The benefits of sharing - Scottish Shared Library Service

“How would a shared library management system improve services

in Scotland?”

The Benefits of Sharing

This proposed project seeks to contribute towards a new vision for library systems by investigating the following question:

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

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

The Benefits of SharingThere were several aspects to the questions being 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?

Project staff

Each work package was led by a different member of the project team.

WP1 – Looking ahead, Stuart Lewis, University of Edinburgh. (Project Manager).WP2 – Users. Angela Laurins, University of Edinburgh.WP3 – Systems. Colin Watt, University of Edinburgh.WP4 – Content. Colin Sinclair, University of Stirling.

A project board was appointed to oversee the project, made up of members of SCURL, representatives nominated by the JISC, project staff, and other relevant staff.

The Benefits of Sharing

The Look ahead

• LMS Day at Stirling on 5th October 2012 - reps from HE, FE and the NLS, considered what we need from an LMS, what could be shared, what the impact might be and what it would look like to library staff and users. http://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/benefitsofsharing/the-lms-day/

• Strong support for a shared service in this area.• Need for institutional senior management support.

“The Vote”

• Do you want a shared LMS for Scotland?• Do you think a shared LMS for Scotland would work?• We asked everyone to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to each

question. Voting was anonymous. We got the following results:• 29 people wanted a shared LMS for Scotland, 3

people didn’t, and one person didn’t vote on this question.

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

Key findings – User Services

• Improving the user experience by providing greater visibility of, and the ability to, search across Scottish collections.– A discovery layer or a union catalogue?

• Shared costs of support and development – a more stable environment and would be able to collaborate on developments that could not easily be achieved alone.

• Staff efficiencies through shared procurement and greater bargaining power.– Principle well established in Scottish HE.

• Expand range of services offered by smaller institutions. • Staff development and shared knowledge – the burden of

systems admin may be shared.

Key findings - Content

• Cost savings made by securing content through SHEDL.• Increasing availability of e-content.• Improved discovery and delivery of content.• Managing content once for the whole sector, rather

than duplication of effort, sharing staff resource.– Manage deals through KB+ for whole sector?

• Sharing of knowledge and expertise on metadata and catalogue practice.

• More efficient records management. • Exploitation of currently uncatalogued collections.

Key findings – Systems.

• Shared technical expertise and knowledge, reduced duplication of effort.

• This shared expertise may make Open Source a viable option.

• Greater financial clout with a shared procurement, better deal possible.

• More influence with development partner as a larger consortial entity

We collaborate already!

Examples of sharing in Scotland:SDLCGlasgow CollegesSEDAR RowanFindabookSCURL - SCOPNet

Can we all squeeze in together?

Sharing options

• A sharing model that works for all.• Flexible – can we take on new members?• All stakeholders represented equally.• Decisions on which polices and work practices

can be standardised.• Good communication and knowledge sharing

is the key to success.

SCURL – taking forward the recommendations.

• SCURL “task and finish” group in 2013 to look at the issues in more detail.

• What is our vision for the structure of the shared service?• A survey of the gaps in e-content provision.• Management buy-in – what is our business case?• The structure of the sharing model and the policies to be reviewed.• Politics around sharing our physical collections.• Cataloguing standards? The Scottish Metadata Platform.• Systems – all options should be considered, next gen systems from

commercial vendors and OS partners.– What peripheral systems might also be impacted – Reading Lists, VLE etc.

• What will it mean to the users?

Risks?

What could possibly go wrong?

• Not all HEIs ready to make change at the same time.– Steady development rather than ”big bang”?

• Loss of autonomy.• Prohibitive costs or failure to reach agreement

on distribution of costs.• Limitations of technology.

Photo credits• “Sharing”: http://www.flickr.com/photos/micahtaylor/6036026737• “LMS”: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/foxfield/lms_van_117870.htm

• “Comfort zone”. Across the Divide Expeditions.

No permission sought from any of the above!

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