Background
The Mental Health Education and Resource Centre Library (MHERC) is a Charity Trust based in Christchurch and offers their services throughout New Zealand. MHERC was established in 1994 to provide a free library open to the Canterbury region and to offer information, professional development, and community education about mental health, wellbeing, mental illness, and addiction. The library collection consists of over 4,000 books, CDs, and DVDs focusing on these topics, including a newly expanded set of online resources. So borrowers don't need to physically access the library, MHERC also posts borrowed items. Each package contains a return prepaid NZ Post bag so borrowers can easily return the items.
Opportunity
Like many libraries across New Zealand, the Mental Health Education and Resource Centre Library(external link) adapted its services in response to COVID-19 For Sheree Menzies, IT and Resources at MHERC, this meant enabling new borrowers to sign up online for the first time.
Solution
Sheree worked closely with Alex Buckley, Rōpū kohinga developer at Catalyst, to implement a new sign-up form workflow. "Alex was good at explaining the process, and the ability to get such a feature up and running quickly has been invaluable," she notes. While Sheree knew you could include a sign-up form in Koha, the nature of their borrower interactions – in-person, by email, phone, and post – meant that MHERC had never had to use it before.
Sheree commented that one of MHERC's requirements was the ability to moderate new user sign-ups. As such, MHERC funded a new feature for Koha that enhances the existing sign-up form so librarians can moderate registrations. "The implementation of the online sign-up form has saved time responding to multiple emails for people still needing to use our service. It is such a pleasure to have had the team’s assistance, and I have very much appreciated Alex’s help," said Sheree.
Sheree has been a self-taught Koha user for over ten years and shares that "Koha is very easy to use, and our 2012 migration was seamless." She particularly likes the freedom Koha offers staff to play and explore settings and customisation options. She enjoys learning new skills, such as editing Koha source code to include the library's branding and tweaking their new online self-registration form.
Since going live, Sheree reports that MHERC has had 80 new borrowers join the library and start using their resources immediately. She shared that the new sign-up form meant accessing their services was more accessible for "new borrowers who needed access to resources and help." Learn more about including an online sign-up form for your library.(external link)
About Koha
The Koha community(external link) supports free and open source library management software for over 18,000 libraries worldwide. Plus, Koha has been translated into more than 40 languages, including te reo Māori and the Indigenous languages of Australia. Rōpū kohinga at Catalyst are a dedicated team who cares for collections with technology such as Koha. As experienced Koha vendors, Rōpū kohinga has implemented and supported Koha for libraries in Aotearoa and continues to contribute their expertise to the global Koha community project and development team.
Let us know about the goals for your collection, and we’ll work with you on a plan for the technology.