News from Talis

Citation

(2003), "News from Talis", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 37 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/prog.2003.28037cab.003

News from Talis

News from Talis

Talis launches new 24 x 7 customer support Web-based service

As a company owned by its customers, Talis has always put great store by good quality service. Alongside high levels of investment in new products, Talis has made a major investment in a customer relationship management (CRM) system to continue to drive forward service improvements. Web-based technology is now pervasive so it is a natural step to provide customers with access to an advanced Web-based customer service tool. "TalisSolutions™" provides 24-hour access to a wide range of support services including:

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  frequently asked questions (FAQs);

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  a solutions knowledge base;

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  facility to add new queries;

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  update existing queries; and

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  status of existing calls.

Gillian Lane, Talis Customer Services Manager commented: "TalisSolutions™ is a key step towards enhancing our customers' experiences of Talis products and services. I am delighted with the feedback from our customers with comments like 'well laid out and very easy to use' and 'it looks fab'. Customers love the fact that the service is so easy to access and use, is full of helpful information and is available any time. It will help them deliver a more efficient service to their own customers while saving them time and money as there is no longer a need to maintain time-consuming local records". And of course if a customer needs to talk to one of our support analysts the manned helpdesk is still accessible by phone, fax or e-mail.

Underpinning TalisSolutions is a powerful, world leading, CRM system from Siebel Systems Inc. The Talis CRM system provides a unified view of all customer interactions with the company and is updated in real time. It also enables Talis to maintain a knowledge base for staff and customers that has advanced searching features. This allows Talis to deliver the right blend of products and services to meet customers' changing needs, and to deliver high levels of return on the customers' investment in Talis.

Talis provides advanced e-journal solution to University of Greenwich

Talis Information has announced the implementation of an advanced electronic journals management system at the University of Greenwich. Talis has delivered TDNet to the university as the e-journals component of the Talis Information Environment and it will be integrated with the TalisPrism resource discovery portal. Greenwich's customised e-journal solution will provide access to approximately 3,500 titles.

TDNet offers great value for money by delivering significant time savings to staff in the administration of their e-journal holdings. Denis Heathcote, University Librarian at University of Greenwich, commented: "we are excited by what TDNet offers, given that e-journals are so cumbersome to monitor and maintain". He added "the gradual shift in emphasis from print to electronic subscriptions means that services like TDNet will become increasingly significant in an academic library environment".

Greenwich chose TDNet from Talis after a thorough assessment of the system. It provides a single point of entry to e-journal collections with active links to approximately 42,000 journals in all, irrespective of journal location or means of authentication. URL links are updated automatically, removing the perennial problem of redundant URLs. In addition, it supplies detailed usage statistics for the serials librarian and fully searchable electronic tables of content. Users can set up their own customised SDI current awareness profiles and get e-mail alerts when relevant new issues appear.

The University of Greenwich is confident that TDNet will offer benefits to both staff and students in equal measure, Mr Heathcote elaborated: "I am anticipating that our students, not to mention academic staff, will find it easier and more convenient to use e-journals than before, when they had to negotiate several interfaces. What interests me particularly is the prospect of having, for the first time, usage data covering the whole range of our e-journals, which will inform future decisions".

Ken Chad, Talis Sales Director remarked, "The effective management of e-journals is one of the most pressing requirements in academic libraries. Our agreement with TDNet has enabled us to deliver the market leading solution quickly as part of our overall Talis Information Environment architecture".

TDNet Ltd provides a customised full-service solution for access and management of all e-journals that a library orders or wishes to maintain regardless of source – agent, aggregator, consortium, or publisher direct. Library staff benefit from a customised Web interface, weekly data maintenance, integration with the OPAC, and detailed usage statistics. Users benefit from a central access point for all e-journals, access to current tables of contents, and current alerts services. TDNet serves academic and medical libraries, corporate and government information centres worldwide, including consortia. TDNet is a division of Teldan (www.tdnet.com).

UK universities confirm TalisList as their top solution for reading list management

Sales figures released by Talis Information Ltd have confirmed TalisList as the top-selling reading list management system in the UK and Ireland. With the latest installations at the universities of Limerick and East London, Talis have now successfully implemented 27 systems in academic libraries.

Fiona Leslie, Product Manager at Talis, summarised the reasons for TalisList's rapid success. "In 2002 HE (higher education) institutions sought systems which integrated closely with their new and maturing VLEs (virtual learning environments), to give the student a coherent learning environment and the resources to support it. That was an important factor behind the launch, in 2002, of the Talis Information Environment of which TalisList is an important component. We are forecasting further rapid growth in the academic sector in 2003."

In a recent survey of TalisList customers, Angela Warlow, the Library Services Manager at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) commented: "We have been overwhelmed by the take-up by staff and users of the TalisList system. We have a policy at the university of identifying and using 'definitive data sources'. TalisList has become the definitive data source for our reading lists". Dr Mark Stubbs, Principal Lecturer in Business Information Technology at MMU, confirmed that 72 per cent of academics in the Business School were actively using the Intranet which links directly into TalisList. Many of them are now submitting reading lists for input into TalisList enabling students to access the reading lists relevant to their particular courses via the Intranet.

Talis Information Ltd is a partner in Joint Information Systems Committee-funded projects at the University of Ulster and a London School of Economics/De Montfort University partnership, to link digital libraries with virtual learning environments. TalisList is recognised as a critical "bridge" system, delivering the correct information resources (books or e-information), directly to the e-learning system chosen by the institution.

Talis is also involved in discussions with a number of institutions to run TalisList alongside library systems other than the Talis Library Management System. Fiona Leslie adds: "A number of universities using competing library management systems approached Talis because their course reserve modules are too limited in capability and scope. TalisList is a purpose built resource tool that uses the latest Web and Java technology to enable libraries to deliver effective support for teaching and learning rather than simply enabling items to be placed on reserve. It satisfies the needs of students requiring guided and categorised access to print and electronic materials from a variety of sources inside and outside the library. Its flexibility enables various models of list creation, from distributed entry by academics to centralised controlled publishing by the library".

TalisList is compiled online as you "shop" for local and distributed print and electronic resources via a user-friendly Web interface connected to the library catalogue. Its browser-based architecture means that no special client software is required, enabling list authoring, annotating and editing to be distributed easily to academic staff before submission to the library.

Talis Information Ltd is a leading Library Management System company in the UK and Ireland. Formed out of BLCMP in 1999 as a commercial company owned by its customers and staff, it has seen steady growth and profitability. The Talis Information Environment was launched in 2002 and is a new architecture that encompasses not only an advanced Library Management System but also a cross-domain resource discovery portal (TalisPrism), comprehensive reading/course list management (TalisList), guided resource access (Talis Signpost), a comprehensive cataloguing database, a managed EDI service, state-of-the-art management information and e-journal management (TDNet). Talis also provides solutions for local digital content (inVisage) and, in partnership with the Combined Regions, a nationwide Web-based interlibrary loan database (ILL) and ILL client (UnityWeb).

For further information please contact: Talis Information Ltd, Birmingham Research Park, Vincent Drive, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2SQ, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 121 471 1179; Fax: +44 (0) 121 472 0298; E-mail: info@talis.com; URL: www.talis.com