Highlights from the COSA User Conference

This year’s Customers of SirsiDynix Australasia (COSA) Conference was held in Melbourne on 7-9 November. Pre-conference training was on offer on the Monday, with over 40 customers joining our trainers Rebecca Chile, Ann Smith and Katy Willcock. This year we held daylong training sessions on Horizon system administration, Symphony system administration and Enterprise.

At the end of the day, we hosted drinks in the courtyard of Trunk, a bar next to the Melbourne Marriott Hotel, for those customers who were already in Melbourne ready for the start of the conference. The pre-conference drinks were a nice way for our U.S. colleagues to meet many of our customers for the first time and for our customers to start their own networking with many customers who had only just met, continuing the night with dinner together.

It was an early start the following morning for SirsiDynix staff, meeting at 7:30 to put the final touches together for registration starting at 8:00. Marg Scantlebury, current COSA president, opened the conference, welcoming the conference delegates before handing over to Talin Bingham, Mike Zackrison, Berit Nelson and Rick Branham to provide a SirsiDynix welcome and an update on the company.

Christine Mackenzie, chief executive officer from Yarra Plenty Regional Library, provided the keynote speech. Christine shared her ideas on the trends affecting media, staff and users in the library environment and how to develop online and physical spaces to connect these three elements.

Following on from Christine were the first of our customer presentations. We were especially pleased this year to have so many customers willing to share their experiences with their peers, covering a wide variety of subjects. Combined with sessions from SirsiDynix staff, customers had their choice of sessions on Enterprise/Portfolio at the Swift Consortium, Victorian Government Library Service integration solution, how Christchurch maintains their library service after the devastating earthquake, future directions of Symphony and Horizon, and how TALIS is using the SirsiDynix Symphony API.

In the exhibition room, two of our sponsors, Thorpe Bowker and Chilifresh, were joined by SirsiDynix APAC customer support supervisor Thomas Callison who, with Rebecca and Ann, manned our Ask SirsiDynix desk. The Ask SirsiDynix desk is a great way for customers to have questions answered, products demonstrated and issues resolved one on one. Many customers commented on how nice it is to meet the customer support staff who help them.

Melbourne turned on perfect weather for the conference dinner that night. It was warm and calm as we cruised around the Yarra River and bay on the Victoria Star. Customers spent the night chatting out on the deck and dancing the night away inside on the dance floor. (Check our SirsiDynix Facebook page for COSA Conference photos!)

Marg Scantlebury hosted the COSA annual general meeting the following morning and it was great to see customers volunteer to be on the board of COSA. We’d like to extend our congratulations to the new board, Stephen Harrison (of Holmesglen Institute of TAFE) as president, Elizabeth Sinclair as secretary,  Margaret Hall (of SWIFT ) as treasurer, Helen Agoroudis (of TAFENSW) as publicity, Marg Scantlebury (of William Angliss Institute of TAFE) as past president, and board members Laurie Atkinson (of VGLS), Dene McDonald (of Southlib Consortia NZ) and Jenny Platt (of Shorelink Library Network).

Overall, it was a very successful conference with customers commenting on how informative and enjoyable it. We repeatedly heard that it was one of the best conferences they had been to. Congratulations to our early bird registration winner Iveta Ronis (TAFENSW), who took home an iPad, and thank you to everyone who participated, sponsored and contributed to such a successful conference!