Spydus Library Management helps College of Southern Idaho

College of Southern Idaho Library transforms its archives with Spydus Library Management from Civica

• Months of uploads managed in just two days

• Create digital collections in just 20 minutes

• Set up engaging digital exhibits.

In 2025, the College of Southern Idaho (CSI) celebrated its 60th anniversary. An integral part of this respected institution is its library, which has been keeping collections throughout those last 60 years. These relate not just to the college’s history, they also preserve important historical records about the people and communities that make up the Magic Valley region. It was only recently, however, that the college library set about digitizing its collections to make them accessible to the public for the very first time.

While converting the physical records into digital assets required specialist archiving skills and patience, the main challenge was in finding a platform built specifically for managing digital archives that could also provide easy integration with library services and curate digital exhibits. That was, at least, until they discovered Spydus Library Management by Civica.

Digital archiving made easy

“Our archives existed, but people didn’t really know they were there”, said Reed Hepler, the librarian and archivist tasked with delivering this transformation. “Even people on campus didn’t really come in and use them. I was hired with a mandate to modernize this valuable resource into digital collections, digital archives and digital exhibits that could be accessible to all.”

CSI’s collections reveal a rich history that covers the origination, changes and development of community groups and institutions around Magic Valley, as well as important records pertaining to the history of the college itself. However, they had all remained largely hidden from the public view due to archaic archiving systems of dusty box files.

Finding a suitable platform with functionalities to match Reed’s remit proved tricky. “Once I had organized and archived the physical records, my first digital iteration was a website built on very basic HTML. It took a long time to set up and then the functionality was extremely limited. It also looked terrible”, he said. “We were completely financially and physically hindered from creating an accessible and user-friendly resource.”