Drives change

Wise helps get the right messages to the right people and helps you manage events. Wise empowers collection management and collection development. Wise offers improvements to your back-office efficiency and builds your web presence. And it supports everything in between. With Wise, you can create transformational change—change in your organization, change in your library, and change in your community. It has everything you expect from an integrated library system, plus it puts customers first, empowering your staff to focus more time on the needs of the community.

Anythink Libraries Director Pam Sandlian Smith discusses how Wise fits into Anythink’s goals and aspirations.

Proven system

Wise is an established system with a track record of solid performance and innovation. It’s currently used by more than 75% of public libraries in the Netherlands. Wise provides an effective foundation to streamline operations, while also encouraging (and inspiring!) library staff to have more impact where it counts the most—with community members.

Tailored for US public libraries

We've spent the past three years working with US public libraries, reviewing requirements, and making meaningful modifications to ensure Wise meets your specific needs and workflows. We partnered with Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for evaluative testing. This partnership was key to refining the product.

Watch the full video for more information about ACPL’s partnership with OCLC

Allen County Public Library’s Director Greta Southard discusses the library’s evaluative testing of Wise.

Wise uses key functions, like circulation and acquisitions, to analyze usage data (like how your customers use or don’t use your collection). As items are checked out, as purchases are made, and as items circulate, Wise identifies trends and delivers them in the form of a simple report that helps libraries evaluate what to keep, buy, move, and weed.

Wise is designed around people—both library users and library staff—with the goal of delivering great public library experiences and enabling libraries to evolve as their communities evolve. Wise offers the key to unlock your library's potential to anticipate customer needs, reach them more effectively, and delight them with every interaction. For years, many libraries have had to rely on multiple products to collect and analyze critical data. With integrated tools and shared data, Wise simplifies and automates this process. And the system actually gets smarter over time.

Wise evolves collections to reflect the preferences not only of the entire community, but also at an individual branch level. So, if there’s high demand for biographies at one branch and a greater need for children’s books at another, the system helps optimize the collection over time to reflect those differences. You can use this information to make evidence-based decisions about how to grow or not grow your collection, redefine your library space, and even how to improve programming. You already have the data, but this integrated view turns that data into powerful insights.

Gwinnett County Public Library Executive Director Charles Pace explains how Wise supports the library’s customer-centered philosophy and culture.

Build stronger relationships

You likely have a lot of information about your customers. Are you using it? Can you even get to it? Wise makes it easy to track interests (like in a specific genre), allowing your customers to decide what kind of information they want. Wise’s integrated marketing component gives your staff easy access to the right information to target specific groups of people, so you can get the right message to the right person.

• Automate communications
• Engage in new ways
• Personalize messages

And it’s so easy. It only takes a few minutes to build an accurate targeted email list, create an HTML email or newsletter, and send it. You can create on the fly or schedule all kinds of campaigns—from birthday wishes to promotions based on genre—all automated and targeted.

One size does not fit all

Blasting a broad message to everyone on your list likely won't achieve much success. So, whether you're hoping to build awareness about a new service, increase circulation, or get registrations to an event, a targeted approach will get you there faster. And based on experiences with other companies and organizations, many customers expect—and appreciate—a certain level of personalization.

With Wise, you can mix and match data, like borrowing history and age, to make sure that library communication isn't just another email. Give your customers exactly what they want. Imagine how happy your customers will be when they get a monthly message focused on their favorite genres or an invitation to an event that they're interested in. (Yes, event registration is included.).

Wise empowers you to spend more time being thoughtful and creative in your approach. It helps avoid losing touch with customers over time because you can connect when it matters and at set junctures. And the best part? How you use the Wise data and marketing capabilities is completely up to you. The marketing tools are fully integrated and available on any device.

Orange County Library System Director and CEO Mary Anne Hodel discusses how Wise supports their mission to make the customer their hero.