Cut it Out: Reducing Costs and Improving Efficiency with Next- Generation Library Systems Susan Stearns, Ex Libris Bob Gerrity, Boston College Ann-Marie Breaux, YBP Library Services John Larson, Ex Libris ALA Annual Conference⃒June 27, 2010
May 26, 2015
Cut it Out: Reducing Costs and Improving Efficiency with Next-Generation Library Systems
Susan Stearns, Ex LibrisBob Gerrity, Boston CollegeAnn-Marie Breaux, YBP Library ServicesJohn Larson, Ex Libris
ALA Annual Conference ⃒June 27, 2010
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Who are we?
• Susan Stearns, VP of Strategic Partnerships, Ex Libris
• Robert Gerrity, AUL for Library Systems and Access Services, Boston College
• Ann-Marie Breaux, VP, Academic Service Integration, YBP Library Services
• John Larson, Product Manager, Ex Libris
Talking Points
• Setting the stage – Susan
• View the top: The AUL perspective – Bob
• Streamlining workflows for selection and acquisition – Ann-Marie
• Designing next generation library services for a lower TCO – John
• Q&A – YOU!
“Efficiency cuts are no longer enough and some serious
thinking about the future shape of services and provision is
needed.”
The Economic Downturn and Libraries: Survey Findings.
CIBER, UCL, London: December, 2009.
Challenges for libraries in difficult economic times
What questions should we be asking?
• Who are our primary constituents?
• What problems are we solving for them?
• How can we [and they] tell whether we are solving those problems or not?
• Which of our processes and practices make the most difference to our patrons and which the least?
Thanks to Rick Anderson, University of Utah
Cost Drivers in Total Cost of Ownership
• Capital Expenses• The software and hardware, network infrastructure,
monitoring and testing tools, facilities…• Deployment Costs• Ongoing Infrastructure Costs• Intangible Costs
• Reliability and Availability• Interoperability• Extensibility• Security• Scalability
• Opportunity Costs – the Most Intangible
URM: Reducing TCO
URM: Reducing TCO
Automated Processing
Analyze Change
Log
Exception Rules
Actions
Automatic
Manual
Informational
Example of a portion of an automated workflow in URM
URM: Reducing TCO
Discovery
Selection
Inventory
Acquisition
Fulfillment Activation
PublicationUser Mgmt
SIS
CMS
Vendor ERP
Interoperability with external and third party systems
URM: Reducing costs AND improving services
Talking Points
• Setting the stage – Susan
• View the top: The AUL perspective – Bob
• Streamlining workflows for selection and acquisition – Ann-Marie
• Designing next generation library services for a lower TCO – John
• Q&A – YOU!
AUL Perspective
• Reducing costs and increasing efficiency
• Appeal of the URM/URD approach
• Leveraging savings/efficiencies to provide new services to users
My world in 2000
WebsiteILS
BC Datacenter
CD-ROMServer
My world in 2010
ILS WebsiteDigital
Repository
JournalPublishing
Proxy
Discovery
FederatedSearch
ILL/DocDel
ERM
LinkResolver
My world in 2015?
Discover/Delivery
UnifiedResource
Management
• Streamline/simplify back-end operations wherever possible (complexity reduction)
• Stop doing things that no longer make sense
• Eliminate redundancies
• Leverage web-scale services
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (turn and face the strain)
Thanks to Anne Kenney, Cornell University
What questions should we be asking?
• Who are our primary constituents?
• What problems are we solving for them?
• How can we [and they] tell whether we are solving those problems or not?
• Which of our processes and practices make the most difference to our patrons and which the least?
Thanks to Rick Anderson, University of Utah
What questions should we be asking?
• Who are our primary constituents?• Faculty: 1,000• Grad. Students: 6,000• Undergrads.:8,000
What questions should we be asking?
• What problems are we solving for them?
Box of books that don’t circulate muchCount of Uncirculated Items - O'Neill Library Total Item
LC Class Count in 10 Years % Count in 5 Years Count
A General Works 1,208 17.05% 2,180 30.76% 7,087
B Philosophy, Psychology, Religion 54,523 31.77% 87,021 50.71% 171,604
C Auxiliary Sciences of History 3,413 46.81% 4,870 66.79% 7,291
D World History 31,960 35.32% 52,025 57.49% 90,490
E History of the Americas 6,290 22.58% 12,442 44.67% 27,854
F History of the Americas 8,362 35.61% 13,494 57.47% 23,479
G Geography, Anthropology, Recreation 4,101 26.85% 7,809 51.12%15,276
H Social Sciences 71,045 43.23% 102,942 62.64% 164,346
J Political Science 16,897 40.98% 24,498 59.41% 41,233
K Law 2,493 23.45% 4,860 45.71% 10,633
L Education 19,792 38.99% 29,179 57.48% 50,767
M Music 7,681 37.98% 11,810 58.40% 20,223
N Fine Arts 24 31.17% 39 50.65% 77
P Language and Literature 112,534 42.26% 165,461 62.13% 266,315
Q Science 38,062 41.25% 59,784 64.80% 92,261
R Medicine 14,518 27.89% 26,518 50.95% 52,050
S Agriculture 1,121 46.09% 1,654 68.01% 2,432
T Technology 8,467 45.91% 12,202 66.16% 18,442
U Military Science 977 19.92% 2,274 46.37% 4,904
V Naval Science 144 25.17% 287 50.17% 572
Total: 403,612 37.81% 621,349 58.21% 1,067,336
Percentage of books that have not circulated in 5 years = 58.21
Percentage of books that have not circulated in 10 years = 37.81
What questions should we be asking?
• How can we [and they] tell whether we are solving those problems or not?
What questions should we be asking?• How can we [and they] tell
whether we are solving those problems or not?
What questions should we be asking?
• How can we [and they] tell whether we are solving those problems or not?
What questions should we be asking?
• Which of our processes and practices make the most difference to our patrons and which the least?
!?
A better way…
Examples of things we’d like to do more of:
• space improvements (study rooms, booths)
• more on-demand services (digitize, scan, buy)
• “last mile” services (scan on demand)
• user-centric web services (mobile friendly)
Talking Points
• Setting the stage – Susan
• View the top: The AUL perspective – Bob
• Streamlining workflows for selection and acquisition – Ann-Marie
• Designing next generation library services for a lower TCO – John
• Q&A – YOU!
Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: 13 Years of Evolution
Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Collection Development
• Approval Plans
• Notification Plans
• Electronic Notifications
• Online Selection
• ITSO CUL/WorldCat Selection
• Integration with Acquisitions
Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Collection Development
Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Collection Development
Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Acquisitions
• Integration with Selection
• Integration between Vendor System and Library System• 9xx Order Data
• EDI Orders, Order responses, Invoices
• EFT Payments
University of Tennessee: Time Saved*
2004 Workflow Redesign (ca. 250 books per week)• Old workflow: 65 hours
• Download OCLC bibs and create holdings, items, orders, encumbrances; arrive and invoice books
• New workflow: 8 hours• 30 minutes to load all bib files and create new items
• 1 hour to resolve no matches/multiple matches
• 6.5 hours to arrive and invoice books
*Courtesy of Mike Rogers, University of Tennessee
Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Cataloging & Processing
• Cataloging Records Delivered with Shipment• Vendor Records
• PromptCat (WorldCat Cataloging Partners)
• Now SkyRiver
• Shelfready Processing
Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Looming Hurdles• Standards That Are Not Standard
• eBooks
• Evolving Purchase Models
• Dis-Integration of the ILS
• Cataloging Records in the Cloud
• Threats to Library Financial Efficiency
• How to Help Libraries not Spend Money (or spend it more wisely)
• Maintaining Existing Services While Continuing to Innovate
Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: What’s Next?
• Just in Case Time:• Patron-Driven Purchasing• Print on Demand
• Collaborative/Consortial Collection Development
• Increased Use of Web Services, Less Moving MARC Files Around
• More Work in the Discovery Layer• More Print Outsourcing, plus More E-Books
Talking Points
• Setting the stage – Susan
• View the top: The AUL perspective – Bob
• Streamlining workflows for selection and acquisition – Ann-Marie
• Designing next generation library services for a lower TCO – John
• Q&A – YOU!
Overview
• Design principles
• Assume automation
• Support cross-staff workflows
• Leverage the unified
Designing a lower TCO
• Architecture and deployment provide the infrastructure for lowered costs
• Design principles applied across the system leverage these advantages• Automation wherever possible
• System-managed workflows
• Leverage the “unified”
• Managing Physical, Electronic, and Digital resources in one system allows streamlining that wasn’t possible before
Principle: Build for automation
Assume that all common workflows will happen without intervention
• 80/20 rule: build to automate the most common cases
• Use library-defined business rules to create default actions
• Bring staff in when decisions need to be made
• Draw attention to exceptional conditions
Automating processes in acquisitions
NO
YES
YES
NO
Approved Selection
Includes Vendor?
Includes Price?
Group onto PO
Assign Vendor
Send to Task List
Add Price
Acquisitions task list
Community Zone
Inventory
Library Zone
Catalog
Automated copy catalogingM
eta
data
Man
ag
em
en
tS
yste
m
• Using the Data Services infrastructure, we can complete brief records.
• At key points, it makes sense to check for a full record:• Search the Community
Catalog for a complete record
• Link to the record or download it to the local catalog
• Enhance the inventory with call number and location
Acquisitions
Selection
Receiving
Principle: Manage workflows
Build workflows that allow staff to focus on their expertise
• Manage resources according to their lifecycles
• Alert staff when actions are necessary to progress the workflow
• Use functions from all “modules” for workflows
Digitization request lifecycle
Digitize
Resource located
Request approved
Copyright clearance
Fulfillmentplan
Route to digitization
Move to next request
Pick up item
Digitization plan
DeliverDeposit
Digitization Request
Digitization approval
Digitization request lifecycle
Digitize
Resource located
Request approved
Copyright clearance
Fulfillmentplan
Route to digitization
Move to next request
Pick up item
Digitization plan
DeliverDeposit
Digitization Request
Digitization: Paging task list
Principle: Leverage the “unified”
Allow staff to manage their collection together across formats
• Apply system processes and services to Physical, Electronic, and Digital material
• Build services for format-agnostic metadata management
• Offer alternative format options
• Retain what is unique about each format
Selection (view other options)
Unified requesting
Summary
• Network deployment and Data Services infrastructure support a design that:• Dramatically simplifies common processes
• Manages workflows across library locations, resource types, and staff roles
• Unifies services for all resource formats
• A single system for managing Physical, Electronic, and Digital resources• Lowers total cost of ownership
• Improves existing services
• Offers an infrastructure for entirely new services
Thank You!