Case Study: SELMS consortium achieves major cost savings and faster reservations with Civica Spydus

SELMS Going from strength to strength through partnership with Civica Libraries

SELMS is a consortium of 13 South East England authorities supporting more than 600,000 borrowers and over six million items across 300+ service points. To support growth, reduce technical burden and deliver a consistent, user-friendly experience while preserving local identities, SELMS chose Civica’s Spydus library management system.

Civica implemented Spydus as a single, flexible consortium database with local parameterisation, enabling shared services and benchmarking. The results include significant cost savings (one authority saves over £81k pa—Richmond’s £10k archiving, £17k postage and £24k support reductions—another cut system costs by 50%), faster performance (79% of reservations fulfilled within seven days), a channel shift (telephone renewals down to 1%), improved self‑service and reduced technical overhead across the consortium.

SELMS

Simon Smith

Reading Libraries & Partner