Sue McGillivray

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... Resource Sharing for the Future Building
Blocks to Success ...
The Possible DreamShared Interlibrary Loan
Vision Realized
Sue McGillivray Ontario Council of
University Libraries Lucina Fraser, Ophelia
Cheung Ryerson University Library
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Todays Topics

• About us the project
• About the process
• Key elements
• Findings

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Scholars Portal est. 2002
OCUL established in 1967 20 academic libraries
in Ontario (17 English, 3 bilingual) Over
380,000 users Over 250M/year in total
expenditures including over 100M on
collections 254,990 Borrowing requests 230,247
Lending requests in 2006
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Founded in1948 as an institute of
technology First degree awarded 1972, full
university status 1993 Career-focused
education Over 24,000 full-time undergraduate
and graduate students Approx 64,000 annual
registrations in Continuing Education
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ProcessKey Elements

• Planning
• Leadership
• Financial Support
• Technical Support
• Cooperation

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ProcessKey Elements

• Staff Commitment
• Communication
• Staff and End-User Centred
• Training
• Evaluation

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Planning Shared Purpose Consensus on Approach

• Central element or common interest
• 20 Ontario universities with a common need
• Desire to
• Reduce number of evaluative processes
• Investigate options to leverage
• buying-power and maximize resources
• Further facilitate Interlibrary Loan across the
• province
• Basis and method for discussion consensus

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Planning Development of Consortial Policies

• Achieve an integrated final product
• Create standards and guidelines for development
  period
• Guidelines continue to underlie ongoing
  maintenance activities and development of new
  features and functionality

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Planning Flexibility

• Multiple stakeholders with differing local
  concerns
• Willingness to compromise maintain sense of
  co-operation
• Agree on global technical settings for the VDX
  system
• Standardized reports and shared interface

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http//racer.scholarsportal.info/
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Leadership

• Poor management
• greater negative impact
• than technical failings
• Engagement of people
• in leadership roles
• Representation from
• all participants

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Financial Support

• Potentially prohibitive individual costs
• Consortial licensing
• Initial stages
• Provincial government acts as enabler
• Maintenance stage
• OCUL libraries on a
• shared-cost basis

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Technical Support

• Central Support Team
• Systems and Web Development
• Analyst
• Database System Administrator
• User Support Librarian
• Less duplication of effort
• Reduced reliance on local system support
• Consistency, quality, reliability trust

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CooperationEqual Access to Shared Knowledge
Bring together varied experience and
knowledge Encourage openness information-sharing
Create and build common foundation Identify
possibilities for pro-activeness
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Staff Commitment
Indispensable for success Helped negotiate steep
learning curve Willing to make temporary
concessions
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Communication

• Value of explanations and rationale
• Understanding of prioritization
• With people directly affected
• Local reinforcement
• Tools
• Listservs
• Email telephone
• Bulletins
• OCUL News wiki
• Primers manuals
• Staff support website
• Meetings

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http//www.scholarsportal.info/vdx/support/
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Staff and End-User Centred FocusOn-going
Feedback for Development
Staff commitment to meeting users needs Foster
culture of open communication that encourages
feedback Two way communication influences
priorities and decisions Submission of product
enhancement suggestions
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http//www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/screencasts/
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Training

• Train-the-trainer approach OCUL wide
• New concepts applied to familiar practices
• Varying audience needs and expectations

Local in-house training supplemental training
as needed Continuously supplemented by support
tools workshops
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EvaluationPeriodic Assessment

• How do you define success?
• At OCUL
• System performance
• Acceptance of the new ILL product
• Ability to meet timelines, budget, service
• levels and reporting requirements
• User satisfaction
• Creation of measures assessment activities

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EvaluationPeriodic Assessment

• At Ryerson
• System performance impacts on staff
• Right staffing levels
• Appropriate staff competencies
• Appropriate time minimized need for
• training
• Provisions for cross training
• Appropriate workflow
• User satisfaction

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Findings

• Key elements universal
• Transparency and communication
• good will
• Consortial mindset
• basis for consensus and compromise individuals
  thinking like members of OCUL
• Moving forward as a
• learning organization

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... Resource Sharing for the Future Building
Blocks to Success ...
Thank you for your attention
Sue McGillivray Ontario Council of University
Libraries racer-support_at_scholarsportal.info Lucin
a Fraser, Ophelia Cheung Ryerson University
Library lefraser_at_ryerson.ca http//www.ocul.on.ca
/ http//spotdocs.scholarsportal.info/ http//race
r.scholarsportal.info/ http//racer-fr.scholarsp
ortal.info http//ryerson.ca/library/