As a hosted solution we are experiencing a high level of reliability, meaning the students and staff always have access to Oliver.
Sarah Lodge, Former Librarian Feversham Academy
Feversham Academy in Bradford, is a voluntary aided secondary academy for Muslim girls.
The specialist science academy educates more than 600 11-18 year olds and has grown extensively since its formation in 1984 as Bradford Muslim Girls Community School. Gaining academy status in 2011 and with a growing sixth form, it continues to provide high quality education in the local community.
The academy library holds approximately 6,000 books and resources such as cameras, projectors and AV devices. With a dedicated computer area, also holds lessons or acts as a study area for up to 30 students.
To support the management of the library, Feversham has been using Softlink’s library management system, Oliver for a number of years and recently moved to the latest hosted version. The move to the hosted version of Oliver was a seamless and cost effective process for Feversham.
From the built in reports in Oliver, Sarah instantly creates the reports required for the leadership team and including stock checks, loans, overdues, reading trends and popular titles.
Sarah comments:
“The access to reports has made my role so much easier, prior to using Oliver, I manually analysed library data and created my reports in PowerPoint. The amount of time I have saved using the inbuilt reports is fantastic, and I have more confidence in the accuracy of information included in the reports."
Using the circulation workflows in Oliver, Sarah has been able to remove the requirement for paper based records for loans and returns. Overdue notifications are now sent automatically identified and to students or staff via email, SMS or letter, saving considerable time issuing and following up overdue notifications.
By using Oliver, Sarah has experienced an increase in student engagement in the library and using the library system, through carousels, reading lists, weblinks and RSS feeds. The carousels in particular have engaged students the most.
Sarah says:
“I now use carousels to promote new arrivals to students. Not only does this reduce the time I previously spent creating lists and displaying as a PowerPoint presentation, but is now more up to date and displayed in a more attractive way for students."
Discovering information is easy for the students at Feversham, using advanced search capability in Oliver, is proving to be very effective for students when searching for resources.