SHARED SERVICES AND THE LOCAL LIBRARY PLATFORM: A UK Perspective A White Paper by David Kay, Owen Stephens and Annette DeNoyer OCTOBER 2013 How technology enables shared service opportunities to challenge process, systems and institutional boundaries In this White Paper, UK-based consultants David Kay and Owen Stephens probe the academic library shared services landscape, taking UK developments as leading but far from lone exemplars. The paper is linked to a companion series of conversations with library leaders based on real institutional shared service commitments and aspirations. The hope is to provide a lens for examining requisite systems and service interactions and for understanding how library platform providers might complement these efforts. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY History reminds us that libraries readily embrace shared services. However, libraries currently face an increasing number of shared service options in an institutional environment where promises of economy, efficiency and effectiveness are tempered by the challenges of institutional differentiation, data governance, conflicting service options, and fear of lock-in. The tensions of conflicting service options are especially important in the UK and the constituent Home Nations where the Higher Education community has made and continues to make considerable investment in shared services that are developed and delivered within the community. Vendor offerings are therefore competing in or playing into a wider ecosystem. Given this setting, our premise is that libraries want: To take advantage of shared and collaborative services offered outside their local library management modules; To do so without duplicating tasks and work flows; To avoid complex and hard to manage data exchange processes; and To have their systems suppliers understand their motivations and support what they are doing, rather than tell them the answer is all inside the Integrated Library System (ILS) black box. For Innovative, the core challenge is to complement rather than to conflict these efforts. The range and depth of shared activity that is especially evident in but not unique to the UK demands the attention of supply chain partners whether pure play library systems vendors, publishers and aggregators, or records suppliers. As in the wider web ecosystem, it is essential that all parties recognise the potential for mutuality (both dependencies and value-added opportunities) and therefore set out to play well together. That means libraries and vendors must be committed to ongoing dialogue and development for: Positively accommodating the role of above campus services, Working together to understand optimal work flows, Committing deeply to APIs that support practical use cases, Watching out for sources of operational friction, and Adopting and contributing to standards. HISTORIC BACKGROUND Libraries and librarians have a history of successful collaboration. Whilst naturally fuelled by the mission of the profession, this collaboration is also based on the solid justification of business cases that deliver not only economy but also efficiency and effectiveness. Strong early examples included bibliographic description and resource sharing. The scope for library collaboration was significantly enhanced by computerization, commencing with the era of systems automation in the 1970s and escalated by the communication potential of the Internet in the 1990s. Recently, web scale services and near-ubiquitous broadband has created exponentially explosive potential, adding further dimensions to the way libraries collaborate with each other and with their supply chains. Reliable bandwidth has removed service limitations on remote access to regular digital media of interest to libraries such as books, journals, and AV assets, thus strengthening the role of shared platforms (ranging from Jisc Historic Books to the Internet Archive). Global connectivity has enabled libraries to engage in multiple partnerships, no longer determined by proximity but rather by shared interests in services, data, and content. The productization of cloud services has made the hosted ILS a more compelling reality, breaking through traditional dependencies on local library skills and IT service preferences and opening new opportunities around data sharing in multi-tenanted environments.
SHARED SERVICES IN THE UK The expanding range of opportunities offered by shared services potentially challenges the suggestion that the new generation of integrated library systems will deliver best results when implemented as a single vendor ecosystem 1. Whilst vendor ecosystems suggest the promise of efficiencies in terms of workflows and data synchronization, libraries themselves are looking outwards at a corporate and community service mix that is expanding at its edges faster and with greater diversity than emergent vendor responses. 2 This service mix includes integration with wider curatorial, social and information services operated beyond the local institution, not least sector and community specific shared services. The development and adoption of such services is powerfully illustrated in the UK. Against a backcloth of government endorsement of the benefits of sharing, the lead UK professional bodies for academic libraries, SCONUL (the UK Society of College, National and University Libraries) and RLUK (Research Libraries UK), have worked closely with the educational technology agency Jisc to identify, design, and implement shared services. It is instructive to map leading examples of current UK services against the seven opportunities afforded by shared services, which are further detailed later in this paper. In so doing, it is especially notable, given appropriate governance, how primary motivations can act as a springboard to be leveraged in further shared outcomes (as in the case of Copac and its collections management developments and in the convergence of JUSP and KB+). It should be noted that this table is not exhaustive and excludes, for example, the range of regional consortia such as the Northern Collaboration, NoWAL, and SWHELS focussed on purchasing and general collaboration. 1 http://lmsguidance.jiscinvolve.org/wp/the-change-challenge/change-challenge/ 2 http://lmsguidance.jiscinvolve.org/wp/policy-direction/ Service Name Service Scope Approx number of UK HE Libraries 1 - Resource Sharing Discovery Management 2 - Aggregated at Scale 3 - Community Data Benchmarking 4 - Intelligence 5 - Measurement & 6 - Shared Platform & Purchasing 7 - Joint Negotiation Bloomsbury LMS Shared Library Management System 6 Search25 M25 Libraries Virtual Union Catalogue 50 Copac Research Libraries Union Catalogue 70 Copac Collections Management Exploitation of Copac Union Catalogue 12 (Pilot) UK Research Reserve (UKRR) Last Copy Service for Print Journals 30 British Llibrary Document Supply Centre Interlending & Document Delivery ALL SCONUL Access Reciprocal visiting access to print and 100 e-resources NESLi2 E-Journals licensing deals ALL SUNCAT Serials Union Catalogue 90 Knowledge Base Plus (KB+) Community Knowledge Base for Subscribed Resources 50 Journal Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP) E-Journals Usage Statistics 100 Keepers Registry Long term access to journals content ALL SHEDL Scottish HE Digital Library Consortium 17 WHELF Welsh HE Libraries Forum 14 White Rose Research Online Open Access Research Repository 3 Archives Hub Gateway to archival collections 50 LAMP Library Analytics & Metrics Project 12 (Pilot) Key: DARK GREEN Primary Motivation // LIGHT GREEN Potential Outcome
BARRIERS The motivations for and also the barriers to participation in shared services are observed to change over time as the political and financial climate varies, as technology develops, and as the way we use it evolves. For example, barriers relating to collection differentiation may currently be diminishing in importance relative to the driving focus on student experience, thus generating a greater interest in resource sharing. The following analysis of barriers therefore attempts to reflect the perspectives of UK academic libraries in 2013. The 2002 Barriers to Resource Sharing report 3 categorised ascending levels of risk, with collaboration exposing libraries to little risk while Deep Resource Sharing (such as sharing staff or major systems) may present more considerable risk. More recently, participants at The Benefits of Sharing project workshop 4 drew up a list of possible barriers, many reflecting a concern that sharing a key system across many libraries represents a significant risk. The list also suggests that there remains some doubt about the potential benefits and imperatives for deeper resource sharing, echoed in phrases such as There is no strong incentive and We are not being told to do this. Notwithstanding such underlying caution and concern, the reality is that in UK HE, and perhaps more generally, the use of some shared services by libraries is commonplace, routine and unavoidable. The sharing of resources through inter-library loan and mutual access agreements is almost universal. The majority of UK HE libraries contribute to one or more aggregated discovery services such as Union Catalogues. National and regional consortia negotiate licences and purchase agreements. The use of shared knowledge bases for electronic resources and the sharing bibliographic records is standard practice. It is hard to see how a UK University library could operate efficiently and effectively while eschewing these types of shared services. We might therefore assume there are no barriers of any significance to the adoption of shared services. However, as illustrated in our classification framework, there is considerable variety in terms of the focus, scope and governance. Each service raises different barriers and risks, as well as delivering different benefits; therefore, each needs to be considered on its own merit. Whilst an institution may support shared services as a general principle, it is nevertheless important to apply consistent criteria to test each use case and to assess the particular risks and barriers to adoption. The considerations will include: Flexibility and Control to account for complex local practices, varied resources, and differing strategic requirements 3 http://www.rslp.ac.uk/circs/2002/barriers.htm 4 http://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/benefitsofsharing/the-lms-day/would-a-sharedlms-work-for-scotland/ Assurance of Quality regarding accuracy, timeliness, completeness of data, and quality user experiences that match service-level commitments Leadership Skills to manage extended relationships, work across cultures, help others change, and manage distributed resources Issues of Competitive Advantage when common scope and style of services and collections may undermine traditional differentiators Legal Barriers regarding the nature and level of the service offered, as well as the associated liabilities, which may burden participation with costs or risks Costs of Sharing including initial ramped costs and ongoing running costs, and scepticism regarding a return on investment in a reasonable timescale The direct and indirect costs of shared services in the UK HE sector are likely to be a particular point of discussion as Jisc, a provider of many shared services used by UK HE institutions, moves to a membership subscription model, putting a more explicit (though banded) cost on the variety of shared services on offer 5. However, given the prevalence of shared services in the UK, this process is likely to be beneficial in establishing improved modelling methods and in evidencing benefits that might speed the development of the next generation of opportunities. OPPORTUNITIES In 2010, HEIDS, the Scottish Universities IT directors group, undertook a landmark study of the national shared services landscape for the Scottish Funding Council 6. The work recognised that a road map would be essential given the gestation period for developing multi-lateral relationships, each with the potential to reengineer operational practice as well as deliver savings. The HEIDS study applied the expectations, set by the Connell report to Further and Higher Education, that shared IT services generally have the potential for a range of major benefits which must be tested against specific priority opportunities: Offering economies of scale, potentially leading to greater efficiency Generating critical mass, potentially leading to improved quality, flexibility, agility, and an expanded range of services Subcontracting of commodity activities, potentially re-focusing local IT resources from basic operations to added-value activity Lowering the cost of entry compared to build your own approaches Enabling strategic development of cross-institution support services Addressing growing demand for collaborative learning and teaching, research, and knowledge exchange Reducing the environmental impact of IT activities 5 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/about/subscription-package-for-higher-education 6 http://www.heids.ac.uk/report
Again, given the experience of sharing services that has been developed in libraries since the coming of automation, there is opportunity for the community (libraries and their supply chain partners) to identify opportunities either library specific or mediated by library practice where they might go further and benefit more significantly from shared services than other functional areas. In order to establish a clear sense of the benefits and returns that might accrue above and beyond the broad potential set out in the HEIDS report, we should review the types of activity that libraries naturally recognise as shared service drivers: Resource Sharing of library materials and resources, whether print or electronic, to provide a sustainable extended collection Aggregated Discovery across a variety of collection types provided through next generation search interfaces Community Data Management with joint management in a single place to reduce duplicated costs and to improve data quality by pooling staff time, expertise, and standardizing key elements Increased Intelligence through aggregated user activity data to derive indicators of user engagement, to provide personalized recommendations, and to support shared collection and last copy decision-making Measurement and Benchmarking of resources and services ranging from collections to enquiries, where multi-institution data provides fresh insights Shared Platforms for direct capital cost savings, flexibility and scalability, and reduced systems management effort Joint Negotiation and Purchasing by leveraging the collective to negotiate price and contract terms for content, services, and systems Naturally, some activities cover multiple categories and therefore offer value added opportunities, as illustrated in our tabulation of UK shared services. However, these categories do offer a useful way of grouping benefits of a shared approach to common problems and opportunities across HE institutions and their library services. COMMUNITY VISION SCONUL has maintained a strong focus on the identification and development of community shared service opportunities. As reported to HEFCE in the 2009 SCONUL business case, shared services have particular resonance in enabling institutions, and especially libraries, to respond to the turbulent landscape described above. The SCONUL Collaborative & Shared Services working group presents a vision for the immediate journey at handin its 2013-18 Development Plan 7 : In 2013, SCONUL 7 http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/sconul%20shared%20services%20forward%20plan%202013-18.pdf libraries enjoy the benefits of a number of new shared and collaborative services which have reduced costs and increased quality. Some are major national services with international partners; some are on a more modest scale, but equally valuable. They are community owned, although most of them are not community delivered. Devised, developed and delivered in partnership; Community owned but not necessarily community delivered; and Able to scale up or interface with similar services elsewhere in the world. The plan suggests priority areas for the coming period: Collections and Access Discovery Curation and Preservation Research Data Management Library Business Analytics Shared Expertise (including shared services expertise) LIBRARY DECISION MAKING As librarians, we tend naturally towards classification. However, the work of the Jisc 2012-13 library systems programme 8 indicates the distinct lack of a systematic method or well-understood vocabulary for describing and differentiating shared services. To avoid confusion about interpreting shared services and related concepts such as cloud computing and Software As A Service, there is value in adopting the umbrella idea of Above Campus to encompass all types of IT-enabled service aggregated beyond the local institution. 9 Furthermore, it is important not to restrict our thinking simply to the provision of an applications platform operated by a vendor or a consortium partner in the cloud, as libraries and their service partners typically add further value in the form of shared data and human resources (both effort and expertise). To help with thinking beyond the SaaS / hosting / managed service box, the WHELF (the Welsh Higher Education Library Forum) Shared Services Feasibility project 10 proposed a more clearly differentiated model for examining the extent of sharing, as presented in the Jisc LMS Change methods toolkit. 11 This model highlights the potential of working collaboratively on procurement, purchasing and governance models, even if the real activity downstream does not take the form of a shared service. WHELF sets out five potential areas of shared activity ranging from infrastructure (IaaS) to managed software application (SaaS, as in a hosted ILS solution) to sharing data and joint staffing. 8 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/di_informationandlibraries/ emergingopportunities/librarysystems.aspx 9 Above-Campus Services: Shaping the Promise of Cloud Computing for Higher Education, Brad Wheeler and Shelton Waggener; Educause Review vol 44 no 6 (November/ December 2009) - http://netducause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0963.pdf 10 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/di_informationandlibraries/ emergingopportunities/whelf.aspx 11 http://lmsguidance.jiscinvolve.org/wp/methods-toolbox/shared-services-spectrum/
Extent of Sharing What s Shared Procurement Purchase Governance Real Activity Systems (software) Infrastructure (hardware) Systems Staffing Joint tender Joint purchase Shared approaches Joint tender Joint purchase Shared SLA Joint tender or job spec Joint contract or appointment Shared practices Single System & Platform Single Supplier or Team Data n/a n/a Shared standards Single Dataset Operational Staffing n/a n/a Shared practices Single Team This framework is a tool for library management teams and potential collaborators, including commercial suppliers, to develop understanding of the potential and to define the boundaries of any shared services venture. Other models helpfully highlight other characteristics. Notably, in his 2012 EDUCAUSE Review article examining Thirteen Ways of Looking at Libraries, Discovery, and the Catalog, 12 Lorcan Dempsey introduced an alternative but complementary model for differentiating shared services based on the Source and the Scale of the service, rather than the nature and extent of sharing as considered above. SCALING Institution Group Web Therefore, the core challenge for Innovative is to complement, rather than conflict, these collaborative and community efforts. That means working with customers to spot the extended opportunities to connect Innovative software with services elsewhere in the library, in the university, and above campus services that could be locally developed, community supported, or from another vendor. The range and depth of shared activity that is evident in but not unique to the UK demands the attention of supply chain partners, whether pure-play library systems vendors, publishers and aggregators, or records suppliers. As in the wider web ecosystem, all parties must recognise the potential for mutuality (both dependencies and value-added opportunities) and therefore set out to play well together, which may mean ongoing dialogue and development to: SOURCING Collaborative Public VuFind Bibliogaphic Standards (LC Classification, MESH, LCSH) Tripod: (Tri-college library catalog) German regional union catalogs (Verbundkataloge)/ OhioLink RePEc PubMed Positively accommodate the role of vertical services; Work together to understand each other s work flows; Commit deeply to APIs that support practical use cases; Watch out for sources of operational friction; and Third-Party Hosted ILS/ Discovery layer JISC Collections worldcat.org Adopt and contribute to standards. Each of these models contributes valuably to management s ability to make an assessment before investing in a shared service, whether as a collaborator or as a purchaser. INNOVATIVE CHALLENGE There is nothing new or surprising about libraries interest in shared services. What has changed and will continue to change is the extent to which information technology can enable and add value to shared services. In that respect, the ongoing journey in the UK makes it evident that there is much potential to be exploited. Additionally, that might mean the extension of APIs with new calls, the enhancement of reports and other means of data exchange, or the development of completely new capabilities, perhaps in partnership with library consortia or with other vendors. It will also involve working with libraries on processes and workflows to maximise the value of the software as is. This opportunity is where the Sierra API development should pay off, enabling users to exploit their data in whatever ways they need, with some methods currently well understood (such as last copy services) and others evolving as we speak (such as services derived from analytics). 12 http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/thirteen-ways-looking-libraries-discoveryand-catalog-scale-workflow-attention
However, this challenge is not just about the mechanics of opening up the library service platform; it s also about a way of thinking and the recognition that libraries are already and will increasingly need to play well in wider applications spaces, both within the institution and in the wider world of information, learning, and research. CONCLUDING REMARKS For the foreseeable future, the predilection of libraries and librarians for collaboration plays well with the imperatives of the economic climate, the value of operating at-scale in a web world, and the cultural recognition of the benefits of open collaboration. At the same time, libraries need to assert their value and roles in the complex, diverse, and unstable ecosystem of digital assets, as currently exemplified in the challenging initiatives such as MOOCs and research data management. Indeed, shared services such as Futurelearn are assumed to present powerful opportunities in such areas. In such a climate, libraries are therefore strongly advised to play to what should be one of their strongest suits. It is certainly true in the UK that most barriers associated with shared services are capable of being addressed on the basis of operational and governance experience already gained, given the continuing support of the Funding Councils, Jisc, and sector professional bodies. Whilst maximising success for libraries and tangible benefits for their stakeholders will depend on the web of factors explored here, it seems reasonable to suggest that a handful of factors can help make a significant difference for: Directors with clear and consistent methods for defining, mapping and appraising potential shared services; Managers by empowering and teaching skills in the everyday management and delivery of operational shared services; Technologists with advocacy for the development, use, and maintenance of APIs as a core expectation; and Suppliers by recognising that libraries need to develop services with a variety of supply chain and systems partners, between whom data exchange based on timely workflows is the connecting thread. David Kay and Owen Stephens are at Sero Consulting, a UK-based consultancy focused on library software technology. Annette DeNoyer is Director of Product Marketing at Innovative Interfaces, a global library automation provider. For more information: Web: www.iii.com Email: info@iii.com Call: 800-878-6600 facebook.com/innovativeinterfaces twitter.com/iii_innovative Innovative Interfaces, Inc. 5850 Shellmound Way Emeryville, CA 94608