The Northern Territory Library is one step closer to an exciting new library management system (LMS) today, which will provide customers with a simpler and smarter library experience.

Director, Northern Territory Library Patrick Gregory said the contract was awarded to OCLC, a global non-profit library cooperative, to supply the new system, a product called Worldshare.

“The new system is a next generation LMS used by 380 libraries worldwide,” he said.

“Built on a cloud-based platform and designed to support inter-library collaboration, the new system will take advantage of improvements in technology, offering a more user friendly experience to Territorians.

“The new system will commence its roll out across the Territory from mid-2016, with remote libraries transitioning in 2017.”

The Northern Territory Government committed $541,000 in Budget 2015 to the new library system.

Mr Gregory said there were nearly 100,000 individual users of the current library system and almost one million items in Territory libraries that are listed and accessible to Territorians, however, the current system was 16 years old and becoming increasingly unstable.

“Users of the new LMS will notice straight away how much easier it will be to access catalogues on mobile devices with a much better display.”

There are 52 libraries across the Northern Territory that use the current LMS, including a network of 32 public and community libraries supported by the Northern Territory Library.

Mr Gregory said bringing our Northern Territory library network into a modern, more functional system would be of great advantage to library users within the Territory.