Anne Fischer - Learning Retrospective

The Library Corporation User (TLCU) conference was held in Charleston, South Carolina, October 18th-21st. I was very excited to be able to attend the conference. It was nice not being the “new” customer this year as I was able to visit with staff from other CARL libraries that I had met last year and communicated with throughout the year.

The Library Corporation (TLC) is a family owned business and is still run by Annette Murphy, the co-founder, President/CEO, and Chairman of the Board of the company. Each year she opens the conference by sharing information and pictures about TLC libraries and what they are doing. This year’s conference theme was “Go Beyond” and she shared what libraries are doing beyond their walls to reach the citizens of their communities.

TLC has two versions of software: Carl.X is designed for larger metropolitan libraries and Library Solutions (LS) is designed for smaller public and school libraries. The conference has several general sessions for all attendees but much of the conference is broken into the Carl.X (Denver) group and the LS (Inwood) group so that attendees hear information about the product they use.

Items that were added or updated on the Carl.X system this year include:

• CARL Connect – web-based version of their software 
• E-mail receipts 
• Bibliographic Record Merge (Cataloging function) 
• “Coming Due” notices via text message 
• Item Transaction History 
• New Notices Server (behind the scenes software for sending notices) 
• Improvements to patron notes (can now change note type without deleting and re-adding) 
• Enhanced Cataloging macros

In LS2 Pac (the catalog):

• Added call number searching 
• Completed eMedia integration where users can now download directly from the catalog and see the items in “My Account.” 
• Added the ability for customers to updated their own addresses 
• Allowed customers to opt-in for text reminders on “coming due” materials and hold notices 
• Allowed customers to opt-in to receive checkout and renewal receipts via e-mail 
• Allow customers to update their preferred library 
• Added a “Share This” button

We heard about projects at other libraries including: Muncie Public Library circulating Rokus and mobile hotspots; Alamance County is checking out Zoo passes, and LA Public is checking out Energy Use Monitors, toy kits, and Ukeleles. Chris Hay from New Zealand shared “A Kiwi Perspective on Innovation,” and Contra Costa shared about their Discover & Go program where they’ve worked with over 60 organizations to obtain free and low-cost tickets to museums, zoos and other local culture venues that customers can check out and use to visit the sites.

We also learned what is coming in CARL Connect (we will be getting this very soon!), and also heard from Contra Costa about their library’s experiences with CARL Connect and how they have used it away from the Service Desk. And, in case you are wondering, CARL Connect is software that runs within a web browser and can work on a tablet so it can be used almost anywhere, including outside the library.

We do know that Collections (Acquisitions and Cataloging) will be the next modules developed for CARL Connect product and by the end of 2016, TLC plans to have released this module as well as a Reports and a Discovery module called Carl Connect Discovery which will be a rebranding of LS2 Pac for CARL customers.

On Wednesday, our director, Tim Rogers, was the closing keynote speaker. Tim talked about Leadership in the 21st Century Library and how we can better assess and communicate the library’s value to all that we work with including our members, partners, community decision makers, and ourselves.

Once the main sessions were over, Tim and I attended the CarlX Senior Management Summit where one or two management level people from each CARL library meet with the Senior TLC Management staff to provide input and feedback about the past year, the conference, and what has been shared at the conference about the coming year. This meeting focuses on their strategic direction and feedback on whether or not the libraries feel that the company is going in the right direction on their development path.