2014-02-25 Infrastructure & Services Committee Meeting Agenda

INFRASTRUCTURE & SERVICES COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                             25 FEBRUARY 2014


2.     Collections

Using the standard de-amalgamation ratio of a 20/80 split, approximately 105,000 physical library
items are to be transferred to Noosa Council. Library staff have established a Noosa Library
Service collection within the greater Sunshine Coast Libraries collection and undertaken a
systematic review of the items to ensure a balanced collection is transferred to Noosa Council.
This will reduce the impact customers experience following separation when they don’t have
access to such a large collection.

The focus through 2014/15 will be addressing gaps in the collection and meeting customer
reservations and purchase requests. Library staff will address this through on-demand
purchasing and inter-library loaning material from other public libraries to quickly address
customer demands.

Due to the mobile nature of our communities, it has become common practice for people to use
multiple libraries to borrow from and return to. Following separation from Sunshine Coast
Council, the Noosa Library Service customers will only be able to return Noosa materials at
Noosaville, Cooroy or the Mobile Library. The library service will implement a wide ranging
customer education program and a lenient overdue policy to support customers through this
change.

The eLibrary provides access to electronic library resources such as e-books, e-magazines and
downloadable music and is now a key library service. Staff are reviewing usage and available
services to ensure we are providing high quality, in-demand material that meets customers’
expectations.

3.     Membership

Noosa Library Service is likely to have approximately 30,000 active members. Due to privacy
concerns by Sunshine Coast Council, not all of these membership records will be transferred to
Noosa Council.

Members who use Noosa Library Service post-separation and whose record wasn’t transferred
will be given a new Noosa membership. Any outstanding loans on their original record will be a
matter for Sunshine Coast Council to deal with.

As per the policy prior to amalgamation, library membership will be open to everyone, inside and
outside the Shire. Following the establishment of the Noosa Spydus system, we will launch a
Noosa Library Service membership card and commence transferring members to the new card.
They will be able to continue to use their existing Sunshine Coast Libraries membership card at
the ongoing Sunshine Coast Council libraries.

4.     Customer Support Strategy

Library Service staff have commenced a wide ranging customer support and communications
strategy to educate library members on changes, minimise impacts to individual membership
records and minimise impacts on service delivery. These include:

    Ensuring the maximum number of library members meet the Sunshine Coast Council criteria
     for data transfer;
    Maintaining existing loan policies where appropriate to limit customer changes;
    Working with special needs clients such as home services clients, to ensure there is no
     interruption to services;
    Establishing a balanced library collection where the focus is on diversity of titles rather than
     multiple copies of single titles to better meet customer needs;


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