1. S C U R L : PA RT N E R S H I P,
C O L L A B O R AT I O N , S U C C E S S
SL I C S HOWCASE & A GM,
2 2 N O V E MB E R 2 0 1 3
J I L L E VA N S , S C U R L S E R V I C E D E V E L O P M E N T
MANAGER
D I LY S Y O U N G , V I C E C H A I R , S C U R L

2. Members
 All Scottish Higher Education Institutions
 Edinburgh City Libraries
 Glasgow Life
 National Library of Scotland
 National Museums Scotland
 Open University
 Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
 Scottish Library & Information Council

3. Some of our SCURL Libraries

4. SCURL aims & characteristics:
 Independent voluntary association
 To benefit users and library operations
 Constitution, officers, representatives and voting procedures
 Plenary (Directors)
 Business Committee (Constituencies)
 Task Forces, Working Groups, Communities of Practice
 Officers:
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Chair: Mark Toole (Stirling)
Vice Chair: Dilys Young (Strathclyde)
Secretary: Evelyn Simpson (NMS)
Treasurer: Michelle Anderson (Robert Gordon)
Service Development Manager: Jill Evans (NLS)

5. Governance
 SCURL is an independent voluntary association, launched in 1977,
supported by the NLS and SLIC
 Has a constitution, officers, representatives and operating procedures:
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SCURL Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer
SCURL Service Development Manager
SCURL Minute Secretary
SCURL SHEDL Digital Library Administrator
 SCURL Business Committee: constituency representatives
 SCURL Constitution
 SCURL Business Plan and Strategy 2012-2014

6. Business Plan and Strategy 2012-2014
6 Strategic Priorities
 Effective collaborative content management
 Maximise access to physical & digital collections
 Showcase Scotland’s research & collections
 Develop & promote collaborative shared services &
systems
 Effective advocacy & promotion
 SCURL organisation re-development

7. Procurement - SHEDL
Scottish Higher Education Digital Library
Works to secure collaborative access to digital
content for Scottish Higher Education Institutions
 Set of guiding principles and criteria
 Procurement is through JISC Collections
 >3600 periodical and >4,000 ebook titles procured through
contracts with individual publishers
 Procurement totals represent 10-15% of member
institutions’ library resources budgets
 eJournal bundles to date, now also moving into eBook
packages

8. SHEDL – operating principles
 Standardised, common access to all HE members
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(students, staff)
Some contracts extended to registered users of the NLS
and NMS
Electronic only provision (Deep Discount for print)
Cost contributions from member institutions based on
previous historic spend
Maintain core subscriptions
Usually 3 year contracts, ideally including transfer titles
Minimal annual increases

9. SHEDL achievements
Achievements:
 Supports about £2m of procurement per annum (c10% of
member institutions’ total journals budgets) – NESLi2 £8m
opt in
 Secures annual renewals with 3 to 4 publishers each year
 Existing publishers include: Springer, ACS, CUP, OUP,
EUP, Berg, Portico, Intellect, Project MUSE, (IEL & IEEE),
& Social Sciences Directory
 Recent agreement on the first joint purchase of an eBook
package (Springer and also CUP)
 Continuing to develop and consider a more comprehensive
approach to developing a digital library for Scotland

10. SHEDL challenges
 Engaging with additional publishers who see growth in
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Scotland
Changing budgets and/or focus of institutions
Extending access across other sectors
Ensuring prompt payment of invoices to benefit discount
Advising the Advanced Procurement of Universities &
Colleges
Liaising with the Subscription Agent managing the
SCOPnet periodicals contract
Negotiating with publishers’ complex business models

11. SHEDL and additional procurement
activity - operating procedures
Structure of SHEDL
 Steering Group (University Library Directors)
 Working Group (Representative from each SCURL member)
 Received the Shared Services Award in the Scottish Parliament
 Invited by Universities Scotland to document SHEDL for Shared
Services Case Study
Three current work streams
 SCOPNet Journals
 SCOPNet Print Books
 SCURL Ebooks

12. SHEDL’s Launch
 Twice launched –
 2009 with formal reception in University of Edinburgh
 25th April 2012 from the Island of St Kilda, 70 miles west of
Scottish mainland
 SHEDL boat recovered on island on
east coast of Shetland on
1st August 2012 – over 300 miles!
nautical miles

13. Task Forces, Working Groups & Events
Task Forces
 SCURL Walk In Access
 SCURL Scottish Library Services Platform
 SCURL Scottish Metadata Platform
Working Groups
 Access Group
 Health Group
 Website Group
Events
 Annual Ebooks Conference
 Annual SLIC FE Conference

14. SCURL Affiliated Groups
 Scottish Digital Library Consortium – shared LMS
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& procurement
Music & Audio Resources Scotland Group
Rare Books in Scotland Group
Scottish Universities Special Collections &
Archives Group
Scottish Visual Arts Group
Scottish Working Group on Official Publications

15. Communities of Practice
Across staff roles
 Deputy Directors
 Institutional Repositories Managers
 System Librarians
 Liaison Librarians
Topic/interest related
 Collection Management
 Mobile Devices
 Reading Lists
 Legal Issues

16. SCURL Services
 SCURL Research Extra Card
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Enables members of all SCURL institutions reference access
to print collections across all member institutions
 National Entitlement Card
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The National Library of Scotland is one of the founder
members of the scheme and welcomes card holders, including
holders of the Young Scot card
SCURL Walk-in Access
Project supported by funding from SLIC IDF
Liaised with SCONUL, WHELF, and M25
Enables visitors legitimate access to licenced e-content
 ?????

17. SCURL & SLIC’s partnership:
examples
 JISC Collections Ebook study commissioned by SLIC
 SCURL liaised on behalf of SLIC with Further Education, Higher Education
Institutions, NLS, Public Libraries, and school libraries
Information Literacy Community of Practice
 Both organisations represented on the CoP
FE College Librarians’ Development Network
 SLIC is represented by SCURL
 SLIC Management Board meetings
 SCURL is represented & receives a report for each meeting
 SCURL Business Committee
 SLIC is represented and receives a report for each meeting

18. Extending Partnerships in New Sectors
 NHS:
 first collaborative procurement of content agreed
 welcome NHS member to SHEDL Working Group
 Further Education
 FE representative on SCURL Library Services Platform Task Force
 FE representative on Scotland Colleges Development Network
 Extend relevant SHEDL content to FE
 Articulation
 Northern Collaboration
 Reciprocal invitations to meetings to share good practice in relevant
aspects of service provision

19. SCURL Libraries

20. Challenges for SCURL Libraries
 Budgetary constraints and rising inflation
 Research Excellence Framework and increased focus on
supporting research
 High demand and increasing levels of occupancy and
usage – importance of the student experience and impact
of surveys, especially National Student Survey
 Digital transitions:
 Traditional – books, print journals, storage, disposal
 Digital – wifi, mobile devices, power & data, bandwidth,
VAT for e-materials, formats, transitional change
 Exploitation – digital literacies for both staff and students

22. SCURL website
 Task and Finish Group: project completed in 6 months
 scurl.ac.uk