January 2010: http://tinyurl.com/ye97vo4

Neyah Kane Bennett, "Pondering the Year Ahead in Technology, The Connecticut Law Tribune on Law.com, 5 January 2010: http://tinyurl.com/yctuj4r

Steven Matthews, "Web Law Predictions for 2010," Slaw.ca: http://tinyurl.com/y8toekq

"Nine Legal Technology Trends for 2009: The Year of Hunkering Down," DennisKennedy.com, 29 April 2009: http://tinyurl.com/dma6mu

How to Approach a Library Vendor

2009-12-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

As library technicians and graduate students near the end of a term, many of them are working on their final projects.

As a matter of becoming a library technician or librarian, there is always at least one course that requires students to approach a library vendor.

The assignment typically involves asking a group of students to approach more than one library vendor with a scenario, such as a law firm library seeking a library system.

As library and knowledge management vendors, we collectively have a responsibility to assist these students for many reasons:

(a) These students will be our future clients.
(b) These students may be our future employees.
(c) These projects are an opportunity for us to see requests for future features

Students should not feel intimidated about contacting a library vendor for the reasons above, since you are doing us a favour. As major vendors employ several consultant librarians and library technicians, you will find a friendly voice on the other end.

For instructors and students, we have the following suggestions to make the most of your assignment.

• Instruct students to contact us as soon as possible

Here is what we eventually want to see in our e-mail correspondence:

o Your contact information
o Your school, course, and instructor
o The due date for a response
o Some key facts about your library
o Your reason for approaching us

The last point – your reason for approaching us – is the most often overlooked item, but it has the most impact on how responsive the vendor will be to assisting you.

Whether it is a student project involving a library vendor, or walking into a job interview with a library, we all want to know why you have approached us.

• Contact us as soon as possible

Most students approach vendors through a sales or support phone numbers, and it will take time for your request to find its way to the best staff person.

• Instructors should compile a list of contacts for the students

One of the best approaches we have seen to helping students with these projects is where the instructor has already screened the vendors that are willing to help. Generally, every major vendor has a designated staff person(s) for these types of student outreach projects.

• Instructors should try to time the assignments where there is a lull for vendors

While this will vary, the major vendors will be busier during conference season, particularly major conferences, such as SLA, ALA (e.g. June).

Some vendors will disagree with the following statement, but in our experience serving special libraries, there is a lull during September, October, and January.

• Follow up with your library vendor after the project

We understand that for many students, the assignment to approach a vendor may be the “final project,” and the last item on your agenda is more work. You are probably tired from your studies and need a break, but similar to any job interview you will leave a lasting impression for yourself and your school, if you send us a quick update.

• Send us a list of questions

For many libraries searching for systems, there is a RFI or RFP (Request For Information/Proposal), which is a formal document asking for detailed information.

While you would not want to send something that expansive to a vendor for a student assignment, sending us a form with a few questions (e.g. 10 questions) is fine.

Vendors are less responsive when you send us a general request for “brochures and marketing literature” because many of us now support numerous products and platforms.

• Consider scheduling a demonstration for the class

In the past, we have had students ask for a tour of our facilities, which required a lot of planning in advance. We have even sent our consultant librarians to the school for a demonstration. Nonetheless, the library vendor may not be able to provide a demo in response to every request from a student group. Consider a demo for your whole class.

Best of luck to the students that SydneyPLUS International has assisted this year!

SydneyPLUS Thanks for Thanksgiving (US)

2009-11-25T16:11:00.001-08:00

SydneyPLUS staff librarians working in our headquarters in Vancouver, BC, Canada are fortunate to live in such a beautiful place, which is evident by this photograph from Jeff Xerri, SydneyPLUS Implementation Consultant Librarian on his way to work. We wish all our US-based clients who wish to celebrate Thanksgiving a Happy Thanksgiving! Hopefully many of you will have the opportunity to visit us during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, or perhaps you will see a rainbow when visiting us at the SLA 2014 conference to be held in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Selling Your Library

2009-11-24T17:03:00.000-08:00

On Monday, November 16th, some of the staff attended a workshop on “Developing & Presenting the Value Proposition” by Maggie Weaver. The session was intended to help library management develop a presentation and demonstrate the value of their services.

The workshop provided the reason for developing value propositions, a formula for developing the propositions, and specific steps for presenting the pitch.

Some of the recommendations may appear obvious, such as focus on how your library service is going to “accelerate or increase gains” instead of “reducing costs.”

Other suggestions, such as “small samples” being acceptable for making conclusions, and how to measure anything, particularly services, may be new to many librarians.

If you want to know whether or not to use a pie chart or bar graph, then this workshop is right for you; it gets to this detailed level near the end.

Another upcoming workshop some of the SydneyPLUS staff librarians will be attending, if you happen to be in the area of Vancouver, BC:

Sales Techniques for Non-Sales People Seminar offered by the Simon Fraser University (SFU).

As librarians, taking courses on marketing and sales techniques can only better serve our profession. Marketing our library services has never been more important.

LawPort Website Launched

2009-11-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

LawPort originated under the San Francisco based company SV Technology, Inc., when it formed in 1999 in response to the emerging demand for knowledge management products and services for the field of law.

Over the years, LawPort has become the legal industry's leading Web foundation, portal and knowledge management applications suite. At its core, LawPort® provides a complete Web infrastructure, integrating the Intranet, Extranet and Internet sites to unleash and organize critical information previously locked in the firm's back office systems. LawPort's® comprehensive suite of legal applications, including Matter Centricity, Knowledge Management, Proposal & Bio Management, Experience Tracking, SharePoint/.Net Collaboration, and Financial Modeling, provide unique and out-of-the-box value to law firms.

In 2007 the company was purchased by SydneyPLUS International, a leading developer of KM solutions for numerous Fortune 1000 companies. Headquartered in Vancouver B.C. Canada, LawPort continues under the name of SydneyPLUS | LawPort.

Prevent Pollution With SydneyPLUS

2009-11-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

As autumn has arrived at our headquarters, in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, and the falling leaves has made us reflect on how nature is constantly “recycling.”

At SydneyPLUS International, we practice Pollution Prevention (P2) year round, which has us not only recycling, but minimizing pollution.

Environment Canada defines Pollution Prevention as a movement:

“…when people change their plans, practices and habits in order to reduce the generation of pollution and waste at the source….”

While there are many examples of P2, and Environment Canada has a “tip sheet” for your business, we want to share with you a couple of stories involving SydneyPLUS staff.

SydneyPLUS encourages staff to bicycle to work because Richmond, BC is relatively flat and the maritime climate makes the weather the same from day to day, if a bit rainy. “I bike to work every day,” says R&D staff person Gordon Tisher. “It prevents pollution and improves my health…” With showers provided on site and secure storage, SydneyPLUS makes it easy for staff to bicycle to work, and it helps to be part of a community that promotes cycling, such as the convenience of taking a bicycle on public transit.

Turning off the lights is a simple step to preventing pollution. If you have visited our headquarters for training, then you may have found yourself briefly in the dark. “While not our intention,” chuckles Mark Maslowski, Manager of Marketing, “we have had staff turn off the lights in our conference room with the clients still in it when leaving the room… it is part of our routine for staff to finds ways to conserve energy.”

Every Month is Library Month

2009-10-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

How many months, weeks, and days are celebrated by libraries? A lot. Here is a chronological list of "library months" with a bias for Canadian and US activities to limit the number:

If you feel your month is not represented in this list, which is not intended to be exhaustive, then post a comment. Clearly, we have a lot to celebrate as librarians.

With some regret, we could not find a Library Vendors' Month. Perhaps that month exists, and we simply could not find it at the top of the search results.

Has anyone created a calendar with every library month, week, and day on it?

FEBRUARY

Library Lovers' Month [Friends & Foundations of California Libraries]

There are several public libraries that seem to have a "library month in February."

APRIL

National Library Week [ALA]

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School Library Media Month

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April 13

National Library Workers Day [ALA-APA]

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April 14

National Bookmobile Day

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Banned Books Week [ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom]

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April 15

Teen Literature Day [YALSA]

SEPTEMBER

Library Card Sign-Up Month [ALA]

September 8

International Literacy Day [UNESCO]

OCTOBER

Canadian Library Month

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International School Library Month

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National Medical Librarians Month

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Fourth Monday in October

National School Library Day [e.g. British Columbia Teacher-Librarians'Association]

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Theological Libraries Month [American Theological Library Association]

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National Information Literacy Awareness Month

There are many, many more library months, weeks, and days to celebrate.

Change SLA to ASKPro

2009-10-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

You may have already heard that the Special Libraries Association (SLA) is proposing to change its name to the the Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals (ASKPro).

We think a change to the name of the Special Libraries Association is overdue.

As a vendor that serves special libraries, we changed our approach to marketing to special libraries many years ago to reflect how senior management comes to know the library.

Whether it is stopping an attorney on the tradeshow floor at LegalTech, or a CIO at the ILTA conference, the term "library" may make the person reach for the dictionary.

The Special Libraries Association is correct in its letter to members explaining the need for the change:

"...executives who make hiring decisions and allocate budget dollars do not understand what it means."

Of course, senior management knows what the term means, but that can be the problem when we are trying to describe how library professionals support intranets, cost recovery, databases design, competitive intelligence, etc. SLA has shown restraint in coming up with ASKPro.

What's in a name? We have found so many derivations that it must be a difficult task for SLA to have arrived at a proposal.

Whether it is a knowledge management division, information resource centres, research support centres, etc., we have found that "library" is not enough to convey where our services and products fit in with the strategic goals of the parent organization being served by the library.

Even if the final name does not incorporate "strategic knowledge," it is a step in the right direction. While our staff will continue to use "librarian" on their business cards, it makes sense for the professional body advocating their expertise - SLA - to speak to a broader audience.

Whether it is SydneyPLUS International, or any other major vendor supporting library systems, it is interesting to note that vendors do not have "libraries" in their names.

In part, these vendors have known for a long time that there is a wider audience to be marketing their services and products too. And the library director or manager knows that too.

On the lighter side, here are some random thoughts on the matter:

The domain for askpro.org and askpro.com is already taken. Whether or not it has been registered by SLA, we do not know. At least one of these domains appears to be owned by an individual. We wonder whether or not SLA will also register for .com

Wonder if the proposed name change will cascade to other professional organizations, such as AALL and MLA? It is probably a matter of time.

SydneyPLUS Thanks for Thanksgiving (Canada)

2009-10-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

With the (Canadian) Thanksgiving Day on Monday, October 12th, we thought our members may want to take a break from reading about SydneyPLUS products and services, and reflect on an inspiring story about a William Kamkwamba, a windmill, and the positive role of libraries.

Here is the inspiring story:

William Kamkwamba was born August 5, 1987, in Malawi, Africa. Something remarkable happened to him at the age of 14. While poverty made him drop out of school at that age, he built a windmill to generate electricity for his home in a country where only two percent of the population can afford it. Where did he learn to build a windmill? A nearby library.

Movingwindmills.org, an official site with more information, affirms the role of the library:

"Armed with curiosity, determination and a library book he discovered in a nearby library, he embarked on a daring plan—to build a windmill that could bring his family the electricity only two percent of Malawians could afford."

You can read William's autobiography this Thanksgiving as it was recently released worldwide on September 29, 2009.

Cost Recovery Must Be On the Radar

2009-10-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

Recently finished reading the posting "Using Technology to Manage Costs" on the blog Above and Beyond KM, but we were surprised that there was no mention of using a Cost Recovery system to track the usage of legal research despite law firms spending over $1 million on online resources.

"...costs for electronic resources other than LexisNexis and Westlaw rose in 2008, with the average firm spending just over $1 million, compared to some $929,000 in 2007."
Source: http://tinyurl.com/y98l3ly

Making the Case for Cost Recovery

2009-10-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

Here are two relevant articles that make the case that Cost Recovery should be part of your strategy:

Law Firm Cost Recovery Is Here to Stay
http://tinyurl.com/kqabdh

By Robert C. Mattern
Special to Law.com
July 6, 2009

Law Librarians: 'No More Sacred Cows'
http://tinyurl.com/y98l3ly

By Alan Cohen
The American Lawyer
September 3, 2009

SydneyPLUS New York Office Moves: New location to improve service infrastructure

2009-09-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

(Vancouver, Canada – September 25, 2009) SydneyPLUS International, producer of innovative km solutions for Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies around the world, has moved their New York offices to a new midtown location.

When Dedicated Account Representative and office manager Andrea Specchialo wanted to upgrade office network and telephone lines to better serve customers, she discovered they would have to change location: The office just did not have the needed service infrastructure – and so began the search for a new office.

After a thorough survey of the New York area, Andrea found an excellent centrally located space at 230 Park Avenue, formerly known as the Helmsley Building at 46th Street. “Like all good New Yorkers we are concerned about location, location, location, so what could be better than to move into a premier landmark building everyone recognizes,” says Andrea. “Especially if it turns out that the location has both the full service infrastructure we need, along with an excellent rental proposition.”
“When Andrea brought me her proposal” says Neil Corris, Operations Director at SydneyPLUS, “I realized we had to act: Here was an opportunity to serve our customers better while still being able to exercise the type of fiscal prudence all companies are compelled to these days.”

The new office has:

the service infrastructure needed to enhance our telephone and networking capabilities with clients
a midtown address that both New Yorkers and visitors will find easy to locate

“When visiting our city or, if you are a local and simply have the opportunity, we invite our clients to drop by and see us in our new building,” says Joe Phillips, veteran SydneyPLUS Technical Support Representative / Dedicated Account Representative.

Completely modernized and a full service building, the historic tower originally served as headquarters of the New York Central railroad companies. Above the elevator doors, bronze reliefs depict a winged helmet surrounding a globe, symbolizing the American empire's global reach. Today the building is making headway into how historic properties can meet the needs of the next century.

SydneyPLUS New York is located at 230 Park Ave, 10th Floor, New York, New York.

About SydneyPLUS International
As a leading developer of Knowledge Management solutions since 1977, SydneyPLUS has partnered with some of the world’s leading businesses — including Fortune 1000 companies and law firms — to provide increased financial and organizational returns through improved access to information.
Whether the goal is to manage a single database of experts within a pharmaceutical company, the digitized special effects collection of a film production company, or all the corporate libraries within a multinational law firm, any organization will achieve increased benefits from more efficient access to their high-value knowledge assets, while enhancing revenues, dramatically increasing efficiency, and reducing costs. SydneyPLUS International is available online at http://www.sydneyplus.com.

SydneyPLUS SNUG 2009 goes virtual

2009-09-23T09:55:00.000-07:00

Press Release:

SydneyPLUS SNUG 2009 goes virtual (Vancouver, Canada - September 17, 2009). This year's SNUG (SydneyPLUS National Users Group) meeting, held on September 15, 2009, was an unqualified success - perhaps the best so far. Surprisingly, this meeting almost didn't happen. With the economic downturn, many companies had reduced their travel budgets, making it hard for users to get to the proposed annual SNUG meeting in Chicago. Undaunted, this year's SNUG client committee decided to turn the situation into an opportunity and host a virtual meeting over the internet. Originally aimed at SydneyPLUS clients in North America, SNUG 2009 would now be open to the world.

Being new to a venture on this scale, client committee members, with the assistance of SydneyPLUS, worked over the summer to plan, organize and test the technology necessary to make it all happen. In the end, the careful planning paid off and the meeting went smoothly. The topics were timely and the sessions were packed to a "virtual" capacity. This year's sessions focused on best practices in managing e-journals, SharePoint integration and new product development - such as the SydneyPLUS cost Recovery Module. All sessions were well-attended and enthusiastically received. So much so, that the SNUG09 Twitter page, provided to ensure clients could post feedback during the sessions, hummed with comments like, "Wow, we just finished the first session. This was an awesome experience. Thanks to all who presented and participated." and "We just completed a very successful meeting. It was EXCELLENT!"

This year's SNUG had a number of firsts:

Due to its online nature, SNUG 2009 was open to clients around the world.
Best practices sessions were recorded, allowing clients unable to attend to learn from other clients.
The use of Twitter to post feedback about the conference helped ensure the meeting kept on track.
Special effort was focused toward making clients from the diverse industries SydneyPLUS supports, feel represented. To that end, presentations were kept short, providing opportunity for interests to be heard from all industries.

With such a positive reception, it's likely the client committee will consider continuing this approach in future SNUG meetings. In the meantime, SydneyPLUS clients can further network by visiting the client supported SNUG wiki at https://snug.pbworks.com. They are also welcome to follow SydneyPLUS at http://twitter.com/sydneyplus.