Towards a shared Library Management System for Wales Glyn Ryland, Cardiff University

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Context• WHELF Strategy• WHELF/CyMAL Report in 2011.

• JISC LMS Programme• Funding awarded June 2012 for 6 month study• Study completed March 2013

• JISC Programme covers:• WHELF Shared Services study• Scottish Shared Services study• Engagement also with Bloomsbury (London colleges) shared

systems project

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What we’ve discovered

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Benefits: birds of a feather• All libraries use same

version of LMS• Separate instances, but

single upgrade path• Shared development

and testing• Share costs of

customisation and bespoke development• Greater leverage with

single supplier 4

Benefits: streamline workflows• Improved workflow

generates improved efficiency• Free up time to focus

on new and emerging demands (open access, research data management)

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Benefits: resilience• Cloud-based

infrastructure• More ‘up time’• Enterprise-level

infrastructure.• Redundancy• Reduce the pain of

upgrade, patching etc.

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Benefits: business intelligence• Real-time reporting on

usage of collections and e-resources• Easier access to

management information to aid decision making• Aids shared decision-

making across Wales HE and NHS• Joint purchasing etc? 7

Sharing and Collaboration• Catalogue records?• Electronic resource

management?• Licence management?• Management information?• Inter-Library loans?• Physical access

arrangements?• Reciprocal borrowing?

Key benefits for users• Potential ability to

search across collections in Wales HE and NHS from single point of entry.• Smaller organisations

can potentially expand their services.

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Benefits: procurement process• Greater bargaining

power in supplier negotiations.• Potential to leverage

savings on licensing and implementation through joint procurement.• Staff time saved in

procurement. 10

Proposed model• Consortium ‘with

Governance’• Single set of functional and

technical requirements• Joint procurement exercise• Institutions to share cost of

procurement• Procure single system.• Cloud hosted• Separate interfaces and

branding• Search across single union

catalogue and individual catalogues

• Governance:• WHELF to agree vision

for how far they want to share.

• Governance mechanisms will reflect this.

• Formal steering and working groups to be established (AWHILES involvement).

• Formal mechanisms for decision-making.

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Next steps• WHELF to agree overall vision for sharing.• WHELF institutions to confirm their intention to be part of a

shared service and provide financial commitment for procurement process.

• Steering groups and project groups to be established to take forward procurement.

• Appoint programme manager to lead the procurement.• Confirm detailed requirements and develop tender

specification.• Agree phased road-map for who will go first.• Likely timescale – start procurement in January 2014; first

institutions likely to go live in 2015.• Cardiff likely to be later in the road-map.

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Further information

• Blogs.cf.ac.uk/sharedlms/

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