Cut it Out: Reducing Costs and Improving Efficiency with Next-Generation Library Systems

Susan Stearns, Ex LibrisBob Gerrity, Boston CollegeAnn-Marie Breaux, YBP Library ServicesJohn Larson, Ex Libris

ALA Annual Conference ⃒June 27, 2010

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Who are we?

• Susan Stearns, VP of Strategic Partnerships, Ex Libris

• Robert Gerrity, AUL for Library Systems and Access Services, Boston College

• Ann-Marie Breaux, VP, Academic Service Integration, YBP Library Services

• John Larson, Product Manager, Ex Libris

Talking Points

• Setting the stage – Susan

• View the top: The AUL perspective – Bob

• Streamlining workflows for selection and acquisition – Ann-Marie

• Designing next generation library services for a lower TCO – John

• Q&A – YOU!

“Efficiency cuts are no longer enough and some serious

thinking about the future shape of services and provision is

needed.”

The Economic Downturn and Libraries: Survey Findings.

CIBER, UCL, London: December, 2009.

Challenges for libraries in difficult economic times

What questions should we be asking?

• Who are our primary constituents?

• What problems are we solving for them?

• How can we [and they] tell whether we are solving those problems or not?

• Which of our processes and practices make the most difference to our patrons and which the least?

Thanks to Rick Anderson, University of Utah

Cost Drivers in Total Cost of Ownership

• Capital Expenses• The software and hardware, network infrastructure,

monitoring and testing tools, facilities…• Deployment Costs• Ongoing Infrastructure Costs• Intangible Costs

• Reliability and Availability• Interoperability• Extensibility• Security• Scalability

• Opportunity Costs – the Most Intangible

URM: Reducing TCO

URM: Reducing TCO

Automated Processing

Analyze Change

Log

Exception Rules

Actions

Automatic

Manual

Informational

Example of a portion of an automated workflow in URM

URM: Reducing TCO

Discovery

Selection

Inventory

Acquisition

Fulfillment Activation

PublicationUser Mgmt

SIS

CMS

Vendor ERP

Interoperability with external and third party systems

URM: Reducing costs AND improving services

Talking Points

• Setting the stage – Susan

• View the top: The AUL perspective – Bob

• Streamlining workflows for selection and acquisition – Ann-Marie

• Designing next generation library services for a lower TCO – John

• Q&A – YOU!

AUL Perspective

• Reducing costs and increasing efficiency

• Appeal of the URM/URD approach

• Leveraging savings/efficiencies to provide new services to users

My world in 2000

WebsiteILS

BC Datacenter

CD-ROMServer

My world in 2010

ILS WebsiteDigital

Repository

JournalPublishing

Proxy

Discovery

FederatedSearch

ILL/DocDel

ERM

LinkResolver

My world in 2015?

Discover/Delivery

UnifiedResource

Management

• Streamline/simplify back-end operations wherever possible (complexity reduction)

• Stop doing things that no longer make sense

• Eliminate redundancies

• Leverage web-scale services

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (turn and face the strain)

Thanks to Anne Kenney, Cornell University

What questions should we be asking?

• Who are our primary constituents?

• What problems are we solving for them?

• How can we [and they] tell whether we are solving those problems or not?

• Which of our processes and practices make the most difference to our patrons and which the least?

Thanks to Rick Anderson, University of Utah

What questions should we be asking?

• Who are our primary constituents?• Faculty: 1,000• Grad. Students: 6,000• Undergrads.:8,000

What questions should we be asking?

• What problems are we solving for them?

Box of books that don’t circulate muchCount of Uncirculated Items - O'Neill Library   Total Item

LC Class   Count in 10 Years % Count in 5 Years   Count

A General Works 1,208 17.05% 2,180 30.76% 7,087

B Philosophy, Psychology, Religion 54,523 31.77% 87,021 50.71% 171,604

C Auxiliary Sciences of History 3,413 46.81% 4,870 66.79% 7,291

D World History 31,960 35.32% 52,025 57.49% 90,490

E History of the Americas 6,290 22.58% 12,442 44.67% 27,854

F History of the Americas 8,362 35.61% 13,494 57.47% 23,479

G Geography, Anthropology, Recreation 4,101 26.85% 7,809 51.12%15,276

H Social Sciences 71,045 43.23% 102,942 62.64% 164,346

J Political Science 16,897 40.98% 24,498 59.41% 41,233

K Law 2,493 23.45% 4,860 45.71% 10,633

L Education 19,792 38.99% 29,179 57.48% 50,767

M Music 7,681 37.98% 11,810 58.40% 20,223

N Fine Arts 24 31.17% 39 50.65% 77

P Language and Literature 112,534 42.26% 165,461 62.13% 266,315

Q Science 38,062 41.25% 59,784 64.80% 92,261

R Medicine 14,518 27.89% 26,518 50.95% 52,050

S Agriculture 1,121 46.09% 1,654 68.01% 2,432

T Technology 8,467 45.91% 12,202 66.16% 18,442

U Military Science 977 19.92% 2,274 46.37% 4,904

V Naval Science 144 25.17% 287 50.17% 572

Total:   403,612 37.81% 621,349 58.21% 1,067,336

Percentage of books that have not circulated in 5 years = 58.21

Percentage of books that have not circulated in 10 years = 37.81

What questions should we be asking?

• How can we [and they] tell whether we are solving those problems or not?

What questions should we be asking?• How can we [and they] tell

whether we are solving those problems or not?

What questions should we be asking?

• How can we [and they] tell whether we are solving those problems or not?

What questions should we be asking?

• Which of our processes and practices make the most difference to our patrons and which the least?

!?

A better way…

Examples of things we’d like to do more of:

• space improvements (study rooms, booths)

• more on-demand services (digitize, scan, buy)

• “last mile” services (scan on demand)

• user-centric web services (mobile friendly)

Talking Points

• Setting the stage – Susan

• View the top: The AUL perspective – Bob

• Streamlining workflows for selection and acquisition – Ann-Marie

• Designing next generation library services for a lower TCO – John

• Q&A – YOU!

Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: 13 Years of Evolution

Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Collection Development

• Approval Plans

• Notification Plans

• Electronic Notifications

• Online Selection

• ITSO CUL/WorldCat Selection

• Integration with Acquisitions

Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Collection Development

Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Collection Development

Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Acquisitions

• Integration with Selection

• Integration between Vendor System and Library System• 9xx Order Data

• EDI Orders, Order responses, Invoices

• EFT Payments

University of Tennessee: Time Saved*

2004 Workflow Redesign (ca. 250 books per week)• Old workflow: 65 hours

• Download OCLC bibs and create holdings, items, orders, encumbrances; arrive and invoice books

• New workflow: 8 hours• 30 minutes to load all bib files and create new items

• 1 hour to resolve no matches/multiple matches

• 6.5 hours to arrive and invoice books

*Courtesy of Mike Rogers, University of Tennessee

Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Cataloging & Processing

• Cataloging Records Delivered with Shipment• Vendor Records

• PromptCat (WorldCat Cataloging Partners)

• Now SkyRiver

• Shelfready Processing

Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: Looming Hurdles• Standards That Are Not Standard

• eBooks

• Evolving Purchase Models

• Dis-Integration of the ILS

• Cataloging Records in the Cloud

• Threats to Library Financial Efficiency

• How to Help Libraries not Spend Money (or spend it more wisely)

• Maintaining Existing Services While Continuing to Innovate

Book Vendors and Workflow Efficiency: What’s Next?

• Just in Case Time:• Patron-Driven Purchasing• Print on Demand

• Collaborative/Consortial Collection Development

• Increased Use of Web Services, Less Moving MARC Files Around

• More Work in the Discovery Layer• More Print Outsourcing, plus More E-Books

Talking Points

• Setting the stage – Susan

• View the top: The AUL perspective – Bob

• Streamlining workflows for selection and acquisition – Ann-Marie

• Designing next generation library services for a lower TCO – John

• Q&A – YOU!

Overview

• Design principles

• Assume automation

• Support cross-staff workflows

• Leverage the unified

Designing a lower TCO

• Architecture and deployment provide the infrastructure for lowered costs

• Design principles applied across the system leverage these advantages• Automation wherever possible

• System-managed workflows

• Leverage the “unified”

• Managing Physical, Electronic, and Digital resources in one system allows streamlining that wasn’t possible before

Principle: Build for automation

Assume that all common workflows will happen without intervention

• 80/20 rule: build to automate the most common cases

• Use library-defined business rules to create default actions

• Bring staff in when decisions need to be made

• Draw attention to exceptional conditions

Automating processes in acquisitions

NO

YES

YES

NO

Approved Selection

Includes Vendor?

Includes Price?

Group onto PO

Assign Vendor

Send to Task List

Add Price

Acquisitions task list

Community Zone

Inventory

Library Zone

Catalog

Automated copy catalogingM

eta

data

Man

ag

em

en

tS

yste

m

• Using the Data Services infrastructure, we can complete brief records.

• At key points, it makes sense to check for a full record:• Search the Community

Catalog for a complete record

• Link to the record or download it to the local catalog

• Enhance the inventory with call number and location

Acquisitions

Selection

Receiving

Principle: Manage workflows

Build workflows that allow staff to focus on their expertise

• Manage resources according to their lifecycles

• Alert staff when actions are necessary to progress the workflow

• Use functions from all “modules” for workflows

Digitization request lifecycle

Digitize

Resource located

Request approved

Copyright clearance

Fulfillmentplan

Route to digitization

Move to next request

Pick up item

Digitization plan

DeliverDeposit

Digitization Request

Digitization approval

Digitization request lifecycle

Digitize

Resource located

Request approved

Copyright clearance

Fulfillmentplan

Route to digitization

Move to next request

Pick up item

Digitization plan

DeliverDeposit

Digitization Request

Digitization: Paging task list

Principle: Leverage the “unified”

Allow staff to manage their collection together across formats

• Apply system processes and services to Physical, Electronic, and Digital material

• Build services for format-agnostic metadata management

• Offer alternative format options

• Retain what is unique about each format

Selection (view other options)

Unified requesting

Summary

• Network deployment and Data Services infrastructure support a design that:• Dramatically simplifies common processes

• Manages workflows across library locations, resource types, and staff roles

• Unifies services for all resource formats

• A single system for managing Physical, Electronic, and Digital resources• Lowers total cost of ownership

• Improves existing services

• Offers an infrastructure for entirely new services

Thank You!