WebJunction

I am happy to see WebJunction focus on exploring the systems librarianship needs of smaller libraries. It is a topic of great interest to me. 

I manage Library Connection, Inc., a library consortium. We are an organization dedicated to providing a common ILS for one academic and 25 public libraries (some with branches, so we serve 36 library buildings).  We also provide a common e-mail system and manage telecommunications services for many of our libraries, although some have their own DSL connections to the public Internet, and others are on town networks. 

Our libraries own over 800,000 titles and have about 8 million circs each year. As new technologies become available that tie into the ILS for patron or catalog/circulation validation, we are exploring ways to provide these via group purchase and support. Examples of these newer services include reservation systems for Internet access terminals, the automation of charging patrons for printing services, the integration of vendor on-line catalogs with our holdings (e.g. Title Source II from Baker & Taylor and iPage from Ingrham). Other consortia of our size in our state provide cataloging services (our libraries do their own cataloging) and 24/7 reference services.

As I think about our services, it occurs to me that "systems" is probably as ambiguous a term for us as it is for independent libraries. Yes, we manage an integrated library system, and a tele-communications network.   However, each of our libraries have their own "systems" in house, ranging from a simple LAN linking their OPACs and Internet terminals, to sets of LANS for various areas in the library and/or to separate OPACs from Internet terminals. 

The libraries manage these "systems" in a number of ways. Some of the larger libraries have librarians with training or interest that set up and maintain their LANS.  Some have IT services provided by their towns, some hire third party vendors to maintain their networks, and some use a combination of these strategies.  All of these approaches work, although the libraries with librarians maintaining their systems fare the best, because of their thorough familiarity with the systems they create and maintain.

Our OPAC is web based, so patrons can access it 24/7 for browsing, renewing items, or placing holds. Our egion takes less than an hour to drive across, so patrons are quite used to looking for what they want in neighboring libraries if all the copies at their home library are out.  All patron holds have equal priority if patrons are willing to pick up the items at the owning library, so many patrons see our consortium as one huge library system.

Our shared patron data base enables libraries to identify those patrons who have been blocked by their home library for poor return habits.  While the percentage of patrons like this is small, they tend to borrow a very large number of items. Other libraries can save a lot of trouble and expense if the system alerts the to the fact that the home library of these patrons has blocked their borrowing privileges.

In addition to managing the ILS system, our staff manages our relationship with the ILS vendor (the product we use is Sirsi Unicorn).  Not only do we do all the legwork, but we are more knowledgeable about troubleshooting the system because we have much more experience with it.

We are also a larger customer of the vendor than an individual library would be. That, along with the experience level of our staff, gives us more leverage in getting the vendor’s attention than would be possible for all but the largest independent libraries. 

Our financial support comes entirely from our member libraries. There is no state or county level support of library consortia systems in Connecticut. We would like to have more libraries join our consortium, as it would lower average costs to all of our member libraries.  I am therefore looking forward to the responses of independent libraries on their systems librarian needs as a first step in our getting to understand these needs and learning how to meet them.

We have too often looked past each other’s perspectives. We feel the services we provide could only be matched by adding systems staff to independent libraries, and we feel we are far less expensive than an additional staff member.  Independent libraries compare the cost of joining a consortium to the cost of maintaining a stand alone ILS, using existing staff. Consortia feel this comparison ignores costs like LAN maintenance, telecom maintenance, and vendor maintenance, and puts no value at all on the benefits of consortial membership like a shared catalog and a shared patron data base.

I therefore welcome the opportunity to look for fresh perspectives on the systems needs of independent libraries.

You can reach George Christian at gchristian@libraryconnection.info.

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