News from FDI

News from FDI

News from FDI

(a) Community information developments at Lewisham

The London Borough of Lewisham and Fretwell-Downing Informatics (FDI) have commissioned and delivered a working model which demonstrates how the accessible and personalised local authority Web sites (APLAWS) local government content management system can integrate with the seamlessUK community information portal.

The APLAWS project (www.aplaws.org.uk) gives local borough Web sites the same look and feel for ease of navigation, while the seamless UK project (www.seamless.org.uk) adds communality of metadata to Web sites to ensure users can input common terms to find information – for example guaranteeing that entering the phrase “refuse collection” will bring the same results as entering the phrase “dustbin collection”.

Lorraine Trenchard, connected communities programme manager at the London Borough of Lewisham, said:

As part of our connected community strategy we are developing a community portal information site for Lewisham. We wanted to take the strengths of APLAWS and seamlessUK to make a site which is useful and interesting and to make using the Internet a good experience, providing information that is appropriate and useful to our local residents.

Systems integration specialist in the e-Government arena, Fretwell-Downing Informatics, was chosen for the project due to its knowledge of relevant new standards such as e-Government interoperability framework (e-GIF) and e-Government metadata standard (e-GMS) as well as its expertise in systems integration and thesauri development for local government applications.

As part of the drive to ensure all government services are online by 2005, the Office of the e-Envoy will launch a campaign to encourage people to use the Internet. Fred Baron, consultant at the IDeA, the Improvement and Development Agency, said:

Recently that there are two main challenges for councils: the cultural and communication issues of sharing best practice internally, and the challenge of sharing it across the wider government sector, and added that if the public sector could find ways around these barriers, it could get best value from its investment in IT.

Mark Allcock, Product Manager and e-Government specialist from Fretwell-Downing Informatics, commented:

Lewisham is pioneering best value from IT in this project to mesh two high profile projects to make them stronger, and is sharing the outcomes with a growing group of South London boroughs to ensure that the benefits are widely available.

(b) Marine and offshore engineering information centre uses OLIB7

The Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) has implemented the OLIB7 library management system from FDI. OLIB7 was selected to provide the marine information centre at IMarEST with a single integrated system to manage all library materials. As one of the world’s most comprehensive information centres for marine professionals, IMarEST has more than 8,000 books, 1,000 conference volumes and over 100 subscribed professional journals.

Prior to choosing OLIB7, IMarEST had used a DOS-based text management system for over 20 years. Commenting on the implementation of OLIB7, Dr David Bartle, manager of the information centre, said:

We are now looking forward to doing more with library management thanks to OLIB7’s flexible functionality. Staff and members will be benefiting from enhanced features that will enable us to speed up processes such as circulation and cataloguing. We accepted that implementing our first real library management system would take time as we had very specialised cataloguing requirements. All our references carry comprehensive abstracts, which include details such as individual papers from conferences. It was FDI’s enthusiasm and understanding of our unique data that meant we felt comfortable in their abilities to ease IMarEST into an advanced library management system. FDI’s reputation with organisations such as Southampton Oceanography Centre meant that they were a proven well-established enterprise with high standards of professionalism, who are continually investing in the development of its traditional library management system.

OLIB7 is a highly flexible library management system, which enables information professionals to manage a wide range of materials via a locally configurable interface that can be adapted to suit local working practices. FDI customers include: Institution of Mechanical Engineers, The Law Society, Engineering Employers Federation and the British Film Institute.

FDI has a long history of supplying leading-edge information management solutions to over 200 organisations world-wide. FDI operates from its headquarters in the UK with a US subsidiary, Fretwell-Downing Inc., in North America plus additional offices in Australia and Europe. FDI’s experience has resulted in a suite of well-designed solutions including information portals, library management, resource sharing, document delivery and data publishing. The company’s “freedom by design” philosophy is underpinned by a strong software development team and a commitment to interoperability and open standards – such as Z39.50 and Dublin Core. This enables FDI components to be built into a total solution or integrated alongside existing technologies.

For further information, please contact: Sarah Walton, Fretwell-Downing Informatics, Brincliffe House, 861 Ecclesall Road, Sheffield S11 7AE, UK; Tel: +44(0) 114 281 040; Fax: +44(0) 114 281 041; E-mail: sarah.walton@fdisolutions.com; URL: www.fdisolutions.com