Shared library system has put the focus on school libraries in Kungsbacka
All the municipal primary and lower-secondary schools in Kungsbacka Municipality, Sweden, now use the Cicero library system. More than 7,000 students from preschool to year 9 have access to Cicero.
So what prompted Kungsbacka to invest in Cicero? During the procurement process, a high value was placed on increased functionality in terms of statistics, self-service facilities and available support. It was important to purchase a stable system, with a high degree of user-friendliness for students and staff. The preferred system was Cicero, a library solution that has been developed and tested in collaboration with both school and public libraries.
In addition to the 18 school libraries, Kungsbacka has also started a central repository, a common resource, including for multilingual literature. The repository is located at Kungsbacka’s Multilingual Learning – Native Language Unit and now the stock is being expanded to include a shared range of books that all schools can access. This will provide an excellent resource that will significantly expand the range of multilingual literature available, while at the same time taking the pressure off the purchasing work of individual librarians.
The fact that all schools will now have a common library system brings many benefits, including putting the focus on school libraries in the municipality. It has also opened up new collaborations and opportunities for school librarians to support one another.
The municipality’s intranet now features a page about Cicero. There you can read about how the system is used and there are also links to manuals, video guides, etc. A group on Teams shares news with the librarians and provides an opportunity to ask questions.
“It’s an active channel that allows colleagues to help one another. It’s also a way for me to answer questions directly in the chat function,” says Jessica Nordlund, System Administrator for Cicero in Kungsbacka.
Jessica has been closely involved in the introduction of Cicero at all the school libraries in the municipality. Now she acts as “first line support”, focusing on helping all new school librarians get off to a great start and work smartly with Cicero.
Jessica’s agenda currently includes, among other things, starting up reservations between the branches. The library catalogue, Cicero Surf, is displayed as an icon with direct login on all student and staff computers. This has meant it is now possible to reserve items in a way that has not been used previously. Jessica is now working on routines for sending books between schools, using the municipality’s internal mail system.
“At Tingbergsskolan the Cicero Surf library catalogue is always displayed on a big screen in the school library, so all students can search for books and find new favourites. This is a big plus, as it encourages a love of reading in students and also teaches them how catalogues are structured,” concludes Jessica.