THE OFBENEFITS

SHARING

The Benefits Of Sharing (TBOS)

http://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/benefitsofsharing/

JISC Grant Funding 01/12

“The aim of this work is to contribute to a new vision for library systems and provide concrete,

practical examples of work that might help contribute to the creation and implementation

of that vision.”

Appendix D2: Library Systems (Information and Library Infrastructure) – Pathfinder projects

JISC Grant Funding 01/12

“JISC invites projects to undertake work under one of the following broad themes:

Shared library systems

Emerging tools and technologies

Emerging library systems opportunities”

Appendix D2: Library Systems (Information and Library Infrastructure) – Pathfinder projects

JISC Grant Funding 01/12

“Projects should see themselves as a stepping stone toward a different future for library

systems.

While the project may be time limited and contained, the opportunities and potential

vision for a future library system should not.”

Appendix D2: Library Systems (Information and Library Infrastructure) – Pathfinder projects

The Benefits of Sharing

This proposed project seeks to contribute towards anew vision for library systems by investigating thefollowing question:

“How would a shared library management system improve services in Scotland?”

This will be achieved by a project team backed bythe Scottish Confederation of University andResearch Libraries (SCURL), and led by theUniversity of Edinburgh Library.

The Benefits of Sharing

There are several aspects to this question that will be investigated:

Services – how do different groups of users benefit from shared content and systems, and are there any complications introduced from such sharing?

Systems – how far can a shared system sensibly reach, do suitable solutions exist that can be shared and that scale appropriately, and to what extent is a local view of a shared system required or possible?

Content – how common are the current content holdings, licences and cataloguing practises across the libraries in Scotland that would help or hinder deeper sharing?

Work Package 1: Looking Ahead

• LMS Day: 5th October 2012

– 33 Scottish university library staff

– Not constrained by current LMSs

– Facilitated event

• Steph Taylor

• Sheila Cannell

– Hosted by University of Stirling

LMS Day

• What do we need from an LMS?

– Acquisitions

– Circulation

– Cataloguing

– Patron database

– InterLibrary Loans

– Discovery

– Content delivery mechanisms

LMS Day

• In light of the previous discussion, what is your perfect LMS (or way of managing the workflows conventionally handled by the LMS)?

• Consider both the front and back ends of any system. Do you want changes to the front end, aimed more at users? To the back end, which would probably be ‘invisible’ to users? Or to both?

LMS Day

• What might a Digital University Library of Scotland offer us?– A Digital University Library of Scotland would offer seamless access to

everything for everyone.– Working on a shared LMS would present the perfect opportunity for

introducing cultural change and rethinking the way we all do things, but the ease of transition would need careful and effective management to work.

– Policies are very important to making a shared LMS work. Senior management support is essential in making this happen in a workable, practical way.

– A ‘blank sheet of paper’ approach is needed – we need to clear away the historical ideas, ways and reasons for how we do things and start afresh.

– We would benefit a single classification system within a shared LMS – could we agree on this? Would it be possible?

– The SHEDL approach was given as an example of how co-operation and shared services/purchasing can work.

LMS Day

• What could be shared?

– Are there any particular areas that would benefit from being shared?

– Are there any particular areas where sharing might be a drawback?

– How might this work? What are the pros and cons of making a shared LMS work?

LMS Day

• Would a shared LMS work for Scotland?

– Question 1: It’s 2018, and universities in Scotland have a shared LMS. How will this feel?

• For users, universities, librarians, the Scottish government

– Question 2: What preparation does the Scottish HE library community need to start making NOW to make a shared LMS succeed?

– Question 3: What are the barriers to a shared LMS in Scotland, and why hasn’t it happened already

LMS Day

• The final vote:

– Do you want a shared LMS for Scotland?

• 29 people wanted a shared LMS for Scotland, 3 people didn’t, and one person didn’t vote on this question.

– Do you think a shared LMS for Scotland would work?

• 24 people thought a shared LMS for Scotland would work, 9 people didn’t think it would work.

Work package 2: Users

• If a shared LMS were to emerge in Scotland, in whatever form it may take, would it enrich the user experience and benefit users as well as institutions?

• Vox-pop survey:

Work package 2: Users

• If a shared LMS were to emerge in Scotland, in whatever form it may take, would it enrich the user experience and benefit users as well as institutions?

• Vox-pop survey:

Work package 2: Users

Work package 2: Users

• Scotland’s consortia landscape – case studies:– Scottish Digital Library Consortium– Glasgow Colleges– Rowan partnership– SEDAR Consortium– Find a Book

• “All existing LMS sharing has been driven by the prospect of impending system migration and cost saving.”

• “No existing shared LMS service has tackled sharing access to resources.”

Work package 3: Systems

• Scottish Systems landscape– Voyager (7)

– Alto (6)

– Millennium (4)

– Aleph (3)

– Symphony (3)

– Sierra (1)

– Liberty (1)

– Evergreen (1)

Work package 3: Systems

• We purchased Voyager in 1999, but the world has changed!

– Search and discovery interfaces

– Link resolvers

– Reading lists

– VLEs

– Repositories

– ILL solutions

Work package 3: Systems

• New options: Kuali OLE– Bloomsbury group ‘decision in principle’

• The market for Next Generation Library Systems (Library Services Platforms) is not yet sufficiently mature to enable most Scottish libraries to make an informed decision, and may not be for another 18-24 months.

Work package 4: Content

• Content report

– How much of our content is shared or duplicated?

– SHEDL, NESLI, etc

• The effect of Open Access content?

• KB+

Work package 4: Content

• Bibliographic data survey

Work package 4: Content

• Bibliographic data survey:– “Determining, with any degree of accuracy, the unique

titles within the shared collection will require much deeper analysis of the collections than this project allows, but we do have some guidance through the OCLC’s analysis of the Scottish print collection across a limited number of Scottish universities, published in 2011. The report analysed the collections of ‘ancient’ Scottish universities, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and St. Andrews alongside the NLS. The general overlap pattern of that collections suggested that 82% of the collections of those institutions was made up of works held by one institution.”

Work package 4: Content

• Bibliographic data survey:– “Interestingly, the OCLC report also analysed the

collection against the digitised collection of the HathiTrust, a collection of some 5.5 million titles. At that time, 978,183 titles from the ‘Scottish collection’ were digitised in that collection. The growth of the HathiTrust’s digitsed collection and the possibility of having other Scottish HE collections compared with that collection might suggest that that figure would be higher today and represents a significant collection of material that could be made available digitally to the community.”

Work package 4: Content

• Bibliographic data survey:– “The data gathered on patrons can only provide a

snapshot of the number of patron records currently being managed. The issue overlap is more limited in this area as the number of patrons enrolled with more than one HEI will be relatively small, though a significant number of the NLS patrons might well be students and staff of Scottish HEIs.

Therefore, what we can reasonably say that a patron database of over 350,000 people, or approximately 7% of the Scottish population, are managed within LMS systems of Scottish HE.”

Work package 5: Evaluation

• Summary Report – in preparation

Jisc’s next steps

• TBOS viewed in context of other projects:

– WHELF: The business case for sharing

– Bloomsbury group: LMS System options

– TBOS: The benefits of sharing

• LMS event in a few months to consider all the projects

SCURL’s next steps

• Establish a small task and finish group to take this forward to the next stage. This proposal does not assume that the shared service will go ahead not commit SCURL or any of the members to join such a shared service. The main tasks of the group are proposed to be as follows:

– Timetable

– Resources

– Exploratory Work

– Vision

– SCURL and institutional level decision to go to next stage (or not)

– Planning

– SCURL and institutional level decision to go to implementation (or not)

– Formal commitment by those proceeding

– Group is replaced by an implementation group

Photo credits

• “Tape drive”: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pyntofmyld/4488018774

• “Sharing”: http://www.flickr.com/photos/micahtaylor/6036026737

• “This way next”: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amslerpix/7959123252

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 UK: Scotland License.