We launch our new website

Well, it's been a long time coming, but we're pleased to announce the launch of our new website.  As you know, we were acquired by Baker & Taylor in December 2009 and re-branded when we moved to our Brookvale premises in May 2010.  But alas the website was not able to be refreshed at the time.  It had become old, tired, and hard to update.  So we decided to look at other options.....

One of them was Silverstripe, which was eventually chosen as the content management system for the site.  We worked with b-side design on the look and feel, and a few months later - TA-DA! - we have our new website.

www.bennett.com.au

IT Staff working on JBO took the opportunity to give it a facelift at the same time.  Gone are the old Bennett greens:

Replaced with the new palette

The website itself has progressed.  Here's a "shocker" from 2006. We were obviously trying to put a lot of information on the site, including bestsellers from one of the major book chains.  And there was even an online version of Suduku posted there! 

Over the years we've modified and updated, but nothing this major.  We're proud of the new site which is much cleaner, fresher, and professional:

For our marketing staff, the new website means they can add files and content quickly for our customers - whether it's a special promotion or a selection list.  Look closely - there's even the odd Look Inside the Book there and we'll be working with our publishing partners on more features as we go along.

You can read the official welcome from Mr Chris von Hinckeldey, our Managing Director here.  And if you would like to provide some feedback on the new website, we encourage you to fill in our online form here.

The blog itself will be moving to the new website - you'll find the new Bennett Blog at:

http://www.bennett.com.au/the-bennett-blog/

but we'll work out a way to keep you informed on blog posts on this existing site.  We thank you all for following us here on Blogger.  In a relatively short time we had over 14,000 views so we were obviously doing something right!  Let's hope we can continue doing that over at the new website.  Come and play with us there.

Staff Focus-Customer Service Co-ordinator

This month we focus on......

This month's Bennett Blurb newsletter focuses on customer service. Whether you are a public, academic, specialist or government library, James Bennett is renowned for our superb customer service in the library supply chain. We have the service - and the experience - you need to provide your own patrons, colleagues and staff with a successful and popular library service.

This month we're introducing you to Claire McManaway. She answered some general questions in the Bennett Blurb but she also allowed us to do our own profile of her, here in The Bennett Blog. How did she get to where she is now? What makes her tick? Read on and discover for yourself.

Name: Claire McManaway
Position: Customer Co-ordinator (Academic)

When did you start at James Bennett? A few years ago...about 11-12 years!
What were your previous roles (here or elsewhere)? Inbooks Customer Service, Data entry (Order Services), Operations, Binner in the Warehouse. I was about 15kg lighter - all that walking helped!
Describe your job: Answering to the needs of all our wonderful customers. We are here to help!
What do you enjoy most about your job?Completing that email. Finishing things off and getting a result. It’s great when you get a reply back thanking you for your efforts. We are stars and angels with a couple of awesomes in between .
Describe James Bennett in five words? OMG, we are the best!
What would you like customers to know about the work you do? That we are reliable as individuals and as a team. Finding those hard titles that you know are out there somewhere - it’s just putting your finger on it and hopefully being able to purchase it on behalf of the customer. We do source far and wide and are always looking for the best possible price. Getting results is always great. And things do take time…
What are the challenges you are facing? Keeping up with Claims!
What gets you excited about your day? Coming to work at James Bennett is great, we have a great location, friendly staff. We do have lovely customers from all walks of life, most of them I have never meet, but when we speak to them on the phone or via email it like I have known them for years. Most of my customers are listed on my phone so I know when you ring…
What books do you like to read? Suspense and action.
Do you have a favourite author? Robert Ludlum.
Last book you read? The Help.
Currently reading? The Most Wanted Man.
On the wishlist? (Keeping in mind this was a book question.....) That the All Blacks win the Rugby World Cup 2011

(Well, Claire, they did - by a point!)

We hope you enjoyed reading about Claire and what it's like to work behind the scenes in Customer Service. What staff member would you like to see a Focus On here on the Bennett Blog or in our newsletter service? Contact Marketing and we'll see what we can do!

JAMES BENNETT

Your Library Vendor of Choice in the Australasian marketplace 

We launch a new partnership with ebrary

MEDIA RELEASE

September 7, 2011 – Palo Alto, CA, USA – ebrary ®, a leading provider of e-books and research technology, today announced it has partnered with James Bennett, a leading library acquisitions services supplier, to make e-books more readily and efficiently available to libraries throughout Australasia.  Libraries may now seamlessly integrate ebrary’s e-books into their acquisition workflow by ordering titles directly through James Bennett Online (JBO).

Additionally, ebrary has signed new publishing partner Australian Academic Press, a highly respected publisher in the Australian academic market.  ebrary also offers e-books from James Bennett’s top publisher list including Aboriginal Studies Press, University of New South Wales Press, University of Queensland Press, Wiley, Oxford University Press, Allen & Unwin, and many others. 

“As e-books are critical to scholarly research, we are pleased to offer our customers titles from ebrary, which include the vast majority of university presses and other esteemed academic publishers throughout the world,” said Nada Stanojlovic, James Bennett’s General Manager, Library Services & Business Development.”  We believe researchers will find great value in ebrary’s content as well as their technology that makes it easy to discover, use and share valuable information.”

“ebrary is a trusted and well-known brand in the academic and other library markets,” said Stephen May, Managing Director of Australian Academic Press.  “We are excited to make our e-books available on the ebrary platform through James Bennett and other global distribution channels, and we expect to see an increase in revenue as a result.”   

“The e-book market is growing rapidly in many regions throughout the world, so it is critical that we partner with leading distributors such as James Bennett as well as expand our publisher partnerships outside of North America to enhance our products and extend our reach,” said Matt Barnes, Vice President of Marketing at ebrary.  “We look forward to working with James Bennett to meet the specific needs of libraries in Australia.”


About Australian Academic Press (www.australianacademicpress.com.au)

Australian Academic Press is a niche academic publisher for the behavioral sciences, specialising in psychology. Established in 1987, the press publishes a range of books, evidence-based clinical treatment and prevention resources, scholarly monographs, and journals, for both the academic and trade markets.

About James Bennett (www.bennett.com.au)

James Bennett Pty Limited is a major Australian based library supplier and has been servicing libraries since 1964. Based in Brookvale, NSW., James Bennett offers a total package of products and services designed to complement all supply arrangements.  As a part of the Baker and Taylor group, James Bennett offers competitive pricing and supply time, with unmatched global resources and cutting-edge technologies.

About ebrary (www.ebrary.com)

ebrary is a leading provider of e-books and research technology to libraries worldwide. Founded in 1999, the company offers more than 273,000 e-books from over 500 trusted publishers under flexible models including subscription, perpetual archive (purchase), patron driven acquisition, and short-term loans. ebrary is the only e-book provider that enables customers to upload and integrate their own digital materials right from their computers with DASH!™ (Data Sharing, Fast) technology as well as apply cross-referencing with multiple online resources with InfoTools™ technology.  A member of the ProQuest® family of companies, ebrary is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, USA.

###


For more information please contact:

Rachael McDiarmid
Publisher Relations & Marketing Communications Manager
Tel: (02) 8988 5000
Email: jbmarketing@bennett.com.au

Ebrary, ebooks and libraries

James Bennett will shortly be representing ebrary in the Australasian marketplace.  As many of our libraries would know, ebrary has had a close working relationship with our parent company - Baker & Taylor - for years.  James Bennett has been working with ebrary on integration for the ANZ region for several months now and we're pleased to be adding another market-leading ebook platform to our stable.  Contact us today to discuss James Bennett selecting, profiling and purchasing ebrary titles on your library's behalf.  You can call your nominated Customer Co-ordinator or email our dedicated eResources team.

For those of you wanting to know what took us so long - well, it's been a challenge integrating ebrary into the James Bennett system.  This is not due to our close and long-standing relationship with our other ebook vendor, EBL, but due to the use of the ISBN as the primary identifier in the James Bennett database. Publishers generally use one e-ISBN across multiple ebook systems and platforms.  Our database links one ISBN to a vendor and our IT team has spent years working their way through all the e-ISBN issues including pricing, markets, special prices, loans/rentals, and more.  We won't go into details today but you can probably imagine our relief this project is nearly finished and we can represent many more digital products in future.

That said, we have represented ebrary's subscription product for public libraries for over 12 months.  That was easy to manage in the database and through our Standing Orders area. Contact your account representative for a demo or contact the eResources team to set up a trial for you.

So, want to know more about ebrary?  Here's just a snapshot!

Key features and benefits

• Works on multiple devices
• Contextual linking across multiple online resources with InfoTools™
• Unique ability to upload and integrate a library’s own digital content with DASH! and Software as a Service (SaaS) Shareable bookshelves that automatically store links
• Notes and highlights
• Multiple options for searching and navigating
• Automatic citations when text is printed or copied and pasted into Word or any text applications. Citations include an automatic URL hyperlink back to the source
• Ability to transform text into a hyperlink to a URL of the end-user’s choice
• Text-to-speech and other keyboard shortcuts to assist end-users with special accessibility needs

Platform Overview

• Available in multiple languages including English, Arabic, Chinese (simplified), French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Swedish, and Turkish, with additional languages in the works
• Compatibility with a range of discoverability and technology services including the ProQuest platform, SerialsSolutions Summon™, Ex Libris SFX, Doody’s Core Titles, Eduserv OpenAthens, Shibboleth®, Blackboard, RefWorks, EndNote, Moodle, and moreFree on-demand MARC records
• COUNTER-compliant usage statics

Request a soft copy of the ebrary Pocket Guide for Academic Libraries and the Pocket Guide for Public Libraries, contact Marketing today! 

And of course, order your library's ebrary titles through your trusted library supplier, James Bennett.  We aim to provide you with the best from the digital world with our renowned - and superior - local service.

A formal media release will follow in due course.

Read it! Love it? Add Andrew Nicoll to your James Bennett Profile

Before we tell you about this month's selection for the Read it, Love it, Add it to your Profile service, we'd like to congratulate the publisher.  Quercus (UK) was recently awarded Publisher of the Year at The Bookseller Industry Awards.   The company was co-founded in 2005 by CEO Mark Smith and Wayne Davies and they beat seven other nominated finalists, including industry giant Penguin, to win the prestigious award. Past winners have included Little Brown and Faber & Faber, so they are in great company. 

Now that is out the way, we'd like to introduce you to this month's featured author on the Read it, Love it, Add it to your Profile service - Andrew Nicoll.  His second book, The Love and Death of Caterina has us spellbound. Sebastian Barry calls Nicoll "a life-enhancing storyteller, of stellar wit and intriguing depth...pure gold' and we can see why.  We're hooked!

The protagonist is Chano Valdez, a celebrated writer in his South American country.  He pens not just novels, but works of such astounding quality that he is known as the finest of his generation.Unfortunately he's suffering from writer's block and his latest great work comprises the words ‘The scrawny yellow cat crossed the road’. He’s tried all his usual tricks to get back on track - he’s had a few debates with his trusty colleagues at the university, he’s had an affair with the banker’s wife, nothing will work. Until he meets Caterina. Beautiful, young and one of his biggest fans, she has idolised him since she was a child and he has inspired her to write. Convinced that falling in love with her, spending every minute he can alongside her, moulding her to his world, will unlock something and enable him to write, he pursues her and soon enough, he falls headlong into her arms. But it’s only a matter of time before he murders her.  

This book is a great library read.  Andrew Nicoll's first book - A Good Mayor - sold close to 15,000 copies in Australia and won the the Saltire First Book Award.  It has been translated into 20 languages. 

Naturally we're expecting great things from this second book.  With promotion on the Macquarie Radio Network, reviews and promotion in Woman's Day, Sun Herald, Courier Mail, Hobart Mercury and West Australian, as well as some radio interviews with the author - it will be a popular request in your library.

Make sure you have plenty of copies available for your patrons!  

Of course, to ensure you automatically get his third book, add him to your adult fiction profile today!  You can email jbmarketing@bennett.com.au or contact your local sales representative to set this up.  We'd highly recommend it.

ISBN 9781849164719 | Paperback | 358 pages | RRP $32.99

Managing Information Services - emphasising a sustainable future

The latest edition of Jo Bryson's highly regarded Managing Information Services is about to publish in the UK and we're pretty excited about it.  Not only is it a good book, the timing for Information Awareness Month couldn't be better!

The third edition of Managing Information Services has been thoroughly revised with an emphasis on managing for a sustainable future.  We are all aware that libraries and information services are facing uncertain times.  How do you tackle the challenges of planning and managing change?  Future-proof for tomorrow?  Lead the transformation to a sustainable future?  Published by Ashgate, the book also addresses the integration of information services including librarianship, records management and ICT.

A comprehensive and detailed reference on the key management topics for information service managers, it really is a must have book. 

Rather than supply the typical author bio, why don't you check out Jo's LinkedIn profile by clicking here.

And then once you've done that email jbmarketing@bennett.com.au and say in 25 words or less why you think you should have a copy of this book.  Ashgate has kindly offered one for Bennett Blog readers so think how this book can help you in your professional career and enter now.  We'll review the responses on the 10th June 2011 so tell your colleagues and enter now.

Of course, make sure you've got a copy on order anyway! 

ISBN 9781409406945 - hardcover
ISBN 9781409406969 - paperback
Login to JBO today to see your library price or contact your Customer Co-ordinator on (02) 8988 5000


Contents: Preface; Part I Management Influences in a Changing Landscape: Managing in an uncertain world; Strategic influences. Part II Strategy and Planning: Strategic planning: positioning for a sustainable future; Attracting and retaining talented people in challenging times; Ensuring value for money and enabling a cost-sustainable future; Knowledge and information management – a key to survival; Strategic technology and asset management – a smarter approach. Part III Leadership and Innovation: Leadership; Utilizing a values-driven culture for sustainability; Innovation and creativity; Engaging change in positioning for the future; Group dynamics and team building; Effective negotiation and conflict management; Managing the political arena; Policy making; Personal communication and networking; Managing yourself and others in challenging times. Part IV Governance and Social Responsibility: Ensuring good corporate governance; Using authority and influence; Encouraging transparency; Managing for sustainability; Managing risk; Sustaining trust and continued operations; Evaluating benefits and performance. Part V Customer and Market Focus: Competitive strategies; Corporate image and communications; Ensuring service quality. Part VI Success and Sustainability: Bringing it all together. Index.