An Oliver v5 User Experience Story

From Good Shepherd Lutheran School

Student and Staff Response to Oliver v5

Both staff and students have responded positively to v5. The have found it very logical and user friendly. At the time of the implementation we also installed a touch screen on our circulation desk for the students to use. They have been extremely enthusiastic about this and it compliments Oliver v5 circulation desk screen. Students in years 3-7 borrow, return and place reservations themselves using a barcode scanner and the touch screen. The number of reservations have more than doubled as students embrace the new technology and the ease of reserving items via Oliver v5.

Saving time with Oliver v5

We have found both time savings and greater efficiencies in several areas. We are now emailing senior students for both reservation and overdue notices, cutting down manual labour time and saving on paper usage. Students are embracing the new forms of technology and communication. Students are finding it more efficient to borrow, renew and reserve items, all from the one screen. This has also had an impact on teachers/classes borrowing bulk loans and being able to use the “forced due date function” to very quickly and simply change the due date of items to the end of the term, rather than our usual 2 week loan. We have also found it useful to be able to view and print students loan histories from this same screen and then to click on a particular title, and be taken to the cataloguing record has been useful.

Another function that has been extremely efficient, has been the ease in searching the catalogue via the magnifying glass icon, and then returning to the circulation desk via the two arrow icon.

We have found the training videos to be very accessible, helpful and easy to apply the information to our own context. This has also been the case with the training and user manuals.

Favourite things about Oliver v5

Being able to view and access most things that we need from the circulation desk screen. Having it all on the same screen! Yay!

Understanding the “Forced Due Date” functionality and using it, has been of wonderful use to us and teachers (who are now not getting overdue notes for items that they require for the whole term).

Finding that downloading records from SCIS, automatically download the cover image as well. (We were previously importing cataloguing records and image file separately.)

Over all

Over all we have been extremely pleased with Oliver v5 and look forward to discovering more as we stocktake in the future, as time and opportunity present.

Good Shepherd Lutheran School

Hear from more Oliver v5 users

• In this video (4:15), Dr Graham Gardner, Librarian at Abingdon school, discusses the impact and benefits of Oliver v5, his experiences with Softlink Support, and LearnPath, Softlink’s information curating tool.
  
   
• In this video (3:41), Danielle Rowley, Reading Recovery Teacher at Resurrection School, shares about the implementation process and the key features and capabilities of Oliver v5.
  
   
• In this video (2:35), Kay Oddone, Librarian at Brisbane Catholic Education, talks about the features in Oliver v5 that have helped to support teaching and learning, and engage students.