We are making changes to the system Hamilton City Libraries uses for our library catalogue, customer records, and various other library services. Your library membership details are currently held in data centres in Christchurch and Auckland. From Friday, 17 May, this data will be moved to data centres in Melbourne and Adelaide. During this migration, some library services may experience disruptions. Please refer to the following FAQs for information about this migration and its effects on our library services.
General information about data migration
This change is happening across New Zealand - we're part of a national consortium of public libraries (with 41 other councils) called Kōtui, which is managed by the National Library of New Zealand, within the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). All libraries that are part of Kōtui are making this change.
This change is to ensure that we can continue to offer modern library services and maintain robust security of library and customer information. In the constantly evolving and fast-moving world of technology services, it’s really important that our library management systems are future-proofed. In addition to continuing to provide a secure service to our customers, making these changes now also means that our systems will benefit from future enhancements.
Access to your library account and the library’s electronic resources will be unavailable from 8 pm on Wednesday 15 May through 8 am on Friday 17 May while these changes are being made.
From 17 May onwards, while the look and feel of some services may alter slightly, the user experience will not significantly change.
The main thing you should be aware of is that from 17 May, your library membership information will now be stored in secure data centres used by our vendor (SirsiDynix Ltd), which is based in Australia.
SirsiDynix is our library management system vendor and Hamilton City Libraries is part of the Kotui Consortium of 41 councils across Aotearoa New Zealand which purchases this system.
Hamilton City Libraries is a member of a New Zealand-wide consortium of public libraries called Kōtui, which is managed by the National Library of New Zealand.
As part of the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), the National Library followed the expected project protocols to ensure that all systems and vendors involved complied with DIA security requirements.
The National Library shared project documentation with Hamilton City Libraries, and based on this information, our management team and the other members (40 local councils) of the Kōtui consortium agreed to the infrastructure change.
Customer data
The information you provided when you joined the library is stored in your library customer record, including:
• Your name
• Date of birth
• Home address
• Phone numbers
• Email address
• Borrowing history
Please see our Privacy Statement for more details on how we use your information.
Our library has a policy to remove customer data if the library card is not used for a period of 3 years.
If you would like your data to be removed from our systems sooner, please get in touch with us to request this.
Please note that if there are any outstanding fees owing on the account, these will need to be paid before the account can be closed.
The data centres in Australia meet ISO international standards for security and reliability and are better suited to hosting this data. While the location of data storage is changing, the biggest change is that we’re shifting from server-based storage to cloud-based storage. New Zealand doesn’t yet have this kind of data storage, at the capacity we need. The new data storage method has been thoroughly examined by Hamilton City Council’s legal and IT teams and the Department of Internal Affairs.
The new data centre meets ISO international standards for security and reliability. Library information held there will be accessed via an encrypted virtual private network and will not be exposed to the public Internet. We are confident that library information, including membership data, will remain secure, and we hope this provides reassurance for our customers. Please see our Privacy Statement for more detail about how your membership information is used.
If you do not wish for your data to be part of this move, you will need to cancel your library membership no later than Monday 6 May. We cannot make any exceptions to library membership information being moved to the Australia-based data centre. Note that while borrowing is not possible without membership, many in-library services will remain available.
Disruptions to library services
You may notice a couple of changes at your local library:
• Each library will have only one computer operating during the server migration at the issues desk, and self-check kiosks will be unavailable.
• Our catalogue computers will be turned off, so electronic services such as searching for books on our catalogue and browsing our databases will be unavailable.
• Returns chutes will be open for you to physically return your books. However, returns shelves will not be operating during this period. Please hand over your library items to a librarian.
• Library services which require logging in with your library card details will be unavailable. This includes your online library account, BorrowBox, PressReader, and other digital library services.
No, all of our libraries will remain open during the data migration. You will still be able to use all library services, including borrowing books, using Wi-Fi and the internet, and attending events and programmes. Please be aware there may be some temporary changes to book circulation processes. Digital books or content requiring authentication will not be available for a time.
During the data migration, each library will have only one computer at the issues desk operating, and self-check kiosks will be unavailable. Our catalogue computers will also be turned off, so electronic services such as searching for books in our catalogue and browsing our databases will be unavailable.
No - From Wednesday, 15 May, 8pm - Friday, 17 May, 8am, access to the library catalogue will be unavailable. However, library staff can still assist you in finding what you need when you visit the library.
All return chutes will be open for you to physically return your books. Alternatively, you can bring them to the library and hand them over to a staff member. To help you during this period, the due date for all items will be extended forward.