Southern libraries form cost saving consortium

Eight Otago and Southland councils have signed an historic Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate in the delivery of public library services across the two regions.

The councils party to this Memorandum of Understanding are the Dunedin City Council, Invercargill City Council, Southland District Council, Queenstown Lakes District Council, Central Otago District Council, Waitaki District Council, Gore District Council and the Clutha District Council. The libraries collaborating under this Memorandum are collectively referred to as the “SouthLib Consortium.”

The Memorandum of Understanding provides a framework for the collaboration and governance through a Steering Committee with representatives from each council.

The first project on which five of the eight councils are collaborating is the shared purchase, implementation and operation of the “SirsiDynix Symphony” library computer system which will support the library services of the participating councils. They are Dunedin, Invercargill, Southland, Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago.

One early benefit of the collaboration is that the purchase and implementation costs for the remaining three councils – Gore, Waitaki and Clutha will be held firm for a period of up to three years.

The implementation and ongoing operational costs of the “Symphony” system, which will be hosted from the Venture Southland Room in the Invercargill City Library, will also be shared by the participating councils, spreading and reducing the costs to each council. The Symphony system has been installed by and will be supported by Gen-i Southland. In addition, the Invercargill City Council and the Southland District Councils will be supporting the backup and disaster recovery of the system.

The collaboration will have ongoing benefits of lower operating costs for each participating council as well as the benefit of sharing library cataloguing information within a modern, sophisticated library management system. The Otago and Southland communities will find it easier to locate and share books and other library materials.

The first councils to go live with the new system will be Dunedin in late October 2009 and Invercargill in November 2009, with Southland District due to go live in April 2010 and Queenstown Lakes and Central Otago to follow in May 2010.