"I have been really impressed with D-Tech International, on many levels."

Rivers Academy, West London

The Library

Rivers Academy is an Ofsted rated Outstanding secondary school with around 1200 pupils, including the sixth form. The school opened its new library five years ago and is still building up its stock, currently holding around 4000 books.

The Challenge

A lot of the pupils at the school were new to the concept of a library and the loan process. Subsequently, the school was purchasing stock but suffering significant losses through missing books. In short, pupils who didn’t feel inclined to queue to check out their books were just walking out with them. The library uses a management system provided by IS Oxford and required a solution that would integrate with that and operate alongside the other IT systems within the school.

Customer Comments

Asa Nylinder, Rivers Academy Librarian, says: “The security gates have provided a very good return on investment for us. The expense of losing 30 books a year more than covers the cost of our service agreement and within a couple of years, the one-off equipment cost will be recovered. We can divert resources that would have been spent on replacement books to purchasing new stock, and our library will continue to go from strength to strength. The pupils quickly adapted to always checking out books, and it is very rare for the alarms to be activated now.

“I have been really impressed with D-Tech International, on many levels. Firstly, they are very competitive in price. We approached a range of companies when we were originally looking for a supplier, and D-Tech’s one-off equipment costs were very competitive; the ongoing costs of RFID tags were also cheaper than their competitors. Providing a two-year warranty as opposed to what appears to be the industry standard of one year, clinched the deal for me.

“The other thing that sets D-tech apart is its exemplary customer service. Whenever we have had an issue, they have responded immediately, and the team has worked hard to solve the problem even when it has been a third-party fault. Online and telephone support has been excellent, but it is the speed at which they send an engineer on-site that has impressed me most. I would recommend D-Tech to any school seeking a reliable security solution with a rapid ROI.”

The Results

In July 2015 D-Tech International installed RFID security gates in the library
and integrated them with the library management system. D-Tech also supplies RFID tagging and an ongoing maintenance contract.