Vendor-Based Shared Integrated Library Systems
Jeanine F. Gatzke and Belinda E. Lawrence
Need
• improve service via a consortium that shares an integrated library system (ILS)
• contract with a commercial ILS vendor
• provide twice-daily weekday materials delivery
Benefit
• seamless materials borrowing among the 14 libraries for faculty, staff, and students
• substantial cost savings for eight institutions sharing a single systems administrator
• broad and varied expertise of over 200 talented staff
• cross-institution communication, problem solving, and planning and implementation enhancements facilitated by committees and communities-of-interest
Cooperating Libraries in Consortium (CLIC) is a nonprofit corporation of eight member institutions in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, including Augsburg College, Bethel University and Seminary, Concordia University, Hamline University and Law School, Macalester College, St Catherine University, University of Northwestern–St. Paul, and the University of St. Thomas Seminary and Law Schools. CLIC was founded in 1969 to support cooperative collection development, interlibrary loan, and document delivery among its member libraries. Since 1987, CLIC’s major focus has been a shared Integrated Library System (ILS). In 2001, CLIC migrated from a shared Dynix system to the self-hosted Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (III) Millennium system, and in 2011 the hosting of the system was moved to a server at III. With just under two million bibliographic and over 3.5 million item records in the system, CLIC is the third largest academic system in the state of Minnesota.
CLIC serves fourteen member libraries with over 200 support staff. Our main objective is to “provide improved and more comprehensive library resources and services to library users through the enhanced sharing of materials; to operate and manage an integrated, automated library system; to develop entrepreneurial initiatives in order to deliver new/expanding content and services; and to provide opportunities for staff collegiality, leadership and training.”1,2
The CLIC staff consists of three people: an executive director, a system administrator, and an office manager. All direct interaction with the ILS vendor is coordinated through the office staff, primarily via the system administrator. Among his responsibilities are the duties of coordinating any software updates; monitoring system functionality, including issues that are reported to the help desk by individual library staff; running and distributing global reports; representing CLIC to III; and maintaining mailing lists and web services. The member libraries benefit both in cost savings and from the expertise of a central system administrator.
Each ILS module has a few special interest groups and a corresponding operational committee (OC) that meets on a regular basis at the CLIC office to discuss and solve problems, address issues relevant to the academic library world, and to plan and implement enhancements to the shared system. These committees are comprised of appointed representatives from each institution, but their meetings are open to any staff interested in attending. The nine existing OCs are: Acquisitions, Associate System Administrators, Cataloging, Circulation, Digitization, Interlibrary Loan, OPAC, Reserves, and Serials. Each module-specific OC sends one member representative to the Systems Operations Committee, whose primary goal is to aid in system upgrades and perform specific module testing after any upgrade to verify that the system is operating as expected. The Systems Operations members also share in the responsibility of monitoring the III problem log and updating their OC colleagues on issues and resolutions.
Additionally, CLIC leadership has encouraged the formation of Communities of Interest (COI) and task forces to address specific issues. The COIs tend to be more long-lasting in nature and have a narrow focus, while the task forces form and disband on an ad hoc basis. There are currently nine COIs meeting regularly: A/V, Authority Control, Batch Loading, Collection Development, Electronic Resources, Reference, Student Employees, Web, and WorldCat Local. Task forces most often arise out of OC or COI meetings to focus on a short-term commitment and then disband once the task is complete. An added benefit of the various meeting types is the development of personal relationships across institutional lines, which become valuable resources when issues arise and input from another site is sought. All operational committees and COIs have a designated liaison from the consortium office to ensure consistent and accurate communication between/among groups and within the consortium as a whole.
One of the primary benefits of a shared ILS that is most appreciated by CLIC patrons is their ability to borrow an item from another CLIC institution. With the click of the request button, the desired book is pulled from the shelf by the owning library, submitted to the courier, and delivered to the user’s designated pickup location. To support this delivery function, an independent delivery contractor makes deliveries of materials between member institutions on a twice-daily basis throughout the regular school year. His route also includes two additional local seminary libraries and the University of Minnesota/Minitex, which allows CLIC resources to be shared statewide through the state’s resource-sharing network (MnLINK). For the past ten years, the contractor has guaranteed delivery of materials requested between CLIC member institutions in half a day to two days.
Over time the consortium has evolved from its original intent of sharing an ILS and document delivery into an organization that also shares people resources and knowledge, including teaching, training, and troubleshooting. It also fosters innovation. For example, two institutions in the consortia had earlier adopted new interlibrary loan software. Over the years, as the success of the product was made known, it became clear to the other members that this software also should be adopted by their institutions. With the help of the first two adopters, the other libraries followed suit. Learning from the early-adopter libraries saved money that would have been spent on professional trainers or travel time. In addition, fellow CLIC colleagues were on hand when needed throughout the adoption process and will be available in the future. Procedures also needed to be tweaked consortium-wide and successfully integrated into the workflow of each institution.
There are a prolific number of examples of cooperation among libraries and staff. They are varied and occur in both the public and technical service realms and in areas concerned both with the ILS and outside of it. For a number of years the Authority Control COI has sponsored a day-long workshop in January for catalogers and other staff working with authority control to discuss a specific topic related to their work within our ILS or in response to changes in national standards. Occasionally a guest speaker is brought in, but more often the discussion is led by members of the COI who have delved deeply into a topic and are willing to share their expertise. The workshop always includes time to work on authority headings as a group and to crowd-source answers to questions that arise.
Sharing an ILS has fostered an atmosphere of collegiality that makes it natural to consider how any decision made will affect the other institutions prior to its implementation. Cooperation among member libraries and staff has been the key to an enhanced service experience for users from all member institutions. It is the commitment of library staff and CLIC staff that makes the consortium work.
CLIC has recently begun the search for a next generation system to replace the current ILS. In the decade since we purchased the current ILS, there has been a substantial change in the nature of our individual library collections. We have gone from print-based to electronic resources, and our libraries must subscribe to additional services to manage those resources. The lack of fit with our current ILS has created concerns and issues of relevancy and efficiency for the continued use of the current system, as well as the recognition that often we are no longer meeting our users, at their point of need, with all resources discoverable and accessible from a single source.
As CLIC libraries explore the systems that are available, they are looking for specific features that will allow them to meet future as well as current needs. The libraries want a system that is responsive and scalable, highly fault-tolerant, flexible and extensible, and centrally hosted as well as one that integrates with other systems.
Moving the old system into the cloud is not an acceptable option. CLIC is looking for a system that will take advantage of new architecture designed to handle our current and future collections. The consortium wants the new system to streamline workflows by reducing task duplication and increasing automated tasks, and desires a robust assessment and reporting component along with the continued ability to efficiently share resources.
As part of the search process, CLIC is also looking at its own future. For the past 26 years the consortium’s focus has been the ILS; however, this relationship is dynamic and changing. Where is it heading? What role could and should the consortium play for its members? With a stable working relationship and the shared ILS acting as the nucleus, CLIC has gone beyond the central tenet to share people, resources, and other software. All indications are that our commitment to sharing will continue long into the future.
Note
1. Karen Harwood, “Cooperating Libraries in Consortium History,” December 1, 2010.