SydneyPLUS SharePoint Web Part

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.