Update on Next Gen Library System Process and Next Steps

Change in our Next Gen timeline --

This past winter and early spring we were working to be ready to complete specifications for a next gen library system around July/August because money for this project might be available in mid-FY15 (January 2015), and we would need to be ready to move forward at that time.  This timeline has now shifted back by 5 or 6 months.  We would like to complete the specifications for a next gen library system RFP around January 2015 for a possible decision in June/July 2015.

At this point we have developed an initial set of specifications and participated in vendor demonstrations for 6 systems.

Here are some of the next steps in this process for this Summer and Fall:

1. Collect feedback on what was learned from the vendor demos.  Survey for Next Gen Team participants.
2. Next Gen Team Leaders group will be discussing our next steps and updating the Next Gen timeline.
3. Review additional recent back-office Library System RFPs  (Wisconsin's RFP plus ?).
4. Share requirements document at the appropriate point with special groups (law library, medical library, government documents, etc.) and get their feedback into the discussion.
5. Consider scheduling conference calls with a few groups that have recently made a next gen decision or are currently working on a decision.
6. Discuss from a broad perspective the most important needs that a new system should address.
7. Refine requirements / update Next Gen Planning document (specifications document).
8. Complete RFP (December 2014/January 2015)

NGL ACQ/Serials/ERM Meeting Minutes 10/30/2013

NGL ACQ/Serials/ERM Meeting Minutes 10/30/2013

Present:  Courtney Mcgough, Elizabeth Winter, Olga Russov, Sandra Bandy, Ben Davis, Kat Hart (Recorder), Dana Walker, Ken Smith, Agnes Muriuki, Charlie Sicignano

Absent:   Jacqueline Vickers, Jim Garner

Dana reported on the Team Leaders meeting held on Monday (10/28/2013). The purpose of that meeting was for the team leaders to update everyone on the status of their team’s efforts at the moment. Bill Clayton spoke on behalf of Merryll, who was unable to attend. Bill indicated that more schools may be merging in the future, so please keep this in mind while developing our functional requirements. Ask questions such as how they would handle the merging of two schools’ data into one module, and the like.

Several teams are developing surveys to send to USG schools not as heavily involved in this committee. The Assessment (Reports, BI, Analytics) team asked if we had information we could add to their survey, but Dana had not yet respond to them. Dana suggested we may want to put reporting requirements into their survey. Our team was invited to contribute to the Cataloging survey. Elizabeth Winter suggested adding something on serials check-in and invoicing to elicit some response. The Cataloger’s survey will be going out in the next week or two. Dana believes that we are far enough along in the process that we do not need to focus on developing a survey ourselves.

Team leaders will meet again in a couple of weeks to share where we are in the process.

Dana reminded the team to ask our own departments or collection development units for input to add to our list of functional requirements as well.

Deliverables
There are two deliverables due by November 30^th: the template and the essay.

Template
The committee only wants a structure for the template at this point in time. Once the committee has structure ideas from all the teams, they will choose one and let us know. Earlier in October, Dana sent out an email to our team asking if everyone was comfortable with using the template structure that the Orbis Cascade Alliance RFP (OCA RFP) uses. No one seemed to object, so we will create three separate sections in our template: one for Acquisitions, one for Serials and one for Electronic Resource Management. Merryll wants a limited amount of specific functionalities in the functional requirements section, so we need to focus more on questions for the vendor(s). We can tease out questions vs. functional requirements from the Google Doc after the template has been turned in.

Introductory Essay
The OCA RFP included our team’s descriptions under Collections and Resource Management, so we can develop three separate essays for each area, and the Committee may decide to combine them. Overlap in essay content is to be expected at this point. No one is sure what the end result will look like. We will create a brief introductory essay describing each of the three areas. Dana requested if anyone wants to collaborate on these, please send thoughts and ideas to her via email. Dana will create a skeleton that we can all add to. She will post the skeleton to Google Docs, but will also send out an email to the team. Dana wants us to resolve this the week before Thanksgiving because people may be taking off for the holidays.

Dana will aim for next week to send out template structure and start the essays so we can knock it out as soon as possible. Regarding the team’s list in Google Docs, people are making really good comments, and the document is growing. Dana is hoping we will have more ideas from other colleagues in our respective libraries to add as well.

No one on the team had any questions or comments.

Next Meeting Schedule
Depending on how we progress with descriptions, maybe in two weeks we will meet again. We hope to be close to finishing the deliverables due at the end of this month by the next meeting. Dana will send an email to schedule it.

Feel free to call if you have anything to discuss, concerns or suggestions.

ACQ/SER/ERM subcommittee minutes 10/4/13

NGL ACQ/Serials/ERM Meeting

Friday, October 4, 2013; 1:30 pm, WebEx

Present: Kat Hart, Dana Walker, Agnes Muriuki, Courtney Mcgough, Elizabeth Winter, Jacqueline Vickers, Ken Smith, Olga Russov, Sandra Bandy, and Charlie Sicignano
Absent: Jim Garner, and Ben Davis

The meeting had no written agenda. Our purpose was to do a test of the WebEx technology, and see if it is a feasible way to meet in the future. We also wanted to check if folks had questions about the progress of the subcommittee, or about how we would be proceeding.

We had a sound and mic check.

Dana gave an overview of the team leaders’ recent meeting. Everyone is essentially in the same position: not sure what our charge is and what our deliverables should be. Merryll hopes that, by the December date listed in the meeting notes from the Macon meeting, we have some form of a document that would express what kinds of functionality we want in a next generation library system. No specific guidelines for the December deliverable were given, but a narrative with or without a wish list would be fine, according to Merryll. These subcommittees are to be the foundation for our work reviewing the next generation systems over the next two years.

The group will produce a narrative of general requirements. A spreadsheet has been posted on Google Docs for people to post ideas. As people find useful supporting documentation, these may be posted to Google as well. If the structure of the spreadsheet needs to be edited, we can add more categories as the need arises. We determined that by December 1^st, we will begin to synthesize and digest the points posted in the spreadsheet into a final document that could be delivered to Merryll by December 23^rd.

We decided that subcommittee members will not be required to post ideas to the spreadsheet, but we strongly encourage everyone to ask their staff and colleagues for thoughts on what to add. Dana suggested everyone use opportunities, such as GaCOMO, to network and get input. Some teams are using surveys and other instruments to gather ideas. Dana was unaware of an active Acquisitions-specific GIL listserv.

It was determined that at the very least, we don’t want any loss in functionality from what we have now, and we don’t want to lose data we have already put into our current ILS.

The team decided to work aggressively developing the list until November 15^th.  At that time we will distill the list into a generalized narrative. Team members can still add to the spreadsheet after that date, though. We may meet every two weeks after that to work on the narrative, and schedule more WebEx meetings if needed.

Dana will schedule more of meetings if anything comes of the team leader meetings that should be discussed among the subcommittee. She encouraged everyone to email or call her if we had questions or ideas.

It was pointed out that we really needed everyone to have a mic in order to make the most of the WebEx meeting format. Anyone on the team needs the technology to support WebEx.

With no further agenda, the meeting was adjourned.

ACQ/SER/ERM subcommittee minutes 9/13/13

USG NEXT GEN KICK OFF MEETING ACT/SER/ERM SUBCOMMITTEE MINUTES

The purpose of the ACQ/ERM/Serials Team is to develop set of requirements in our area of expertise for the Request for Proposal (RFP).

NGP-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU is the planning committee’s listserv address. GA-G2ALL will go to anyone in the USG subscribed to the G2ALL list, so be aware of who your audience will be when posting to the lists.

Kat Hart agreed to be the team recorder. Charlie Sicignano agreed to the team alternate. The team tentatively agreed to set regular meetings online every 2 weeks, starting the first week in October. Dana will have WebEx training on September 24. Subsequent meetings will be via WebEx.

We discussed the need to set up a listserv for the group. Dana will see what the committee has already done in this regard and get back with us. Dana will also set up a Google Drive account for the group.

As far as professional knowledge is concerned, the team determined that we are well covered. It was noted that the ACQ rep on the GIL coordinating committee is Miriam Nauenburg from West Georgia.

The question arose if the larger committee will give us some kind of scope for the RFP. Dana pulled the Orbis Cascade RFP, and will post it to the Google Drive.

Marlee Givens is the blog rep. Once approved by the group, the official minutes of each group should be communicated on the blog.

The group brought up the following initial thoughts…

We need strong long term dependable support from the vendor.

Are there any specs out there that compare the currently available systems?

Merryll Penson sat in on the meeting for a few minutes. She indicated that we can by start discussing a wish list.

The question arose if we want smaller sub groups within the team (i.e. acq, serials, erm). It was agreed that this might be beneficial on a temporary basis.

The group retired to join the larger committee.

A Comparative Analysis on the Effect of the Chosen ILSes on Systems and Technical Services Staffing Models

The latest issue of Information Technology and Libraries has a timely article -

A Comparative Analysis on the Effect of the Chosen ILSes on Systems and Technical Services Staffing Models by Ping Fu and Moira Fitzgerald

Abstract:

This analysis compares how the traditional ILS and the next-generation ILS impact systems and technical services staffing models at academic libraries. The method used in this analysis is to select two categories of ILSes—two well-established traditional ILSes and three leading next-generation ILSes—and compare them by focusing on two aspects: (1) software architecture, and (2) workflows and functionality. The results of the analysis show that the next-generation ILS will have substantial implications for library systems and technical staffing models in particular, suggesting that library staffing models should be redesigned and key librarian and staff positions be redefined to meet the opportunities and challenges brought on by the next-generation ILS.

Collaborative Technical Services Team meeting minutes

Collaborative Technical Services Team meeting minutes
September 13, 2013

Present at the meeting were: Beth Burnett, Bill Clayton, Bill Walsh, Cathy Jeffrey, Chris Huff, Dave Evans, Hallie Pritchett, Sherrida Crawford, Donna Bennett for Joe Mocnik, Lorene Flanders, guest

The primary purpose of the initial meeting was to organize the group and discuss plans for future meetings. The first order of business was to select a vice chair and a recorder for the group. Chris Huff volunteered to serve as vice chair. Chris nominated Sherrida Crawford to serve as recorder. Sherrida asked for time to consider how that would impact her other commitments. Selection of a recorder was postponed to a later date.

The group discussed future meetings. It was mentioned that Merryll Penson had requested that first draft proposals for a Next Generation Catalog rfp should be completed by December. With that in mind, the committee decided to schedule 2 meetings per month with meeting days and times to be determined.

Laura Burtle who will be responsible for communication for the Next Generation Catalog project stopped by the meeting to let us know that a Blog would be established for posting minutes and allowing discussion.

The group suggested that it might be beneficial to invite additional members. Suggested additions were Marlee Givens from Georgia Tech, Toby Graham from UGA and Miriam Nauenburg from West Georgia.

The group also had an initial discussion of collaborative technical services. The topics discussed were wide ranging and included: creation of a USG repository; centralized processing; a single online catalog; collaborative collection development; budgeting and the development of a financial model. The group considered the question “What is Technical Services?” discussing the idea that perhaps it should include all back office functions including system administration and interlibrary loan.

Submitted by Cathy Jeffrey

GIL Next Generation Library System Planning Begins

On Friday, September 13 representatives from USG libraries met to kick-off planning for a next generation library system.

Seven teams will be working on developing requirements for an RFP

• Acquisitions (Acq/Serials/ERM), Contact: Dana Walker
• Assessment (Assessment/Reports/Analytics/Business Intelligence), Contact: Deborah Prosser
• Cataloging (Cataloging/Metadata), Contact: Erin Grant
• Fulfillment (Circulation, ILL, GIL Express), Contact: Viki Timian
• Cloud (Cloud/Systems/Architecture), Contact: Bob Trotter
• Discovery_GIL OPAC (Discovery, GIL-FIND), Contact: Jeff Gallant
• Communications, Contact: Laura Burtle

A Collaborative Technical Services team is also meeting, and their input will inform the planning. Contacts for this team are Cathy Jeffry and Chris Huff.

You can view the slides from the presentation here.