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From Surviving to Thriving:
Reimagining collaborative e-resource workflows
and metadata management for the next generation
Sunshine Carter & Stacie Traill
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
ER&L
University of Minnesota: Background
• 21 libraries on 5 campuses.
– Crookston, Duluth, Morris, Twin Cities, Rochester
– Share systems; but otherwise essentially autonomous
• Twin Cities reorganized Technical Services in 2012.
– Heavily impacted cataloging, acquisitions & e-resource management
• 2 year Alma migration preparation
– Go-live date Dec. 26, 2013.
– 60+ members across all 5 campuses
• Alma version: Multi-campus
Simultaneous PCI implementation
• We implemented web-scale discovery
service Primo Central at the same time as
the systems migration.
• Good for users, but difficult for e-resources
management staff.
• An additional poorly-understood “layer” on
top of Alma.
Post-Implementation Challenges
In the Beginning: Surviving
• Recalibration: Disoriented by fully migrated data and its new structure.
• Discussion: Electronic Resources Issues Group created to troubleshoot issues impacting daily work.
• Prioritizing: Cleanup projects needed but not critical.
• Ticketing System: Adopted ServiceNow to handle issues of all types (system, metadata, access, etc.).
• Ex Libris: 6-month post-implementation visit; 480 cases filed with EL in same period.
Agenda
• High Level Concepts
• Licensing and Acquisitions
• Activations and Access
• Metadata Management
• Primo Central Management and
Troubleshooting
• Cleanup Planning and Workflow
High Level Concepts
High Level Concepts
• Understanding e-resource management
concepts and architecture in Alma was a
huge barrier in the beginning.
• More difficult because of the amount of
duplication resulting from migration.
• Staff could not clearly conceptualize end-to-
end workflows.
Strategy: High-level workflow diagram
• Flowchart of end-to-end process: licensing,
ordering, activation, cataloging (and more).
• Tailored to our systems and processes rather
than “out-of-the-box” models.
• Shows relationship of each step to locally
customized Task List statuses.
Strategy: Define basic concepts
• Definitions and local guidelines for broad e-
resource hierarchical categories.
• Most helpful for staff with no previous
experience in SFX.
Strategy: Diagram e-book models
• E-book records migrated from Aleph had no
explicit hierarchical structure.
• E-books added in Alma treated differently
(better), but multiple models confused staff.
Licensing
Licensing Workflows
Opportunities
• Shared licensing area in a multi-campus environment.
• Terms and uploaded licenses viewable to all campuses.
• Ability to push license terms to Primo.
Challenges
• Whose license is whose?
• Which license terms to record?
• Which license terms to push to Primo?
• Some Verde license metadata migrated badly.
Strategy: Coding & naming
conventions
• Coding of license:
– Campus
– Vendor
– Product
– Year
• Defined summary elements to eliminate
confusion.
Strategy: Thoughtful decision
making
• Changes to licensing area impact all
campuses.
• Not our highest priority, to be honest.
• Electronic Resources Group will decide on:
– license terms to record
– which terms to push to discovery
– where to store licenses (in Alma or elsewhere?)
• On our “to do” list.
Acquisitions
Acquisitions Workflows
Opportunities
• One order for joint
purchases (Twin
Cities & Duluth).
• Manage orders &
access in one
system.
Challenges
• Confusion on how to order the most basic of eresources due to out-of-the-box workflow limitations.
• Getting staff up and running despite functionality hurdles and badly migrated metadata.
Strategy: Create basic
documentation*• We strived to limit the creation of custom documentation.
• Some, however, was necessary to ease anxiety, increase efficiency and note workarounds implemented.
• In a collaborative environment, documentation should address all staff and circumstances.
• Examples:
– Ordering E-Book Portfolios and Collections
– Insufficient Funds for PO Lines
– Additional one-on-one trainings for coordinate campus staff via hangout, phone calls and in-person meetings.
*as needed
Strategy: Create solution
documentation*
• Several issues created obstacles for a smooth start up in January 2014.
• Before orders could be placed, solutions to specific problems needed to be discussed, vetted, documented and distributed.
• Examples:– Electronic Title PO Line Migrated as Physical –
Subscription
– Updating PO Line and E-Inventory Record for E-Resource Title Licensed for Multiple Campuses
*as needed
Activations &
Access
Activations & Access
Opportunities
• Ability to streamline activation for jointly purchased and free collections available to all or some campuses.
• Opportunity to develop best practices across campuses.
Challenges
• Acquisitions and
activations.
• Multiple EZProxy.
• Complex Group
“Available For”
settings.
Strategy: Focus on the common
good
• While it would be ideal to have all campuses following the same practices, where it’s not critical create opt-out options.
• Whose “common good”?
• Discuss issues ad nauseam.
• “Setting Campus Availability for Free E-Resources”:– Called to activate free collections for ALL campuses
– Campuses wishing to opt-out were responsible for doing so themselves
Strategy: Start using new
functionality
• While some campuses have occasionally collaborated, Alma allowed us to make this a more habitual practice.
• Pilot project initiated to test the feasibility of the Twin Cities managing the acquisition, licensing, and access-management of select Duluth e-resources.
• “Setting Campus Availability for E-Resources Licensed for Multiple Campuses” used Alma functionality to fulfill a pilot goal.
Metadata
Management
Metadata Management
• Alma Community Zone metadata for e-
resources: both an opportunity and a
challenge.
• Record loading for e-books easy to manage,
but migrated data challenging to clean up.
• Needed new workflow for reporting metadata
problems with records not in local control
(including PCI records).
Strategy: New approaches to
metadata error correction
• Ongoing communication to public services
staff about metadata problems: what we can
fix vs. what we can report.
• E-resources and cataloging/metadata staff
shift from correcting errors directly to
analyzing and reporting problems to vendor.
Strategy: Cultivate understanding
of metadata sources and lifecycle
• Goal: help both public services staff and
technical staff understand how/when
metadata gets to the discovery layer.
• Quick win: most e-resources technical staff
can determine the source of a record --
important for initial problem triage.
Strategy: Document and share e-
book workflows
• Developed
consistent, well-
documented
processes so setup,
batch editing, and
import work could be
distributed.
• Expanded shared
tracking spreadsheet.
Primo CentralManagement & Troubleshooting
Primo Central Index (PCI)
Opportunities
• Millions of records
discoverable.
• Each campus has
own index and
can manage their
own activations.
Challenges
• What collections should be activated?
• Sharing activations with others was important.
• Do the records look and work properly?
• Troubleshooting multi-layer systems was complex and confusing to well-seasoned problem solvers.
Strategy: Activation workflow
• Eventual goal of increasing number of staff
activating PCI collections.
• Revised guidelines with new knowledge &
experience, providing general
recommendations by resource type and
delivery method.
• Workflow created to help with labyrinthine
decision making process for all campuses.
Strategy: Create collection list
• Liaisons and selectors needed to know what
resources are activated and searched in
discovery.
• Needed activated and unactivated
collections.
• Google Spreadsheet used is now a working
document useful for all staff.
Information included:
• Provider
• Resource Name
• SourceID
• Fixed Availability
• linktorsrc URL
• Requires subscription for
• Status
• As of
• Note
Strategy: Outline PCI testing
• Eventual goal of increasing number of staff checking PCI records.
• Recommended that most collections be activated in PCI Production without pre-testing.
• However, records should be spot tested once available in discovery.
• Created workflow to help in the testing and evaluation of PCI records.
Strategy: Untangle troubleshooting
• Troubleshooting -- one of our toughest challenges.
• Processes for resolving access issues remained the same; determining the underlying problem was new to most staff.
• Increased problem reporting due to increased exposure
• Initially, escalated issues handled by few individuals.
• Staff troubleshooting more issues independently.
• Goal: Have all staff with troubleshooting responsibilities have confidence to interpret and report most issues.
Cleanup Planning
Cleanup Planning
• An overwhelming amount of e-resources
cleanup needed because of duplication.
• Where to start? Cleanup needed in many
areas.
• Too difficult early on:
– Little confidence with system
– Not sure we could make good cleanup decisions.
Strategy: Prioritize cleanup tasks
• Identified areas where cleanup had to be
done on an as-needed basis (e.g., orders
migrated with wrong type).
• Set aside larger cleanup tasks that could wait
• Concentrated on helping staff understand the
environment as it was, rather than an
idealized, “clean” version of it.
Strategy: Put plans in place for later
• Several “high-value” target areas identified for near-future cleanup:
– Standalone E-book Portfolios
– Free E-Resource Collections
– Interface Names
• Document and flowchart cleanup processes as we can so we are ready to go when staff resources are available.
• A work in progress!
Thriving!...well, mostly
Strategy: Continued collaboration
• Electronic Resources Group continues to meet every three weeks; representatives from all campuses.
• Not lacking agenda items.
• 14 months from “Go Live” and we don’t have all the answers.
• We haven’t always felt like we were making forward progress, but in review we have made incredible strides in our procedures, policies, workflows and understanding.
Strategy: Share what we’ve learned
• Staff will need a lot of help to grasp basic, key concepts. Don’t assume any knowledge.
• Start with a focus on the big picture and work down to the details. The step-by-step how-to is important, but everyone needs to know how their work fits in.
• Visualize, visualize, visualize. Written documentation is good, but charts, pictures, and diagrams are valuable tools for both learning and everyday work.
Questions?
Sunshine J. Carter
Electronic Resources Librarian
University of Minnesota Libraries
scarter@umn.edu
Stacie A. Traill
Metadata Analyst
University of Minnesota Libraries
trail001@umn.edu
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