NCG chooses Koha open source library management system, hosted and supported by PTFS Europe.

NCG consists of 7 Colleges (Carlisle College, Kidderminster College, Lewisham College, Newcastle College, Newcastle Sixth Form College, Southwark College and West Lancashire College) and has chosen Koha as its new Library Management System, to replace previous solutions across the group. Each College had its own LMS with its own library collection and each are managed independently. One of the goals of this project was for all Colleges in the group to share a single system which will allow for cross group support, knowledge sharing, future collaboration and sharing of resources and good practice.PTFS Europe implemented the new system and will provide on-going hosting and support services to NCG to ensure its success in supporting Teaching Learning and Assessment across the Group.

Koha Library Management System

The Koha library management system is a cloud application providing staff and student users with browser access to the system. The system comprises core modules: acquisitions with EDI, circulation, cataloguing, serials and comprehensive reporting functionality. The Koha online catalogue offers end users excellent search capabilities together with a full range of personalisation services. Koha’s depth of functionality continues to develop to meet the changing needs of libraries and their users.

Rob Wraith, Head of Learning Technology and Digital Learning, said

We were looking for a Library Management System that provided the functionality of the several we had in place across NCG, whilst also looking for additional functionality that would future proof our libraries to ensure long term support for our students and staff. We have now found that solution in Koha, which we were all extremely impressed with. The Koha support team have been exceptional and on hand to support at every point even though they have been working to a very tight timescale. Cross-college collaboration and support is at the heart of everything we do at NCG. The Koha solution gives students across our colleges access to a much-improved system which provides greater support to help with their studies. The benefit of a single system is that as a collective we can work together to share ideas and developments, all of which positively impact our student community.

Fiona Borthwick, Head of Sales and Account Management at PTFS Europe, said

We are delighted that NCG has chosen to work with us, and we welcome them as new customers. A growing number of Further Education institutions are seeing the benefit of this open source library systems platform. They also join our growing base of Koha customers, particularly in the FE sector, from across the UK and Europe who are hosted and supported by PTFS Europe.

About PTFS Europe 

PTFS Europe provides a wide range of products for the library market. These include the open source library systems Koha and FOLIO, RT: request tracker for enquiry management, Coral for electronic resource management, Metabase business analytics and the Knowvation digital repository. An ISO27001 company, PTFS Europe, provides the full range of services needed to implement, host, and support these products. Any questions?  Please contact Fiona Borthwick, [email protected]

About NCG 

NCG operates seven colleges across the UK:
• Newcastle College
• Newcastle Sixth Form College
• Carlisle College
• West Lancashire College
• Kidderminster College
• Lewisham College
• Southwark College

NCG’s colleges offer a wide range of vocational Further Education and Higher Education courses and training programmes, including apprenticeships, employability and work place learning. As the largest college group in the country it is also first Further Education institution in the UK to be awarded Taught Degree Awarding Powers (TDAP), enabling it to develop and award its own Honours and Masters degrees.  For more information please visit the NCG website www.ncgrp.co.uk.