Exsys will help book borrowers

Press, 12 March 1985, Page 27

Exsys will help book borrowers

The first Exsys customer in Christchurch, Canterbury Public Library, will be a very high-profile site for the new fourth-generation software product, according to one of the product’s developers, Mr Peter Roselli. Eventually the library plans to place terminals in the public areas of the library so that the public can have on-line access to the catalogue. This will give many people in Christchurch the opportunity to interact with the locallydeveloped Exsys system.

However, there is no firm date yet for this stage of the project. Ms Helen Tait, deputy city librarian, hopes that the public-access catalogue may be implemented during 1987. The signing of the scmthick contract between the Christchurch City Council, Adata Software, Ltd (the Exsys developer), Data General (which will supply the computer hardware) and Comaint-ADE (which will supply 16 new book readers) last month was the end of a two-year search by library and City Council staff for a new computer system for the Canterbury Public Library. The library’s circulation system is now handled by a combination of in-house book readers and the computer bureau services of Datacom Systems, Ltd. This is costing the library about $lOO,OOO a year in charges. Two years ago, the circulation librarian, Ms Joan Blatchford, visited the United States specially to look at computer installations in public libraries.

From Ms Blatchford’s report the library issued a request for information late in 1983 which went out to 12 companies. Then in August, 1984,. three companies, Data General, Datacom Systems and AWA, were sent a re-

quest for a proposal document. These three companies submitted proposals which were evaluated by a team drawn up from library and City Council staff. The November meeting of the council gave the library permission to negotiate with the eventual vendors. The Mayor of Christchurch, Sir Hamish Hay, paid tribute at the signing ceremony to the council’s data-processing experts who helped with the evaluation.

“It was a very considerable team effort from our senior staff,” he said. Adata Software is taking responsibility for the project and has committed three of its staff specially to the library project.

Cr Rex Arbuckle, chairman of the council’s cultural and public relations committee, said that Adata “got the business on its merits.” “But it would be fair to say there would be a degree of sympathy for a local company,” he added. “Adata was very careful not to stress its local status,” said Ms Tait. “It wanted to put a proposal through on its own merits.” During the evaluation period, Adata developed some of the elementary features of the proposed

library system on Exsys to demonstrate the principles of Exsys. The $1 million contract is for Adata to supply a turnkey system with checks of progress along the way and a final payment for the system only once it is completed. “There are quite elaborate penalty clauses in the contract,” said Cr Arbuckle. The proceeds from any sales of the software to other New Zealand libraries will be shared equally be-

tween Adata and the library. By May, Adata hopes to have the circulation system in operation with the full catalogue of the library to be placed on the computer by the end of the year. Next year, Adata will implement an acquisitions system and a system to keep track of the library’s periodicals. The public access catalogue will follow, probably in 1987. The computer system will comprise a Data General MV/8000 processor with 27 terminals (including terminals in the four branches of the library) and connections to the 16 book readers. Over the next three years the number of terminals is expected to increase to 51. The book readers, which automatically recognise a

book when it is passed over them, will be more modern versions of the readers now used in the library. The South Island manager for Data General, Mr Andrew Davidge, said that his company and Adata worked very hard to get the library business. “It was a very competitive situation and we were particularly happy to have such a prominent site as a showcase for Exsys,” he said.