Systems Integration as a Change Project at TU Dublin Library
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The document outlines a systems integration project at TU Dublin Library focusing on improving student and staff experiences. It discusses the transition from legacy systems, the need for reclassification and standardization of metadata, and collaboration among stakeholders to finalize new processes. Challenges included merging data from multiple libraries and ensuring consistent access to online resources and services.
Systems Integration as a Change Project at TU Dublin Library
- 1. SYSTEMS INTEGRATION AS A CHANGE PROJECT AT TU DUBLIN LIBRARY Gerard Gregory
- 2. OUTLINE 1. Student Experience 2. Staff Experience 3. Methods
- 5. STUDENT EXPERIENCE Unified Experience Unresolved • Borrowing • E-Books • Discovery • Website • Proxies • ID Cards • Student Records • Online Resources • Single Sign-On
- 7. STAFF EXPERIENCE • The Library organisational re-design was happening at the same time. • Staff were transitioning into new roles, often with changed responsibilities. • Staff moving from Koha to Sierra had additional training requirements. • There was a high emphasis on collaboration between Library, technical, & other university staff.
- 8. WORKSHOPS AS IS TO BE
- 9. AS IS • Stakeholder meetings. • Themed around system functions & other interdependencies. • Outputs included flow charts & documentation for all three legacy libraries workflows & practices.
- 10. TO BE • Stakeholders met again to reach a consensus. • We refined & finalised processes. • We defaulted into existing Sierra set-ups as much as possible. • Some new processes and workflows were developed and agreed.
- 11. 3. Methods
- 12. ACQUISITIONS
- 13. CATALOGUE METADATA Blanchardstown • Required a complete reclassification of item types. • Item classification was not mappable; it was organised more like location metadata. Tallaght • Item metadata had a more complicated structure than what it needed to map to. • Thousands of often broken online resource records had to be weeded.
- 14. CATALOGUE METADATA • All data types had to be reformatted to Sierra’s custom specifications. • Data dictionaries & profiles were used to map like to like: – Item types – Item statuses e.g., lost; suppressed; withdrawn – Item locations – Checkouts & holds – Patron fines
- 15. Merging Metadata • E-book platform accounts were merged & the e-book records standardised. • All libraries merged into a single EZproxy & standardised records with proxies. • There were multiple rounds of ISBN-based merges. • We did record de-duplications. • Barcode duplication checking. • Some physical re-labelling. • Authentication & site name changes for our catalogue.
- 16. PATRON METADATA
- 17. ID Cards
- 18. CHANGED STUDENT EXPERIENCE Unified Experience In Progress • ID Cards • Student Records • Online Resources • Single Sign-On • Borrowing • E-Books • Discovery • Website • Proxies
- 19. Thank you.
Editor's Notes
- #2: This presentation is about the library management integration project TU Dublin undertook throughout most of 2023 to integrate two of its libraries into the same system used in its three other libraries. I will guide you through the project by first taking a broad contextual view and then burrowing into some of the foundational detail to give you an appreciation of the scale of change involved. The project resulted in a significant change in the student experience of library services. It happened during a period of total change for Library staff. Driving this change within change were methods that were, at their core, about collaboration, consultation, and metadata.
- #4: The two outermost libraries on this map are Blanchardstown and Tallaght. These libraries were on the Koha system. The City centre libraries were using Sierra. TU Dublin is a new university. The Libraries were still largely operating independently of one another, but it was entirely reasonable for students to expect the same experience and to be able to walk into or borrow from any branch. We knew there would be a tendering process for a new library system within a few years, but this project was undertaken to address the student experience in the here and now.
- #5: These aspects of the student experience were anything but integrated. The project was about integrating the library management system specifically, but these all featured as interdependencies and either: Required change to facilitate the integration Or were enabled to change after the integration
- #7: You would think as big a change project as this might have met with more wariness from staff, especially during a period of such change to their own established ways of working, but it didn’t, and I suspect the reason for that is because the way we went about it was clear and consultative.
- #8: This approach was introduced by an IT Project Manager who was on our project team.
- #9: I typically did information gathering in collaboration with other staff and
- #16: Patron metadata involved quite a lot of collaboration. We had a full data protection review of what patron metadata we need to store. We have three instances of Banner, each outputting patron metadata in different formats. IT developed a workflow where the files were automatically standardised and then made available to be loaded into Sierra. A relatively similar process was put in place for staff patron loads.
- #17: Both Koha libraries have historically used ID cards with printed barcodes. The City Centre libraries used contactless ID cards. We needed to set all libraries up with the ability for patrons to borrow in any branch. That meant installing additional card readers and modifying our self-check kiosks.