Soutron Vision New Thesaurus

Summer is here and we are excited to share that we expect to push our next software release Soutron version 4.1.7 out very soon.

We were able to show a brief demo of the new Thesaurus at a recent Client Advisory Group (CAG) meeting, where the redesign was met enthusiastically. Everyone who uses Soutron is eligible to join the CAG, and we encourage everyone to participate, because these interactive meetings are where we bring together internal resources from a variety of departments to listen, learn, and understand what is important in our client’s library, archive, or information centre.

Future Library Trends

Looking towards the future, during this meeting, we asked what short-term trends they saw their libraries facing, where they see taking their libraries in the next 3-5 years, what challenges they face as they move forward, and discussed how Soutron can support their efforts.

Short term trends continue to be the downturn in physical collections and the increase in online and digital materials. With that increase in online materials, adjusting and managing the budget to address that change in demand was a common trend all were facing. With that change in demand, the online user experience continues to be important, and our clients reported that by implementing the 3-click rule, their users were able to access the materials they were looking for with only 3 clicks.

More longer-term, how to branch out to support other divisions/departments and the challenges associated with positioning the library as a leader to aggregate all the divisions/department’s information under one roof was a common theme. It was suggested that a process the library could use to illustrate to other divisions/departments what Soutron can do for them is to ask for a trial set of information and materials to catalog, thus illustrating how Soutron can be used outside of the library.

How to Promote the Library

Additional ways to make the library more visible were discussed, which included creating a weekly newsletter with articles on topical resources with links to those resources, discussing how the library supports ongoing education and training. We also discussed using new collaboration products such as Trello, Yammer, and Slack to promote library services and to illustrate how Soutron can be used outside of the library for things like record management, digitisation compliance projects, corporate archives, R&D documents, legal decisions, trademark & copyright tracking, and more.

Ongoing Client Meetings

We meet with our clients on a regular basis to discover what short-term trends they are seeing and where they see taking their library in the next 3-5 years. This regular communication is how we understand the challenges our clients face and how we can best support them. Our next software release is an example of how well we listen.

Soutron is committed to helping organisations create the ‘holy grail’ – one search portal that provides access to all organisational information and resources. No more information silos that take forever to search whose results are not what is needed. One single source portal for archives, digital materials, internal and external information resources, digital records, and other organisational materials that help create and maintain organisational knowledge.

What to expect in the next release

A completely reengineered Thesaurus module with a new look and feel featuring a greater user experience for searching, display of information, improved navigation and much more, coming soon.

Learn more about:

> Soutron Library Management
> Soutron Records Management
> Soutron Archive
> Soutron Discovery

 

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