ColRiC Awards 2025/26
Once again IS Oxford was delighted to sponsor the CoLRic Innovative Practice Award (CIPA) in 2025. The award celebrates innovative teamworking, imaginative and exceptional service developments and is presented to the team that can demonstrate the highest value and impact of their provision. We were delighted to have our own Emma Williams, Sales Manager for IS Oxford, on the judging panel for the fifth year running.
The winner of the Innovative Practice Award for 2025 was South Devon College Library for their Reading Challenge, which has grown from a local initiative into a successful cross-sector partnership promoting reading for pleasure and wellbeing. Launched in 2016, the scheme now brings together FE colleges, schools and public libraries across the South West and beyond, encouraging participants to read widely through an inclusive Bronze, Silver and Gold award structure. Flexible formats, meaningful prizes and high-quality shared resources have helped embed the challenge across institutions and departments.
Emma was particularly impressed by their approach and described it as ‘A relatively simple idea, but executed exceptionally well’. The professional presentation, inclusivity and collaboration make this project worthy of wider recognition.
Prisons take on Heritage Cirqa
Heritage is particularly well-suited to prison requirements because many have to work to very limited network access with extensive firewall provision. Heritage is one of the few systems available now that can operate both in the cloud or exclusively locally. This means that small networked systems can be ideal for the prison context
Look4 – the new user interface for Heritage Cirqa
A new and fresh approach to the library OPAC and much more, Look4 offers strong searching facilities to the library collection but also great organisation of other resources and promotional tools to widen the infle
Charitable giving 2024/25
At IS Oxford we are proud to support a number of different charitable causes each year.
As an employee-owned organisation, we make all decisions about charitable giving collectively. After 19 years of channelling our giving via the Good Gifts website each Christmas, we decided to shift our focus to more regular, targeted support. We want to support organisations that make a difference. Each month we selected a local charity to receive a £250 donation. Our contributions in 2024 went to:
* Helen & Douglas House
* Portage
* Asylum Welcome
* Be Free Young Carers
* Parasol Project
* Yellow Submarine
* The Porch Day Centre
* Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary
* Homeless Oxfordshire
* SeeSaw
* Camp Mohawk
In December we selected three charitable causes to receive a single donation of £1,000 each: Sofea, Asylum Welcome and the Florence Nightingale Hospice Charity. Through this new approach to charitable giving, we aim to create meaningful connections and provide sustained support to those working tirelessly to improve lives in Oxfordshire and the surrounding area. So far in 2025 we have been able to help Daybreak Oxford, who offer support to people and families living with Dementia, Children Heard and Seen, who work with children who have a parent in prison and the Orchestra of St John’s, who bring classical music to communities through concerts and school visits.
Our Charitable Giving
At IS Oxford we believe it is important to give back, and we are proud to support a number of different charitable causes every year. As an employee-owned organisation all decisions regarding our charitable giving are taken by our entire team.
After 19 years of channelling our Christmas donations via the Good Gifts website, we decided to change our focus this year with some more targeted local giving. We chose to support Oxfordshire Mind, The Gatehouse and Community Emergency Foodbank. Each charitable cause received a donation of £1,000.
support Oxfordshire Mind, we are incredibly grateful”. (Oxfordshire
MIND)
“That’s great news. Please pass on our thanks to all of your colleagues for choosing to support us. We will be using the funds to help cover costs of our core cafe and community centre services in 2024 which also include a clothes store, shower service, workshops and group activities. You can find out more about these individual services via our website” (The Gatehouse)
“Your company’s proposed donation of £1000.00 is extremely generous and it will be spent on purchasing food. As you can imagine, we have seen a steady rise in the numbers of people coming through our doors, in desperate need of food parcels. Already people are beginning to feel the pinch, with spiralling fuel prices as well as other commodities caused by rising inflation. Some of our conversations have been very distressing as so many people are worrying about how they are going to manage during the winter months. The cost of living affects us all, but we do rely totally on people like yourself, to help those most in need in Oxford.” (Community Emergency Foodbank)
