Smarter Systems win two excellence awards

A regional initiative to install a single shared library management system across five councils has been recognised as the year’s most successful project implementation at the 2006 Computerworld Excellence Awards held last night in Auckland.

Dubbed ‘Smarter Systems’, the Libraries for a Greater Auckland Region (eLGAR) project comprises North Shore City, Auckland, Manukau, Waitakere and Rodney councils.

North Shore Libraries manager Geoff Chamberlain currently chairs eLGAR which also won the Excellence in the Use of IT in Government award amid the pomp and circumstance at the black tie event.

Mr Chamberlain says Smarter Systems is a two-and-a-half year project that is delivering improved and shared services to the region’s ratepayers.

“Smarter Systems is a great tool and we’ve had feedback from people about how easy it is to use,” he says.

“People particularly enjoy the fact that they can access the new catalogue system from home. They can do everything from look at which books they have out and when they are due, to renew them.”

The judging panel acknowledged Smarter Systems as the largest and most complex collaborative IT project undertaken by local government in the Auckland region to date, and in the wider library sector nationally.

Within North Shore City, the project combined the skills of the council’s information management division and library service. Mr Chamberlain’s librarians worked closely with North Shore City’s IS manager, Jeff Shaw, and his technical team to deliver the online reality of information within reach.

eLGAR was also a finalist in a third category, Excellence in the Use of IT for Customer Service, at the prestigious Computerworld Awards.

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