Planning by the Seat of Your Pants:Implementing an ILS on a Timeline

April 10, 2009Tennessee Library Association Conference, Nashville

Paul Gahn, ILS LibrarianKay Cunningham, Electronic Resources Librarian

Elizabeth McDonald, Head of Cataloging

Goals of presentation

Successes

Mistakes

Experiences

Outline

• Background• Data migration• Training• Still to come• What we would have

done differently?• Questions?

3rd ILSVendor/Product Years

CLSI 1984 - 1994

DRA Classic 1994 – 2008

Innovative Interfaces Inc.’s Millennium 2008-

Four Institution Consortium of Sorts

Institution Students Items Joined

University of Memphis Libraries(Main library & branches)

20,000 1,212,556

University of Memphis Law School

425 89,625 August 2002

Jackson State Community College

2,705 138,428 1995

LeMoyne-Owen College 800 111,596 February 2002

Other partners along the way…

• Shelby State Community College– now Southwest Tennessee CC– 1995-2000

• Dyersburg State Community College– 1998-2001

How was Innovative selected?

• RFP (Request for Proposal) • Fall 2004- Fall 2005

• Three phase project– Writing – Review– Finalize Draft

• Task Force with Subcommittees– Acquisitions/Periodicals– Circulation/Reserves– Cataloging– Public Services– Systems

Selection Time Line

• 2004 /2005 - Draft RFP• Looking for funding• 2006:

June Revised RFPJuly RFP to vendorsSeptember Vendor responses October Vendor demonstrations

• Selection, not official

Implementation Timeline

2007– February Budget planning meetings/timeline

No official dates– March Authority control RFP– November Implementation meetings set– December Test extract of DRA database

2008– January – July Training and migration– July 22 Go Live for Circulation– Late August Start of Fall Semester

Implementation Team Structure

• Implementation Team, chairs of each work team– Technical– Acquisitions /Serials– Bibliographic– Circulation– Public

Presence/ERM/Federated Search

– Bursar Interface– Location codes

• Teams at III– General Implementation– Federated Search

Implementation– Encore Implementation

Challenges

• Age of DRA• Consortial catalog• DRA support running out– Little time to plan/prepare• Technical issues• Staff for coming changes• Doing both simultaneously

Other timeline challenges

• Paul started full-time in March 2008– PLUS: Familiar with DRA

system and had worked part-time on reports and data extracts and loads for UM, but had to be brought up to speed on numerous issues

– MINUS: Started after initial system training took place

• III trainer/consultant was pulled to another project before training was completed– MINUS: Lack of

consistency– PLUS: New trainer kept

us on track better when we would ask “What if” questions

What was migrated?

• Migrated:– Bibliographic and item

records– Patron and fine records

• Not migrated:– Authority records from

DRA– Acquisitions data

(Vendors, funds, orders)– Course reserves– Serials holdings

Garbage out/Garbage in

• Migration is often a good time to clean out and start over, but sometimes there just isn’t enough time

• Different approaches for different data types:– Authority records– Fines– Serials holdings

Authority records

• All bibliographic records sent to MARCIVE for authority processing– Bibliographic records sent:

1,053,167 – DRA authority records left behind 475,212– New authority records loaded into III 719,926 – Ultra-tight deadlines

• GAP period and GAP load• Post-processing

Fine records• Bursar collects all money, not Library• DRA/Bursar interface

– Paid/unpaid data out of sync– Impossible to know when fines have been paid– Paid fines

• New Millennium WebPac feature: My Account– Paid fines from DRA displayed as unpaid

• Fine display suppressed until all current UM faculty/staff/students’ fines were audited– Fine display restored, October 2008– Reconciliation of non-current student fine data

continues

Serials Holdings – Starting Over• DRA Holdings data – incorrect & incomplete

• Migrated bibliographic data– titles not scoped; locations not provided

• Alternative– journal title search

• within ILS, but interfacing with Serials Solutions’ A-Z list

• Solution - February 2009– Temporary holdings records created– Exported print title holdings to Serials Solutions for

integration with online titles

Search by titles (subject browse also available)

Public Views

Online AND print holdings statements display

Holdings entered

Holdings not yet entered Public

Views

How Many Holdings?• 2,100 of 3,100? current subscriptions– after 8 months of data entry

• 9,100+ closed holdings– will take another couple years

• Started in the Js:Journal of the...

Working in the Client

Tech Services V

iews

Implementation Team Training 4 weeks of onsite Training

Dates Training covered

January 29-Feb.1

•ILS WebPac and database evaluation•System and WebPac administration•Circulation parameters•Acquisitions and Serials parameters

March 11-13 •Cataloging I, Acquisitions I, Serials I

April 15-18 •Circulation I, Acquisitions II, Serials II•Systems

May 13-15 •Cataloging II, Circulation II•Media Management

Herding cats:Staff training issues and challenges

– Trainers were being trained at the same time– Profile/test database was roughly 25% of database– Customization of web catalog interface came very

late in the process– Multiple interfaces– New search concepts• Faceted search, Federated search

Staff and Public Training

Staff Training• Millennium

documentation• Hands-on– Prioritized by

departmental migration demands• Cataloging• Circulation

OPAC Training• Demonstrations• Demonstrations with

hands-on opportunities– Requests for Comments

• Hands-on sessions– Assignments

Training Complications• Multiple Search Interfaces– Out-of-box Millennium • Available during the implementation period• Used during staff training

– Customized Catalog Classic• Only available one month before Going Live

– Encore, or Catalog QuickSearch• Only available after “Go Live”

– Plus, a MetaSearcher (ResearchPro)

Catalog QuickSearch

Catalog Classic

The End is Still Not Nigh

• Acquisitions– only UM and Law will use

• ERM– Resource records being

created• Licenses and Contacts still

to come

• Media management• Scanned articles/tests for

Course reserves

• Reports (create lists)

• Serials– In process

• Statistics• Web PAC

customizations– Custom colors for JSCC

and LeMoyne-Owen– Google book preview– Multiple LDAP login to

include JSCC

What worked well?

• Records migrated cleanly• Getting basic functionality up and running– Cataloging and circulation

• Separate OPAC pages for each partner library• No acquisitions money• Gantt chart forced us to focus

What would we have done differently?

• Allow greater flexibility on who receives system training from vendor

• More thought on design of location codes – less re-creation of

former system

• Used mnemonics instead of alpha-numeric for codes

• Project manager based in company’s office

• Circ & cataloging training ASAP

• Test load should have been a full not partial load

• Add Google Analytics as soon as possible

Google Analytics

Lessons Learned

• Understand the product• Have a bulldog on your

side• Plan for change– even if it isn’t coming

tomorrow

• Always be ready to move

• Stay flexible

• Involve everyone, the sooner the better– Tech decisions impact

Public Services– Public desires have Tech

consequences

AND REMEMBER…

• Any choice has consequences

Questions?

Contact Information:Paul Gahn paulgahn@memphis.edu

Kay Cunningham lkcnnngh@memphis.edu Elizabeth McDonald emcdnld1@memphis.edu

PowerPoint slides are at: slideshare.net