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Talis Engage News

Council partnership provides community information for over 500,000 residents via Talis Engage

10 November 2008

Talis is delighted to announce that Bolton Council and Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust have united to adopt the new community information solution, Talis Engage. Together, the councils will provide over 500,000 residents with the latest information about local and national clubs, societies and organisations in the Bolton and Wigan area.

As the first cross border authority adoption of the solution, this project enables citizens to access an even wider range of information at a higher quality, as a larger number of users upload, update and manage their own community information. As the user participation increases, there will be a significant transfer in ownership of information from librarian to user, whilst retaining robust and flexible notification channels.

Talis Engage is available to all libraries and local authorities regardless of your existing library management system. It facilitates the joining of community information databases, such as clubs and societies, local history, health information; whilst promoting one central point of access. Talis Engage is centrally hosted and therefore there are no hidden hardware, maintenance or licence costs for users, lowering the total cost of ownership and minimising staff administration.

To find out more information, visit www.talis.com/engage for a webinar or a free trial, or contact sales at sales@talis.com or 0870 400 5090.

Talis launches Talis Engage, a web based community information solution

29 October 2008

Talis is delighted to announce the launch of a new, dramatically different community information application called Talis Engage. Driven by government and customer initiatives to strengthen communities through joined-up services and community engagement, Talis Engage is available to all libraries and local authorities, regardless of your library management system.

Talis Engage is a web based community information application that allows citizens to publish details of their organisations, groups and events and then allow that to be easily browsed and searched. The solution enables other systems to be enriched as the data can be reused in otherweb sites or portals to deliver a connected, joined-up experience.

A number of public authorities have already adopted the solution including Lancashire County Council, North Yorkshire County Council and The Moray Council. The Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust and Bolton Council are the first cross border authority to adopt the solution, providing community information for over 500,000 citizens in their locality. Other councils currently implementing Talis Engage include Wolverhampton City Council, Southwark Council, Coventry City Council and Camden Council.

Sheila Campbell, Principal Librarian at Moray Libraries and Information Service commented “We easily customised our version of Talis Engage called MORINFO, to reflect our existing Web site and corporate branding without needing to learn new skills or techniques. Our users now benefit from instant access to information, whilst enjoying serendipitous learning and knowledge discovery through its fresh, modern interface and intuitive search tools.”

Glyn Sinar, Information Systems Manager at Lancashire County Library and Information Service commented “The Lancashire Lantern WiCI has already proved to be a big hit with local sports groups, community centres and social groups, transforming the way we access local information. We plan to develop the solution further to include an events and local resources database and a further enhancement on searching options to include local newspapers, obituaries, genealogical resources and much more.”

David Tanner, Manager: Stock and Systems, North Yorkshire County Council, commented "The skills to achieve a very clean and professional look and feel to our Talis Engage application this were not available to us via our County Web team, so we looked to Talis to provide us with the web design skills to produce a bespoke template. It was a very painless and quick process and we would not hesitate to use the Talis in-house team again for future web design projects."

Dave Errington, CEO at Talis commented “Talis Engage is the first of our products designed and built using the Talis Platform, allowing us to closely collaborate with customers and putting them at the heart of the project. As a hosted solution, the total cost of ownership is lowered, representing one of our most innovative applications and one of the first to be built on the Talis Platform.”

For more information visit www.talis.com/engage, where you can access videos, demonstrations, participate in the debate in the blogs and apply for a free trial. Or contact sales@talis.com, 0870 400 5090.