AUCKLAND CITY COUNCIL

MEDIA RELEASE

02 October 2006

eLGAR wins TUANZ Innovation Award

Auckland City, Waitakere, Rodney, North Shore and Manukau libraries, have won the Local and Central Government Award at the TUANZ Innovation Awards 2006 last Thursday.

The 2006 TUANZ Innovation Awards focused on kiwi ingenuity in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). eLGAR won the Local and Central Government Award category for the Smarter Systems Project against strong competition from Maritime New Zealand and Statistics New Zealand. This award is for the most innovative local or central government product, service or initiative developed in New Zealand and delivered electronically to New Zealanders, which enhances productivity and access to information.

The Smarter Systems Project was a joint initiative by the eLGAR libraries (Libraries for a Greater Auckland Region) to install a single shared Library Management System across the five libraries to benefit their combined one million customers.

The Smarter Systems Project enables customers to access the two million record catalogue of the five libraries online in both English and Maori. This regional collaborative approach means this functionality is delivered from one shared database rather than five, utilising a single IT hosting and network solution with a centralised support structure.

The project is the largest joint IT project undertaken by public libraries or local government and is a first for New Zealand.

The judges said they found the eLGAR project to be a unique collaboration that has resulted in the largest public library bibliographic system in Australasia. They also commented that this was

a visionary approach, which could set a benchmark for future local government initiatives.

Geoff Chamberlain, eLGAR Chairperson and North Shore Libraries’ Service Manager, says:

“The project is about ongoing collaboration for the provision of excellent library service across the Auckland region. It is wonderful that the co-operation of the Auckland libraries and the huge amount of work by all our library staff to maintain the high standard of service has been recognised by such a prestigious organisation as TUANZ.”

For more information about the 2006 TUANZ Innovation Awards, please go to www.tuanz.org.nz.

For more information about five of Auckland’s major libraries, go to:

www.rodneylibraries.govt.nz

www.shorelibraries.govt.nz

www.manukau-libraries.govt.nz

www.waitakerelibs.govt.nz

www.aucklandcitylibraries.com.

ENDS

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