UKSG webinar - TERMS revisited: developing the combination of electronic reso...
Evaluating and Selecting Library Services PlatformNEW
1. Evaluating and Selecting Library Services
Platform
Are you ready to shift? Where should you start?
Hong Ma
2014 LITA Forum
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2. Impact of Information Technologies
• Libraries are experiencing a rapid evolution of the ways that patron learn, teach,
and perform scholarly research.
• Libraries’ collections are shifting to the integrated collection of resources in all
formats such as printed books/journals, ebooks/ejournals, physical archives and
special collations, digital archival materials, video and audio collections, web sites
etc.
• Libraries users’ expectations and needs require the libraries to provide tools to
discover and give access to all collections in a comprehensive, comprehensible,
and timely manner.
• Cloud computing and new SaaS service model are transforming library
automation to a new phase.
• It is a time to revisit/revise library technology infrastructure.
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3. Integrated Library System
ILS ERM
OpenURL
LinkResolver
E-resource
KB
Disintegrated
Library Systems
Digital
Collection
Management
IR
Library Services
Platform
Silos
Legacy ILS
Platform
Discovery
Layer
Discovery Layer
(WSD)
Discovery Layer
(WSD)
OPAC
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4. Figure 1. General schema of the Library Services Platforms (Breeding, 2012)
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5. LSP: Resource Management
• Unified workflow for managing different formats of library collections –
print, electronic resources, and digital collections.
• Seamless integration with resource discovery layers.
• Integration and Interoperability with other systems.
• Open platform supports APIs that allow the library to develop extensions to
the core software.
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6. LSP: Resource Discovery
• A single search in one box for all library materials, including print, digital,
and electronic resources.
• Support OAI-PMH, the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for metadata
harvesting.
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7. Typical Selection Process
Information
Gathering/Research
Identify Vendors for
RFI (not necessary)
Learn more about Each
vendor and product
Identify the finalist
of vendors
Develop RFP and
send it to the final
vendors
Vendor’s
demonstrations
Follow-up meetings
&
Interviews with other
libraries
Evaluate and Make
the final decision
Pre-selection process
Selection process
RFI: Request For Information
RFP: Request For Proposal 7
8. “A principled approach to
selecting an automated library
system” by Alan manifold,
Library Hi Tech, v 18 n2 (2000):
119-130
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9. Major Components of the Selection Process
• Educating participants on the system market.
• Identifying features for a new system.
• Getting information about features in various systems.
• Evaluating the vendors.
• Communicating.
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10. Important Principles for the Selection Process
• Focus on the institutional context.
• Choose long-term over short-term benefits (forward-looking).
• Involve staff and users throughout the process.
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11. Loyola University Chicago Libraries
• Campus: Lake Shore (LSC), Water Tower
(WTC), Health Science, and the John Felice
Rome Center in Italy.
• Five libraries, three archives, an information
commons, a remote facility, and a digital
repository. Additionally Loyola University
Museum of Art (LUMA) contributes records
to the catalog.
• 1.74 million+ print volumes,
661,223+ebooks, 63,920 e-journals and 8,534
print journals subscription
• 48 digital collections w/11,167 objects
• 37 staff, 34 Librarians, 98 student workers
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12. Institutional and Libraries’ Context
• The transformation of the institution and libraries.
• Transformation education
• Physical collections are complemented by growing hybrid collections in which a variety
of formats and means of access will engage more users and require new collection
management considerations.
• Library management team was in the process of developing strategic plan for 2014-
2017
• Goal 1: The University Libraries will increase comprehensive and
convenient access to local and worldwide scholarly information for
Loyola community.
• Strategy: Improve ease of discovery and access to collections in all
formats by providing a robust and flexible information infrastructure.
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13. Next Gen ILS Exploratory Committee Formed
• Committee Goal: Evaluate a new library services platform(LSP) and discovery layer
to improve the internal library workflow as well as provide end-users an intuitive an
sophisticated tool to discovery and full access to the library collections and other
resources.
• Main committee
• Technical Services Sub Committee
• Public Services Sub Committee
• Provide pros and cons for each LSP and help library administration to make the final
decision to implement new LSP.
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14. Typical Selection Process
Information
Gathering/Research
Identify Vendors for
RFI (not necessary)
Learn more about Each
vendor and product
Identify the finalist
of vendors
Develop RFP and
send it to the final
vendors
Demonstrations
(with scripts/scenarios)
Follow-up meetings
&
Interviews with
other libraries
Evaluate and Make
the final decision
Pre-selection process
Selection process
RFI: Request For Information
RFP: Request For Proposal 14
15. What’s available in the market and fit our
criteria
• Ex Libris Alma/Primo
• OCLC WMS/WorldCat Discovery
• ProQuest Intota/Summon
• Innovative Interface Inc Sierra
• Kuali OLE
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16. Educate participants on the LSPs information
• General overview for current trends, clarify the terms and concepts
• Cloud Computing,
• SaaS
• Multi-tenant
• Coordinate online webinars from each vendor
• Forward articles from third parties. For example, Marsh Breeding’s article, Carl Grant’s
blogs etc.
• Share documents, news for each products
• Encourage attending sessions in the conferences
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17. Structure the Selection Process
1. Identify the candidates of LSPs based on criteria listed as follows
Proposed systems should be web-based, use cloud-computing (Multi-tenant
software) SaaS model, and have a final product to offer by June 2014.
2. Develop RFP and send it to three vendors.
3. Review the RFP responses (Proposals) from the vendors.
Develop demo scripts
Clarify questions in the vendor’s responses to RFP
4. Invite all three vendors to do on-site demo presentations.
5. Follow-up consultation with vendors after on-site demos
6. Interview with libraries who implemented these LSPs to get additional information for each
LSP and implementation process.
7. Committee produce the report with pros and cons for each system.
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18. Pre-RFP documents
• Need Assessment
• Preparations of functions specifications
• Technical Services
• Public Services
• Checklist
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19. RFP document
• The RFP is a formal document that seeks information about solving library’s
problems or expanding its services
• Balance between specificity and brevity.
• It is only one part of dynamic selection process that include script, scenarios
for vendor demo, site visits, meetings/interviews with other libraries.
• Research on RFP template, RFP writing guideline, RFP examples (Orbis
Cascade Alliance RFP for shared Library Management System).
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20. RFP content
• Overview of your institution and libraries
• Project Overview (Project scope, Timeline)
• Proposal Content Requirements (example)
• RFP Terms and Conditions
• Functional Requirement Specifications
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21. Functional Requirement Specification
• (High-level) General systems requirements
• Reliability
• Architecture
• Data Security
• Authentication and identity management
• Interoperability and Extensibility
• Migration
• Vendor support
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23. Public Services
• General System Functions
• Circulation/Inventory Management
• Fulfillment Options (Requests)
• Reserves
• Media Scheduling
• OPAC/Discovery
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24. Demo schedule (Example)
9:00 – 10:00 General Session
10:15 – 12:15 Technical Services Functionalities
Acquisition (including serials and license management)
Cataloging and Metadata Management
Knowledge Base (including authority control and record enrichment services)
Link Resolution (including A – Z lists)
12:30 – 1:15 Lunch
1:30 – 2:00 Discovery
2:15 – 3:15 Fulfillment (including circulation, resource sharing and reserves)
3:30 – 4:30 System Configuration/customization (including how to get different content
pre-indexed for discovery, how to map the data/metadata for the discovery facets)
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25. Develop demo scripts
Circulation Reports Examples
• "I need a list of all items in the Popular Reading location that do not have the status
of either Withdrawn or Charged, with a count of how often they have circulated in
the past 3 years, and the last charge date, sorted by normalized call number."
• "I need a list of patrons with active records, with books that are more than 30 days
overdue, where the books are in these 3 locations but not in these other 2 locations,
with the patron email address included, sorted by patron group."
• "I want a report that provides the sum of all fines and fees removed from patron
accounts in the last 6 months, filtered by fine type and sorted by payment type, with
the title and call number of the associated book."
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26. Develop demo scripts
Technical Services Report Scenarios
• For databases with an annual cost $5K or higher, what was the cost per use
last year? How did that compare to cost per use the year before that?
• Library Administration wants a list of periodicals – titles, call numbers, and
items – for the main library’s periodicals location; the list will be used to
evaluate the collection for relocation and/or withdrawal.
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27. Gather feedback library-wide after each
vendor’s demo
• What library department you belong to?
• What do you like most about this system?
• What do you like least about this system?
• Any further questions you would like to follow up with xxx vendor?
• Other comments?
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28. Each LSP Demo Summary: Strength and
Weakness
• The team compile the strength and weakness for each system. Wrote a
summary based on feedback gathered.
• Summary for OCLC WMS/WorldCat Discovery Demo
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29. Conduct Interviews with Other Libraries
• To get more sense about how libraries feel about each LSP. We conducted a
couple of interviews with WMS libraries and Alma libraries.
• General questions to start
• What system did you migrate from?
• How long did your migration take?
• How the staff been pleased with the new platform? Do you find staff save
time/steps/clicks in your overall workflow?
• How your patron been pleased with the new discovery layer?
• Specific questions for the concerns we learned and open for other questions.
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30. Evaluate systems
• Focused on two platforms OCLC WMS/WorldCat Discovery and Ex Libris Alma/Primo
• Report structure
• Overview and General difference among these systems
• Technical Services
• Public Services
• Discovery and User Experience
• Access Services Functionalities
• Estimated costs
• Implementation Schedule
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31. Collaborative effort to produce the report
• Overview of LSPs Reviewed
• Public Services: Discovery Tools – Pros and Cons
• Public Services: Fulfillment– Pros and Cons
• Technical Services – Pros and Cons
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32. Highlights for each system
• The WorldCat Discovery public interface includes a number of improvements over WorldCat Local.
• WMS offers robust media scheduling system.
• WMS architecture, based on universally shared WorldCat master records.
• The OCLC Knowledge Base for electronic resources is large but its quality and accuracy are inadequate
• WMS provides basic functionality for access services and technical services although it does not
accommodate efficient processing of print collections, and staff workflows are less streamlined than
expected.
• WMS currently provides basic reports. OCLC plans to release a report authoring tool to allow more
flexible report functions.
• WMS patron database design, specifically the reliance on barcodes as unique patron identifiers, is in
conflict with Loyola’s practice and requirements.
• WMS provides good license management including automatic integration of license terms in ILLiad,
allowing easy referral for ejournal requests.
• The WMS user community consists primarily of public and smaller academic libraries. 32
33. Highlights for each system
• The Primo public interface provides an excellent user experience
• The Alma staff interface allows easy flow within the system
• Primo’s capacity to index and deliver material in standard markup language from any
repository will support libraries ability to increase the use of unique local materials such
as LibGuides, finding aids, and other digital objects.
• Alma includes a strong analytics and reports package, with good ready-made reports and
customization options. The Alma analytics module is robust and allows libraries to
create a variety of customized transaction, use, and expense reports, with future
development toward reports that generate prediction patterns to inform collection
management and budget allocations.
• The turnkey Alma and Primo platform works well. Alma and Primo also allows a high
degree of customization throughout.
• The Alma User community consists primarily of academic and research libraries whose
agenda for platform development are likely to align with Loyola’s.
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34. Tips
• All library staff’s participation is very helpful to gain all aspects of inputs for evaluating LSPs.
• Collaborative effort turns out effective and efficient.
• Sub-committees focus on the functionality comparison
• Sub-committee and stakeholders take responsibility for developing scripts,
monitor questions/answers, identifying further questions, writing summary.
• Collaborative effort and claiming ownership are useful
• Interview with other similar-size libraries help gain more knowledge about each LSP, clarify
concerns, find out pitfalls/lessons learned
• Constant focus on communication among all parties, can help to insure a happy outcome.
• Campus IT’s involvement is also helpful.
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The mission-critical infrastructure plays a key role in how the library keeps pace with its day-to-day activities and whether it achieves its strategic goals.
Traditional legacy ILS system no longer able to handle increasing complexity of library library collections (Different content formats in the digital world bring different metadata needs to describe material and also brings different business for acquisition, management, providing access to library patrons). Aging legacy system: Libraries on average operate legacy ILS system for about 10 years, in our case, it is more than 15 years.
It is challenge to build and support such a disintegrated environment, with many different applications and platform that need to be installed, configured, maintained, and most importantly integrated them together.
Marsh Breeding named the next generation ILS to Library Services Platform (LSP). LSPs aim to provide more comprehensive approach to manage library collections as a promising move. It starts an initial step into rebuilding systems in alignment with library reality. It is the time for libraries to take the most forward-looking process to start picking up next generation automation system.
LSPs emphasize managing library collections through shared metadata rather than traditional local bibliographic database. Decoupled LSP and discovery services. In theory, one vendor’s WSD can be powered by LSP from another vendor, however the synchronizing library holdings with multiple/different knowledgebase maybe prohibited.
Most libraries especially academic libraries are in the stage of creating technology infrastructure component in tune with the libraries’ strategic needs.
Organization requires a well-designed, maintained technology infrastructure to carry out its mission effectively and efficiently.
Figure 1 illustrates the general schema of the library services platform. The platform includes two core elements: Resource Management and Resource Discovery.
Resource management is the back-end automation, which includes acquisitions, cataloging, circulation, serials control, as well as electronic resources license management and knowledge base. It is in the center of Figure 1, described as Library Services Platform.
Resource discovery is the end user discovery, usually named discovery tool. It is on the right of Figure 1, described as Discovery Service, which is composed of a consolidated index and search engine.
In addition to the two core elements, the new library services platform also includes an API layer. Libraries can develop interactions between core software and thirty party applications via APIs.
Gathering information and getting up to speed with the status of product before you dive into the RFP.
It is not necessary to develop the RFI, since vendors make much of their product information available on the internet
You might also use other third party channel to gather information for example Marsh Breeding’s library technology guide
After filtering the information gathered, identify 2 – 3 final vendors to shoot for the further process.
(Pre-Selection Process)
The more knowledge you have about library system capabilities, and the better and more thought-provoking your RFP will be.
Selection process.
Develop a formal RFP gradually become optional. In an RFP, there’s too much room for misinterpretation and sales-pitch. It is a passive document, we knew what the systems could do, but we wanted to know how they work, how they are built.
Alan Manifold has worked in the library automation industry for more than 30 years, building an unequaled reputation for service to libraries.
Senior Administrator for Library Enterprise Application, Purdue university July 1980 – October 2006, managing Voyager and NOTIS ILS.
Selecting a library automation system is not a discrete process, it shouldn't be divorced from the wider institutional contact.
The selection process can be a tool in shaping the organization to meet the goals.
Focusing on the system selection process without taking into account the larger context might result in a functioning systems, but is likely to result in a general failure of the system to meet the needs of the institution as a whole.
It is desirable to choose the system that best meets the needs of your library now. IT is clear, however that is more to your advantage to choose the system that seems most likely to continue to evolve and develop at reasonable pace in the directions most suited for your library. Note: There is no perfect system which contains all features you are expecting.
The LUC libraries have undertaken a process to select and implement a library services platform to improve the internal library workflow as well as provide Loyola community with an intuitive and sophisticated tool to discover and give access to scholarly resources and library collections of increasing complexity, depth and breadth.
The Next-Gen ILS Exploratory committee and sub-committees were appointed by the dean of library in January 2014. There are overlaps between main committee and subcommittee. The main committee chaired by Head of Library Systems. Outside of the libraries, Folks from campus ITS also serve on the main committee.
SaaS model
Cloud Computing
Multi-tenant software: Multi-tenancy is an architecture in which a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers.
Security certifications
All three vendors use cloud computing, web-based, service oriented architecture (SOA) that allows for mulit-tenant operations, data aggregations, analytics, and redundant and secure data centers.
Redesigned workflows incorporate both digital and print processes into common workflow to optimize staff efficiency.
We made sure include basic components (look at the components generally, rather than copying another institution’s process wholesale)
These specifications should concern how the new system will perform in different situations. The primary purpose of the specification document to list the prospective systems’ desired functions. These specifications will comprise the RFP in its rudimentary form.
Clearly explain the library’s workflows and connect questions about system functionality to their role in the library environment. By tailoring the questioning to the library needs and concerns, you’ll force vendors to tailor their responses in kind. (concise and to the point)
After planning is well under way and team has developed preliminary specifications, the RFP begins to take shape. After absorbing a few RFPs, don’t copy another RFP wholesale. You would want to achieve the unique goals or address the special concerns of you library. Copied RFP may contain specifications that matter little to your library. Make sure every specification in the RFP is something the library care about. It doesn’t have to be tedious. The RFP is a legally binding document, and because it specifies precise needs and functions, an RFP must be carefully worded.
1.Introduces your organization, library and mission. Writing a quick narrative sketch of your library, convey main facts of the library – size, holdings, user populations, major activities – in 300 words or less
2. Scope of the project: What will the project plan to accomplish with timeline. Include a clear explanation of how responses will be evaluated if possible, deadline etc. Include proposal due date and time clearly, provide a clear, complete contact for proposal delivery.
3. Proposal content requirements: What is expected in terms of response to RFP
4. RFP Terms and Conditions: Provide deadline and contact information for vendors to submit proposals, define key terms used throughout.
Modeling these specifications into a checklist is a good strategy for tightening the document and facilitates easier comparison among vendor responses. Specify the basic traits of the system library seeks, some of them might be detailed in the specific section later, but this section focus on the library’s most general needs.
These specifications should concern how the new system will perform in different situations. The primary purpose of the specification document is to list the prospective systems’ desired functions. These specifications will comprise the RFP in its rudimentary form.
Creating the specification document in-house will most accurately reflect the needs of the library and will assure the commitment of the staff who will work closely with the new system.
The RFP responses were reviewed in detail, identified follow-up questions to clarify. In this round, we knew what the system could do, but we wanted to know how they work, how they are built.
After the first round of RFP responses, the team developed a fleet of checklists and scenarios in which prioritize them and product demo scripts.
Each vendor was given a day to show the basics of their systems handled the various basic staff operations such as acquisition, cataloging, circulation, serial control, and ERM etc. They have the control how they would like to structure what they present, but we wanted to make sure most of concerns, questions get incorporated and addresses.
The RFP responses were reviewed in detail, identified follow-up questions to clarify. In this round, we knew what the system could do, but we wanted to know how they work, how they are built.
After the first round of RFP responses, the team developed a fleet of checklists and scenarios in which prioritize them and product demo scripts.
Each vendor was given a day to show the basics of their systems handled the various basic staff operations such as acquisition, cataloging, circulation, serial control, and ERM etc. They have the control how they would like to structure what they present, but we wanted to make sure most of concerns, questions get incorporated and addresses.
Ex Libris Alma/Primo stand out clearly and became the preferable option.
The improvements are improved navigation, coverage, date facets, and advanced search; more direct links to view electronic resource; and the ability to create lists without signing in.
The WMS’s reliability on master record poses challenges for accurate collection description and management.
The OCLC community focus and the emphasis on collaborative implementation, shared quality control, and its developer network provide potential for positive partnerships and future innovation. Community-based quality control also raises concerns about the accuracy of data in the bibliographic database, the knowledge base, and print serials check in records.
with well-executed search and display features including customized search result order, good known item searching, useful facets to focus results, helpful relevance ranking, and flexibility for local configuration.
, individualized dashboards based on an individual’s responsibilities, and many opportunities to customize to suit specific needs or preferences. Many routine tasks are more fully automated, and staff can focus on exceptions to the routine.
"All library staff" does not refer only to professional librarians. It refers also to the support staff, whose knowledge of day-to-day processes often far exceeds that of their professional supervisors. Involving staff on the basis of talent rather than position can be a political minefield (Thompson, 1985), but is just part of the transformation of the organization.
. An atmosphere of partnership and trust can be developed that will translate into a greater feeling of ownership of the mission in the library.
