Product

Product: Pergamon in a company

Pergamon 2010 sme

Probably the most common uses of Pergamon within the SME environment, and indeed any corporate environment, is through the use of Parchment to manage files but also reference and training literature - a commonly forgotten task within non-library environments simply because it is not part of the core business. This is usually done within individual departments in the case of files, or within a small training or HR department responsible for the control of other materials.

While access to information regarding these materials is made accessible across the environment using Outreach, it is also common the Outreach is also used as a means to communicate with the company reception which uses Gateway to control access to the company facilities.

Product: Pergamon in education

Pergamon 2010 education

A common scenario for Pergamon 2010 in an educational establishment sees the various components of the application centred upon the library or resource centre of the organisation - potentially more than one for establishments that have multiple faculties. Feeding from information held by administration, Parchment is utilised to build a database of both students and items that may be circulated to them. Outreach is also utilised in this same environment to provide students with a user-friendly method of searching the catalogue for items that they require.

Tutors and managerial staff are able to utilise Outreach to examine the performance of the library and the borrowing habits of students, as well as produce statistical reports if library use is being montored for equal opportunities reasons. Resource sponsors, perhaps education departments who 'own' sections of the library content or have otherwise provided part of their budget for the purchase of resources, are also able to utilise Outreach to insure that their investment is being utilised correctly and plan for future provisions.

With security within education establishments being particularly important in the modern world, Gateway provides the ideal method to receive visitors - both expected and ad hoc. With all areas of the establishment potentially being interlinked, it is also possible for any staff member to inform the reception of expected visitors electronically.

Product: Pergamon in a secure establishment

Pergamon 2010 secure

Much of the interrogation of data held in Pergamon within the secure establishment is made through Outreach, providing a user-friendly, secure and mainly read-only means of using the system where a security breach involving the changing of data may be considered the worst nightmare.

From a functionality point of view however, Pergamon comes into its own in regards to Parchment providing access to library and resource materials for both staff and inmates of the system, but most importantly through the use of Gateway to control access by visitors from the outside world. Catering for both official visitors and social visitors, Gateway provides the means to record organised visits arranged by staff, ad hoc visits, and social visits arranged through official 'mass visiting' channels familiar to hospitals, prisons, schools and other widely accessed yet secure facilities.

Product: Pergamon in a distributor

Pergamon 2010 Multimedia Distributor

A typical distribution scenario primarily involves the global installation of Pergamon and therefore Bedrock on all workstations. Elements of the Parchment function are accessible to staff within the Master Library maintaining the original copies of the multimedia stock, while customer services and the warehouse utilise approriate elements of Pegasus in order to fullfil orders placed by telephone, fax, email etc.

Central management utilise Outreach in order to monitor the real-time performance of the system as well as produce statistical information, while the reporting mechanisms of Bedrock allow the production of whatever reports are required. The authorisation and authentication in the main Bedrock module additionally ensures that each member of staff is only able to access their own individual areas of functionality, and indeed can only distribute those items for which they have clearance.

Pergamon 2010

Pergamon Helmet Pergamon is essentially a data processing application based upon an inter-connected set of function packages each designed to provide a set of services. Typically, users of Pergamon select a series of these functions as part of their license that are most closely connected with the job that they intended to perform.

Pergamon rose from a well proven and extremely popular application that used the triangular principle of item - agency - action. Combining one of each of these components results in a product. As an example, think of going into your local library and borrowing a book: the triangular principle becomes book - individual (you) - circulation (borrowing the book). What each of these areas actually represents however, can vary greatly based upon the functional area in use. Each component may be simple or complex, or even the resulting product of another area of the application.

Pergamon is marketed at a number of industry areas, and in these different areas Pergamon remains a dedicated application despite its jack-of-all trades appearance. Yet at the same time, customers can be assured that not only are they part of a varied user base, they also have access to a range of functions that they did not originally think would be useful to them. 'Creeping Featurism' is a trait of this product.

Bedrock

Bedrock is the function grouping that represents the underlying foundation of Pergamon. The Bedrock group of function areas are inherent to all purchases of the application as they provide all of the database access facilities, internationalisation, security features, help facilities, reporting mechanisms and a range of other common features that lace the other functional groups such as bookmarking, dynamic lists and dynamic indexing, and searching.

Parchment

The Parchment function group is probably one of the most generally useful functional areas of Pergamon, whether your organisation utilises the group as its principle role, or just because it is increadibly useful as a bolt-on facility. Parchment represents the 'library management' functions of the application, and allows the ability to log and detail a wide and varied range of 'objects' in its catalogue. It is easy to think that this facility has no use in your organisation but at the end of the day, a library catalogue really just represents a collection of items that want to keep track of - whether that is because you have a 25,000 item library of books and DVDs, because you have a shelf of maybe a dozen reference works that are important to your role, whether you are tracking the content and current location of files in your charge, or maybe because you have a need to track 'virtual' items that really have no actual physical existance in the real world.

Parchment provides a comprehensive catalogue facility with the ability to record data dedicated to specific item types; the storage and playback of multimedia attachments such as video, audio and images; an infinite nested heirarchy system allowing the grouping of items; methods to link items together with associations; and methods to record when items have been superceded. The Parchment catalogue also offers a means to dynamically expand indexing methods based upon local needs, without needing to revisit the vendor for customisations.

It is within the Parchment functional group where Pergamon also defines what it calls 'agencies'. These can be individuals or organisations, and represent any agency that has a need to perform an action within the Pergamon application. Within the traditional core functionality of Parchment, this can simply be a case of borrowing, booking or reserving an item. In the wider scheme of things of course, the potential is far greater. You may use the facility to build an asset register for your company, attach case files to an individual, create associations between them or create any number of contact methods including telephone numbers, emails and addresses. The agency system of Parchment also provides one of the central means of tracking individuals in other key function areas of the application.

Pegasus

Pegasus represents a logical addition to the Parchment function group, but one which is vital to some clients. While the Parchment function group may record single items, Pegasus enables Pergamon to extend knowledge into many copies - in other words, a stock that can be ordered, warehoused, picked and packed, and invoiced to a client. Essentially, Pegasus provides pergamon with a distribution system for master item records held in the Parchment catalogue.

Outreach

While the detailed functional areas of Pergamon provide an extensive array of tools for the everyday user, most managers are not everyday users and certainly do not want to learn an entire application functional area simply to be told whether everything under their charge is working correctly. Outreach is the functional area of Pergamon that plugs into all areas of the application and is able to summarise what is happening for a managerial level member of staff.

Essentially, Outreach provides a visual, read-only view of the application and the work of the organisation, allowing managers to see a real-time summary of the system.

Fagin

Fagin is under wraps right now. Fagin is a new development that is intended for use principally by accountants and auditors and is a massive expansion of the accounting sub-system of the Parchment function group. Watch this space for more information in the future.

Gateway

The Gateway functional area of Pergamon is a secruity oriented set of dialogs allowing the organisation to control who has access to their establishment. Gateway goes much further than this however, in that it also allows visits to be booked in advance, set restrictions and durations, and closely associate visits with both Parchment items and agencies. If required, Gateway is also able to tap into Parchments accounting system and allocate charges and produce invoices.

Gateway is an ideal tool for use not only in small hotels, but also in secure establishments such as schools, hospitals and prisons.

How could I use Pergamon?

Pergamon offers a range of functional areas that can be connected in a number of different ways. To see some fictional examples that reflect how our products have been used in the past, take a look below: