Thanks to the coordination among the staff of its Information Technology Department, the Macao Public Library is able to provide a wide range of services enhancing users' convenience including self-checking in and out of books, online reservation of library materials and access of electronic resources. In this issue, we have invited two members of the Information Technology Department, Aaron and John, to share their daily work with us.
The system being used by the library users has been built since 2015. Back then, there were only three members in the IT team; Aaron was one of them. ‘I was mainly responsible for assembling hardware parts, that is, the installation and coordination of machines based on the existing network to satisfy the basic needs of library users,’ said Aaron. He also mentioned that the team made constant efforts to improve the existing services. For instance, to reduce waiting time and make the allocation of computer resources smarter and more reasonable, they have adopted a central system to manage the computers provided for readers in the library.
The other IT member John, on the other hand, focuses on software development. He is in charge of developing software that is integrated into the existing system to better meet the needs of the Macao Public Library and its users, such as the familiar SMS service that reminds users to return books. ‘We are currently working with the Identification Services Bureau to provide more convenient services to our users. When they update their contact details at the Bureau’s self-service kiosks, there is an option of notifying the Macao Public Library of the changed information at the same time. After the new details reach us, we will update it in our system, thus saving the users a trip to the library,’ John continues, ‘we also value our users’ opinions. We have recently improved the interface of the library website based on the suggestions from users, such as simplifying the textual description and adjusting the colours of the search bars to make it more eye-catching. Moreover, we have also highlighted some common or key functions, such as the ‘Login' and ‘Electronic Resources' buttons, with different colours to make them more recognizable’.
Aaron (left) and John (right) often meet and discuss how to optimize the current system to make it even more user-friendly for library users and to ease the workload of frontline staff.
