The University of Bradford has extended their Sentry Access Control into the School of Management Library with the installation of new IDL Fastlane 400MA turnstiles, with new graphic displays and “traffic lights” to guide students.

Linked to the Sentry system in the University’s main J. B. Priestley Library, the system allows staff to manage the 600 students a day who use the facility. Installed during the Summer as part of the entrance refurbishment, the system has been well received by students and staff alike.

To read more about our Sentry Access Control System, click here.

Following our Sentry User Group on Tuesday 13th May at 170 Queen’s Gate, Imperial College, we are pleased to announce that we have now begun to analyse the feedback in order to employ it in the continuing development of our Sentry Access Control software range.

The event was a huge success, with Sentry users from many Institutions across the UK contributing to the on-going discussion on where to take Sentry over the coming years. We would like to thank all of our attendees for giving up their time, and also to Paula Clover, from the University of Huddersfield, who presented a segment about the reaction from students and impact on Library staff of the Temporary Card Kiosk.

Changes to the format for SUG this time included the addition of four ‘break out’ sessions, giving attendees a choice of which discussion to attend. These largely seemed popular, although we will take on board suggests about making them longer next time.

If you would like to receive a PDF copy of the presentations delivered throughout the day, or the minutes for this event, please contact us here

 

 

Telepen is pleased to announce that it is collaborating with the University of Manchester to develop a system to manage study space. This idea was the winning suggestion in the Eureka Library Innovation Challenge launched in 2013 as a way for students to present their ideas for improving The University of Manchester Library and its services.

Jade Brodie was voted the winner of the 2013 challenge. Jade, who is from Stoke on Trent, is a final year student in International Management with American Business Studies. Her winning idea is to create and develop individual study desk log-ins to free up much needed study space in the Library when students leave their belongings at a desk for long periods of time.

Runner up Ariana Demian presented her idea for a traffic light system to indicate which desks are available in the Library, making the search for a space to study quicker and easier, and this concept together with Jade’s winning entry will be incorporated in the system being developed by Telepen.

Since 2009, when The University of Manchester Library published its New Directions 2009-2012 strategy, the Library has sought to “embrace technology… to improve the experience of customers.”

With this in mind, the last three years have seen the launch of many new innovative services including:

• Library portlets in My Manchester, the University’s student and staff portal
• the expansion of self-issue and return of books including the implementation of a high capacity book sorter
• the expansion of group study room provision managed by room booking software and access control
• the introduction of new entrance and exit gates in the refurbished Main Library
• the introduction of mobile enabled interfaces to many of its systems
• the launch of a new Library discovery service.

Underpinning all this is a desire to make better use of data to understand better how our services are used and how they could be improved. When the Sentry User Group met at the University’s Manchester Museum in December 2011, the Library had the opportunity to showcase some of these developments given the Museum’s proximity to the Main Library building. It also enabled Library staff to get feedback from colleagues from other institutions and to find out about new developments from the developers of Sentry.

Sentry Isis is an access control system developed and Integrating access control with library systems and services supported by SB Electronic Systems Ltd. also known as Telepen. Sentry Isis is used within the Library to manage access gates at various Library sites. Sentry Isis Secure Room Booking is used by the Library to provide booking and access management for its range of group study facilities. In the coming months the two systems will be implemented in the University’s new dedicated study facility, the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons, due to open this autumn and managed by the Library.

Around 50 users attended the User Group from a range of further and higher education institutions. Held every two years, the event provides the opportunity for Sentry customers to discuss and promote developments of Sentry based services, for Telepen to flag possible initiatives and seek feedback and for third parties to highlight new services of relevance to Sentry users.

The Library has, for some time, been looking at how better to manage the issuing of temporary passes to external Library users, to Manchester students who have forgotten their University access card and to contractors and visitors to the Library. A session at the User Group, run by myself and June Howarth from the Library’s Customer Services team, gave us the opportunity to propose developments in Sentry that could meet our requirements and for us, and Telepen, to assess interest and requirements from other institutions. The proposal includes the provision of a self-service kiosk that will integrate with the Sentry user database (which in turn is integrated with the Library’s Library Management System, Capita Alto) to issue a temporary pass that automatically expires at the end of the day. The overall proposal was well received and Telepen committed to going away to consider development of this functionality. A session in the afternoon from Alan Elkes, Sales and Marketing Director at Telepen, outlined the increasing availability of reliable fingerprint recognition systems to manage access, providing another alternative solution to the forgotten card problem.

A lunch-time tour of the Main Library building provided us with the opportunity to demonstrate some of the new technologies introduced over the last three years. The entry and exit gates installed in 2009 have recently been upgraded to include new customisable display screens (demonstrated by Telepen at the User Group morning session) that better manage the flow of customers into the building and provide the opportunity to display customer specific information driven from our Library Management System (functionality we are yet to take advantage of). A kiosk near the gates provides an interface to the group study room booking system (students can also get access through My Manchester), showing room availability and allowing students to book a space. The tour continued up to the second floor of the Library where 14 group study rooms were opened in 2009.

Each room includes audio visual equipment and access is managed by automated door controllers driven by the Sentry system (group study rooms and managed study spaces at other Library sites use the same room booking system but do not use the automated door controllers). Back on the ground floor we demonstrated our new self-service issue machines and returns book sorter, recently purchased from the company 2CQR.

The afternoon session of the User Group included a presentation from Karen Reece, Head of Sales and Support at Capita Software Services, in integrating Sentry with a Library Management System. The session included consideration of combining data from the two systems, giving libraries more powerful management information. As indicated above, using management information to better understand the use of our services is a key requirement for The University of Manchester Library and so the combining of usage data from different systems is very attractive. The Library uses Capita Decisions, based on the management information tool, Business Objects, to analyse data from its Library Management System, and this has been combined with data from the Sentry database to give a better understanding of the use of services by customers. The University of Manchester Library, as is the case with many other HE and FE libraries, is looking continually at how it can develop and integrate its systems and applications to provide better services to its customers, working closely with vendors when appropriate.

Access control in the Library has, over the past three years, developed from simply managing access into a building to supporting a wide range of new services and to providing management information that improves our understanding of our customers’ behaviour. The Sentry User Group provided an excellent opportunity for us to feed into future developments in this area and to learn about the innovative developments taking place in other institutions.

A Library for our Sixth Century

On September 12, 2011 the doors to the new University Library at the University of Aberdeen opened to customers for the first time. This was the culmination of one of the most ambitious fund-raising projects the University has undertaken, and has resulted in an iconic library building designed for learning in the 21st century.

The new University Library at Aberdeen replaces the Queen Mother Library, built in the 1960s and extended in the 1980s when the number of students at Aberdeen was around 6000. With a student population now of around 16,000 the old facilities were both inadequate in terms of space and facilities and inflexible in design to accommodate modern learning methods.

Construction to the design of Danish architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen began in 2009, and occupation and transfer of books from the old library took place during the summer of 2011.

DEMOCRATIC SPACE

The ground floor of the library, with its Gallery, Café and Events Area, is open to everyone, and members of the public are welcome to visit and view the magnificent atrium which draws the eye up to the 7th floor and, in the words of the architects, “democratises” the space.

Access to the upper and lower floors is controlled by a Sentry Isis system linked to Gunnebo Speedstile gates, where students, staff and signed-in visitors can explore the collections. The stainless steel cabinets and transparent gates were chosen to fit in with the light, spacious, and elegant design aesthetic of the building.

The Sentry Isis system was the obvious choice as Sentry had been in use in the Queen Mother Library since 2003, and the library has had a long working relationship with Telepen staff since barcode scanners were first introduced in the 1980s.

ACCESS FOR ALL

The Sentry Isis system incorporates both MiFare card readers, to read University staff and student ID cards, and barcode scanners for visitor passes.

There are two gates at both the entrance and the exit – one regular width and a wider one to allow for wheelchair access, the latter having additional Mifare readers and barcode scanners on the end of the cabinet to allow for easy access from a seated position. University Librarian, Chris Banks, reported “we wanted the building to be fully accessible, including to wheelchair users, without the need to call on staff assistance”.

FULL COLOUR CLARITY

The installation at Aberdeen was one of the first to incorporate the new full colour graphics displays, which provide a much more welcoming and interactive experience for users than the previous text-only displays, with clear visual instructions on how to place the ID card for entry, as well as when to enter or exit.

Since the building opened, the statistics available from Sentry Isis Reporter have shown an increase in peak occupancy of up to 150% on the highest occupancy in the old library. This reflects the
fact that students are finding it a much more attractive building to work in and also that the building itself is drawing visitors both from the local area and further afield. In the first seven
months since opening there have been well over half a million visits, including around 30,000 visits by members of the public. The Library is also proving to be a popular venue for meetings and conferences, including the Scottish Sentry User Group in April.

Anne Beavan
Quality & Library
Applications Manager,
University of Aberdeen