On Monday this week the Library Systems Programme held a one-day workshop in London.
I’ll talk more about some of the things that cam out of the workshop in later posts – for now I just wanted to share some of the presentations which were given during the day.
You can also see what people were saying about the event on Twitter with this storify created by Helen Harrop from the LMS Change project:
[View the story "Jisc Library Systems Programme Event" on Storify]
The workshop was a chance for the projects that made up the programme to talk about the work they had done and the tools and resources they have created, and a chance for the community to discuss some of the issues and challenges that the sector currently faces.
The workshop was opened by Rachel Bruce of Jisc and Ann Rossiter of SCONUL and introduced some of the main themes of the day.
The workshop had three main strands that explored:
- Collaborative Systems and Services;
- Transforming workflows and practices, and;
- Tools and Techniques for Systems Change
The workshop was then drawn to a close with a panel, chaired by Suzanne Enright of the university of Westminster, which explored what would be on your LMS wishlist.
- there was a call for a greater focus on (maybe even a commitment to) open source systems and the need for us to transcend the LMS,
- the need for better exploitation of the data in our systems, and
- the suggestion that the library sector may not understand, or have the right skills, to effectively inhabit an increasingly web-based environment.
Collaborative Services and Systems
This session included presentations from projects exploring the potential to develop shared library systems and services. These were projects by SCURL in Scotland, WHELF in Wales and the Bloomsbury Consortium in London.
This project has contributed towards a new vision for library systems by investigating the following question: “How would a shared library management system improve services in Scotland?”
Building on the work of the earlier ‘WHELF: Sharing a Library Management System’ feasibility report the project has explored the potential benefits and pain points inherent in a move from distributed to centralised hosting and infrastructure model for a suite of library systems software, while building a possible overall business case for such a move by the HEIs within the WHELF consortium.
The Bloomsbury Library Management Consortium is building on the strengths of the Bloomsbury Colleges and Senate House Library and their track record for sharing and collaboration. The group undertook a study of the landscape of the 21st century Library Management Systems (LMSs) – and evaluating the options for building, commissioning or procuring a Bloomsbury Library Management System (BLMS) as a shared-service.
The presentation from the Bloomsbury consortium can be found here: 2013-07-15_JISC-Event-BLMS-for-circulation.
The group have made a decision in principle to go with KualiOLE open source /community library system.
Transforming workflows and processes
This session included a number of presentations exploring the impact of new systems and technologies on traditional library workflows and processes.
HIKE is exploring the integration of next generation library systems (specifically Intota) at the University of Huddersfield with Knowledgebase+ and the impact on traditional workflows and processes.
EBASS25 in a collaborative project, led by Royal Holloway, University of London, to develop shared models of ebook procurement using Patron-driven acquisition approaches.
[presentation to be added]
The Collaborative collections management project saw King’s College London and Senate House libraries collaborate on above campus initiatives around collection management for the benefit of students and researchers, and the use of the Copac collection management tool.
Tools and techniques for systems change
The LMS Change project took on the entire burden of this session themselves, showcasing the tools and approaches they have developed during the project and getting participants introduced to some of the tools. The LMS change presentation is below, and Ken Chad’s presentation on the business case for change can also be found here: Business_case_for_change_Jisc_LMSchange_wkshop_KenChad_July2013