As part of the recent Library Systems funding call I am pleased to announce that seven new projects have been funded to explore the future of library systems. Details of the successful projects can be found below.
Background
The Programme builds on significant work JISC, in collaboration with key sector bodies like SCONUL, has undertaken to explore the Library Management Systems (LMS) landscape and LMS innovation.
More recently the trajectory of this work led to a workshop at the University of Warwick that brought together senior library managers to explore the future of library systems (a blog post on the event and its outcomes can be found here).
This background work and the workshop has helped shape the funding call and the seven projects currently funded.
About the Projects
There will be one overarching synthesis and scoping project that will provide a new vision for the future of library systems and a ‘roadmap’ for the delivery of that vision.
LMS Change
University of Westminster
Partners: Sero Consulting
The LMS Change project will develop and disseminate a vision for the future of library systems and a delivery ‘roadmap’. Working with the companion Pathdinders, the project will explore the potential for new approaches to library systems infrastructure, taking account of considerations beyond the traditional LMS to include other business critical and curatorial systems, both within and above campus. The findings will be delivered in a single report, published in a highly navigable web format.
The programme will include six ‘pathfinder’ projects that will explore various aspects of library systems. The projects are:
Shared LMS: Business Case Evaluation
University of Cardiff
Partners: WHELF
Building on the work of the earlier ‘WHELF: Sharing a Library Management System’ feasibility report the project will explore 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 Benefits of Sharing (How would a Shared Library Management System improve services in Scotland?)
University of Edinburgh
Partners: The University of Stirling; SCURL (Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries)
This project will contribute towards a new vision for library systems by investigating the following question: “How would a shared library management system improve services in Scotland?”
HIKE (Huddersfield, Intota, KnowledgeBase+ Evaluation)
University of Huddersfield
Partners: JISC Collections, Serial Solutions
The project will build upon the work undertaken by Huddersfield as part of Phase I of the KB+ project, as an early adopter of Summon and the TERMS project, in order to carry out a full assessment of the compatibility of KB+ with Serials Solutions and an evaluation of the suitability and potential of Intota as a replacement to the traditional LMS in the UK market, given its relationship to and integration with a knowledgebase.
E-BASS25 (E-Books Acquisition as a Shared Service in M25)
Royal Holloway, University of London
Partners: Kingston University, JISC Collections
The project will deliver a series of linked reports and guidelines which will form a navigation tool for consortia seeking to embark on collaborative purchasing of e-books with particular reference to the Patron Driven Acquisition of eBooks.
Anthologizr: On demand e-publishing from OA repositories
University of London
Using the EPrints repository software as its basis, the project will develop an extension to enable and support the creation of user-defined anthologies of items in the repository, using the open EPUB e-book standard.
Collaborative Collection Management
Kings College London
Partners: Senate House Library, University of London; Mimas; RLUK
Against a pressurised backdrop of economic challenges, teaching and learning physical space redevelopment needs, growing awareness of the student experience concept, and the ongoing move to ‘e’ only, the need to better manage collections has grown evermore urgent while at the same time becoming an increasingly complex and difficult problem space. This project will see King’s College London and Senate House libraries collaborate on above campus initiatives around collection management for the benefit of students and researchers.
Further information about these projects and about the future of library systems in general will shortly be available from the Information and Library Infrastructure webpages.