Customer Day 2022 Wrap up

We had the most fabulous time at our Customer Day last week. It was so lovely to see our customers in person after a few years of mostly virtual encounters! We hope our guests had as much fun as we did. If you missed it, here are the highlights of the day:

Jonathan and Andrew kickstarted the day with a welcome followed by a company update on the past twelve months at PTFS Europe. There was a lot to cover as it’s been such a busy year for us! Eilish from the Sales team, compered the morning session. 

After that, Aude, our customer services consultant, joined Jonathan in a talk that discussed what library teams can set up through Koha to protect citizens’ privacy. This generated a lot of conversation throughout the day and Aude’s section of the talk offered practical Koha-based solutions to some key issues. 

After topping up on coffee and PTFS Europe branded jelly beans, we were treated to a lively customer talk from Rob Wraith, head of learning and technology at NCG. Rob covered NCG’s process for selecting Koha as their LMS and also talked more broadly about digital adoption and innovation at NCG. 

Our Head of Development and Community Engagement, Martin got everyone excited about the new Koha staff user interface, providing a sneak peek into the style changes that we are looking forward to seeing in the 22.11 release.

Martin then handed over to Tundun Folami, systems librarian at University of West London. After a star turn at Kohacon22, we’d asked her to talk about taking part in the Koha Community. It was extremely motivating to hear about her journey with getting involved and we know it inspired more than a few of our attendees to do the same! 

Bernard then offered a more practical session on how to use the batch upload tool to add PDFs with associated metadata to Koha which made for a nice change of content and pace before lunch. 

After some tasty food from the kitchen at Weetwood Hall Estate, we began the afternoon session. Head of Sales and Account Management, Fiona took over the compering to switch things up a bit. 

Our Keynote speaker, Dave Rowe headed up a wonderful session titled ‘Make things open, it makes them better.’ He provided a wonderful blog post on the topic a fortnight ago which you can check out here. He inspired a lot of discussion and encouragement around the philosophy of openness in the library world and beyond. Slides were enhanced by the inclusion of various adorable dog pictures, sometimes in library settings. 

As if Martin’s earlier talk on exciting improvements to Koha’s staff UI wasn’t enough, Director of Operations Janet had more in store with her look at the Koha ERM module that’s to come. We’re really excited about this development and PTFS Europe and we were glad to get the chance to share an insight into the module with our customers. Janet’s presentation provided a close up look at the module which you can learn a bit more about here, in our latest WOOM. 

Eilish then summarised the branding and website changes that PTFS Europe have made in recent months. The presentation had a splashy finish as one of the light fixtures in the event hall released a spate of rainwater. This offered the chance for an unscheduled afternoon break– which was welcomed! 

We switched rooms and continued with the programme. In the midst of this mini-crisis, Matthew Cadger, service delivery specialist at Newcastle libraries was unflappable and provided an excellent talk on their library’s Aspen system that got us right back on track with minimal disruption. 

Andrew then made everyone jealous with his summary of Kohacon22 in Kansas, featuring many lovely holiday snapshots. He also gave us some useful takeaways from the excellent presentations featured at the September event. 

Lastly, Aude whetted everyone’s appetite for the next Koha release by providing an overview of the many enhancements lined up in 22.11. It was a high note to end on and 15 minutes was not long enough to cover all the extensive improvements being made! We’re looking forward to our 2023 upgrades already. 

Thanks so much to all our speakers and indeed to our customers who attended. We hope to see you all again next year for more!