Electronic resource management systems: implementation and transformation
Abstract:
As electronic resource management evolved it became clear it had data and workflow requirements that could not be sufficiently handled within the ILS. The ERMS brought a needed centralization and structure to these new requirements, but it still lacks the functionality and flexibility that many libraries need. The future is a reunification of library systems, with the ERMS acting as transitional software between the ILS and a new kind of resource management system that serves all formats.
…an ERM will undoubtedly bring a great deal of change to your library’s workflow and processes. However change is best handled at your institution prepare yourself to do that because it’s not just a little system that your electronic resources librarian will have to learn it’s a glimpse into the future of libraries where e-resources are the bread and butter of library work for nearly every employee. (Ekart 2008: 45)
For years, librarians managed the vast amount of ERM information, such as acquisition, trial, licensing and usage data, collection holdings and vendor contacts, through endless emails, spreadsheets and home-grown databases. If they were lucky, they had a programmer on staff who could construct databases using platforms such as ColdFusion, which could generate dynamic webpages with alphabetical and subject-specific lists of e-journals and databases. Keeping up with URL changes and holdings data often took up the bulk of e-resource librarians’ time, although they had additional major areas of responsibility such as high-level pricing and license negotiations. Meanwhile, cataloging departments took on the Promethean task of creating accurate bibliographic and holding records in the ILS for shifting e-journal packages, although many chose not to maintain coverage in the ILS due to the sheer complexity and scale of the task – which, for aggregated packages, included titles being added and deleted and coverage dates being changed by the vendor without notice.
Tamar Sadeh and Mark Ellingsen (2005: 208–9), writing about the early development of the ERMS, pinpoint the appeal of this system in describing the e-resource librarians’ then current, and to some extent present, state of affairs:
As they attempt to maintain some control over their e-collections, librarians find themselves lost in a mire of spreadsheets and e-mail messages, and responsible for dealing with a variety of independent systems and data containers that are not integrated with each other. Too often, librarians rely on their memory alone to coordinate systems such as the acquisition module of their integrated library system, their alphabetic lists of electronic journals and databases, their metasearch tool, and their local link server. In addition to the initial effort of setting up information in multiple places and the potential lack of consistency between systems, considerable duplication of effort is likely to occur.
Based on local practices, what was born during this time were the day-to-day processes and workflows that became the foundation for the electronic resource management system. The ERMS not only transformed the work of e-resource librarians, it also opened the door to what is the likely future of all library resource management. The standalone ERMS is likely to become obsolete, as it and the ILS are subsumed into a new kind of resource management system that serves all formats, but the key characteristics of the ERMS, such as a knowledge base of resources, focus on assessment through usage and centralization of licensing data, will carry forward into the new model.
ERMS development triggered by the Digital Library Federation
Tim Jewell (2001), in his seminal report “Selection and presentation of commercially available electronic resources: issues and practices”, commissioned by the Digital Library Federation (DLF), helped to define the e-resources “life cycle” systematically and highlighted home-grown systems that libraries built outside the ILS to manage ever-growing and complex electronic collections. While each system might focus on a different slice of the life-cycle pie, whether license management, end-user access or selection and acquisition, the reason for building these systems was the same – the ILS could not accommodate the management of e-resources in an effective or holistic way. Jewell analyzed these systems, such as VERA at MIT and ERLIC at Penn State, and included an appendix, “Functions and data elements for managing electronic resources”, detailing the attributes and functionality of each system under review, which when read today is quite remarkable given the infancy of ERM practices at the time.
Although Jewell’s featured analysis of early, home-grown ERMS was only a portion of the total report, it kick-started a more coordinated approach to dealing with ERM. Jewell worked with Adam Chandler of Cornell University to understand the who, what and where of these local systems. They published a “Web Hub” that tracked these systems, and began collaborating with other librarians who were building and maintaining them. This collaboration led to a discussion group at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Library Association, which led to a DLF/National Information Standards Organization workshop regarding the development of ERMS standards. In turn, this ultimately led to the formation of the highly influential DLF ERMI (ERM Initiative) Working Group – a group of librarians who developed and used home-grown ERMS and whose work created the blueprint for both commercial and open source ERMS, contributing to the somewhat inadvertent undoing of the ILS as libraries know it today.
In 2004 the DLF ERMI Working Group released a report (Jewell et al., 2004) that laid the foundation for the proliferation of both commercial and open source ERMS. While not “standards” in the formal sense, this report contained a set of deliverables that defined the problem of ERM, supplied a workflow diagram of the processes involved and laid out the functional specifications of an ERMS as well as an entity relationship diagram with data elements and definitions. It also contained 47 requirements for the system, categorized under the headings of General, Resource Discovery, Bibliographic Management, Access Management and Staff. This grassroots approach to addressing ERM issues through an entirely new system with different functionality and specifications than those of the ILS is noteworthy in that it deconstructed an emerging set of new workflows in technical services, was primarily led by practitioners and demonstrated the relationship between end-user access and back-end management processes.
Commercial development following the DLF ERMI report was swift, with eight systems either available or slated for release in 2005. Traditional ILS companies constructed both ILS-integrated and add-on ERMS modules, new library software companies such as Serials Solutions integrated ERMS capabilities into existing software services, and subscription agents added ERMS functionality to existing ordering systems, such as Harrassowitz’s adoption of HERMIS, originally created at Johns Hopkins University. Some of these systems are still in production, like III’s ERM, Ex Libris’s Verde and Serials Solutions’s ERMS (now called 360 Resource Manager), and some are now defunct, such as Endeavor’s Meridian.
With this burst of development, e-resource librarians became responsible for a host of new systems that helped track aspects of the e-resource life cycle, as increased development in ERMS was closely related to the increased development of other tools. E-journal management systems aided in tracking holdings data by outsourcing the task and provided easy-to-publish A–Z lists that public services staff and patrons relied upon. MARC record services facilitated access to e-journal holdings through the OPAC. OpenURL resolvers connected users to local full-text holdings from their searches in the ever-expanding array of abstracting and indexing databases. The ILS was still used for managing ordering and invoicing information, although it fell short in tracking the intricate relationships among publishers, vendors, providers and platforms. The ERMS added the capability to track license, vendor contact, acquisitions, administration and usage data in one system. Together, these systems helped cut down on redundancy in data management and improved the user’s connection to electronic resources.
ERMS implementations
Selecting and implementing an ERMS were challenging, as it needed to function effectively within a library’s existing systems environment. Stephen Meyer (2005) outlined differences in pricing structures, type (whether the ERMS was an add-on or ILS-integrated solution), interoperability, interface options and functionality features, such as reports, user permissions and license data. Meyer (ibid.: 22) advised librarians to:
conduct a thorough assessment of your existing system infrastructure and the level of integration you hope to achieve. These might be good questions to ask: Does my ILS vendor provide a solution or product that will leverage existing bibliographic or acquisitions data? Can an ERM product integrate with the knowledgebase that my library currently uses with our OpenURL link resolver or other PAMS [publication and access management service] tool, such as an A–Z list?
His advice is telling in that, depending on what system a library chose, functionality could be gained but parallel processes and multiple systems might still be necessary.
An additional factor was the changing nature of library system maintenance. Which ERMS a library selected might mean a new kind of system to the library – one accessible not through a local server but as a web-based system where upgrades and maintenance were managed by the vendor. Even with these complexities, however, ERMS implementations started in earnest for libraries without home-grown systems soon after their release by the vendors. For libraries fortunate enough to be running a local system, the DLF ERMI specifications also provided enhancement opportunities, although some of these libraries chose to migrate to a commercial system instead.
III’s ERM module, released in 2004 and the first commercial system to market, was developed with library partners Ohio State University, University of Washington, Glasgow University, University of Western Australia and Washington State University. The system was designed both to integrate with III’s Millennium ILS and to work as a stand-alone product. Features included resource, license and contact records, which formed new record types in the ILS and linked up with existing bibliographic records. Holdings and coverage information in the system was dependent on the library either obtaining these data from a third party or creating them in a local system. Tull et al. (2005: 123) documented the implementation and testing of this system at Ohio State University and Oregon Health & Science University and offered encouraging progress on ERM. They concluded, “For libraries that use Millennium, ERM integrates electronic resources into the library management system to a degree not previously possible.”
Having an ERMS opened up new opportunities for libraries even beyond the benefits of the system itself. Laura Galloway (2006: 93) of Glasgow University Library described III’s ERM as “a catalyst and facilitator of new developments and enhancements”. Using Serials Solutions’s MARC service as the source of the ERM coverage load, Glasgow was able to expand e-journal offerings in the A–Z list from 11,000 to 19,000 titles. In addition, the library extended its use of III’s OpenURL resolver (WebBridge), changed interlibrary loan policies and added a walk-in user terminal after license data were able to be tracked and analyzed in the ERM, began systematically collecting usage data and created a more organized approach to the promotion of licensed electronic resources, such as by branding vendor platforms with the library logo.
The burst of development after the DLF ERMI report was certainly not limited to the commercial world. Librarians at North Carolina State University used the report to create an open source alternative that accommodated both print and electronic serials, allowed for public access through subject portals and integrated with the library’s ILS. Implementation decreased redundancy and inaccurate links, and facilitated better collection analysis (Meyer, 2006). Librarians at Simon Fraser University in Canada also developed an open source alternative bundled with a suite of services including a knowledge base, OpenURL resolver, A–Z list and ERMS. This new system, CUFTS, linked to the ILS and caused a substantial change to existing workflows. New orders were initiated in the ERMS, acquisitions data were moved from spreadsheets into CUFTS and management of the system was transferred from systems staff to e-resources staff (Taylor et al., 2010).
Challenges
Although ERMS implementation benefited many libraries by centralizing e-resource information in one system and greatly enhancing end-user access to e-collections, it also exposed significant issues with functionality in the systems as well as muddled ERM workflows, deficient skill sets and uncoordinated library systems environments. In addition, while some libraries adopted the ERMS as a means of controlling the e-resource life cycle, the impetus to do so often came without fully understanding how the system would challenge existing processes and workflows as well as end-user access.
This additional system operating alongside the ILS, whether set up as a module within the ILS or outside it, was based on an entirely new infrastructure, often powered by a knowledge base containing metadata created outside a library’s local cataloging department with non-MARC data elements to support new functionality, such as OpenURL linking, and multi-layered relationships, such as vendor/publisher/platform, that had no comparable equivalents in the print environment. Because of this, libraries often plunged into implementation without a thorough analysis of the end goal or how technical services operations might be affected beyond the e-resources librarian’s work. As Jill Emery (2007: 205) stated:
much of marketing around electronic resource management tools presents them as a magic solution, which will streamline and make all problems in relation to electronic resource management go away. Often, what is needed is not only a management tool, but also a re-conceptualization of the organization and methodology of handling electronic resources.
Howland and Wright (2006) of Brigham Young University Library went from utilizing a local ERMS to implementing Gold Rush’s suite of e-resource management services, including the OpenURL resolver, A–Z list and ERMS. They found that although the renewal process was no longer a “surprise” post-implementation (because subscriptions were organized in one place), Gold Rush was less flexible and user-friendly than other prospective systems. The authors conceded that the “accuracy of the knowledgebase, importance of the integration into the library’s ILS, price, and flexibility of the ERM” (ibid.: 29) were key pieces to which the library should have given greater consideration when selecting an ERMS. They recommended a one-year implementation timeline for libraries, which mirrored other libraries’ experiences with longer-than-anticipated implementation projects.
Donna Ekart (2008) at Kansas State University documented a lengthy ERMS implementation after a planned Meridian install was scrapped for Verde when Ex Libris bought Endeavor. Ekart (ibid.: 44) explains how decisions were not made even after training because those involved “found it difficult to proceed without some definitive answers about the availability and skill set of employees who might be tapped to do work in Verde”. In addition, the system’s workflow utilities could not be customized to fit local processes, and data from an existing home-grown system could not be efficiently transferred into Verde.
Implementing an ERMS was a significant investment of human resources, as a great deal of staff time was needed to analyze existing workflows, organize all the data for input into the system and adjust workflows to fit the new system. Implementations were often stalled or incomplete because getting an ERMS up and running literally meant manually entering data from spreadsheets, databases, paper files, webpages and even email correspondence. A high implementation workload was present even for libraries that already used a number of the ERMS vendor’s other products, as the ERMS presented opportunities for modifying work with the existing systems. As described by Kristine Condic (2008), Oakland University decided to implement Serials Solutions’s 360 Resource Manager ERMS after using the company’s A–Z list, OpenURL resolver and MARC record service. Planning for the ERMS included changing the way the library handled records for electronic resources in the ILS (eliminating local record creation and relying solely on Serials Solutions), developing a new workflow for the migration of local records to Serials Solutions and migrating just under 2,000 local records. Condic (ibid.: 140) wrote, “In the long run, ERM products can save time; however, at start-up, they require a lot of maintenance.”
Particularly challenging, as consortial functionality in many ERMS was not and is still not fully realized, were consortial implementations of ERMS. Librarians at the University of Windsor encountered challenges with a consortial implementation of Ex Libris’s Verde, including “increasing complexity of system implementation, losing local control over system security, the interfaces or displays, and timing and scheduling issues” (Liu, 2009: 41). Tony Harvell (2005) of the University of California San Diego Libraries, an early adopter of III’s ERM, also cited the problem of little to no consortial functionality as one of the key issues of ERMS implementation.
Sometimes ERMS implementation even resulted in increased time spent doing some e-resource management tasks. Denise Pan (2009) at the University of Colorado, Denver’s Auraria Library detailed how an implementation of Ill’s ERM went awry after an aggressive three-day installation coupled with a botched holdings load into the ILS upended workflow. Before implementation, it took an hour to load e-resource MARC records provided by Serials Solutions; after ERM installation, although it still took an hour to load the records, it took an additional five or six hours to load the coverage data and do clean-up work. In addition, Pan found shortcomings with the ERM workflow utilities in terms of evaluation and selection, with the system unable to document correspondence and assist with the decision-making process.
As the ERMS had primarily been developed in the serial package and database environment, it often fell short in handling firm-order resources such as e-books or standalone e-journals. This was clear early on, as when Harvell (2005) discussed issues with handling monographic e-resources as one of the key challenges of a beta III ERM implementation, but the problem continues. As e-books become an increasingly important format, the limitations will only become more apparent.
In addition to challenges with functionality, cost was an issue. Librarians at Northwestern University embarked on a full-scale analysis of available ERMS along with internal systems used and associated workflows. They determined that no single system met the library’s needs. Instead, the analysis led to enhancement of existing processes and implementation of the licensing module of an alternative open source ERMS developed at the University of Notre Dame, CORAL, because it was more flexible and less expensive than a full commercial implementation (Gustafson-Sundell, 2011).
A central and continuing challenge with ERMS is interoperability. In the results of a survey of librarians’ desired ERMS functionalities, for example, one of the top priorities was interoperability (Collins and Grogg, 2011). Interoperability is a key component of any new library system, but with ERMS it is the linchpin upon which a successful implementation hinges because it governs how well e-resource management practices can be incorporated into the larger technical services workflows.
This relates to the issue that, as the ERMS was developed and implemented primarily within the e-resources management context, it has contributed to the divergence of ERM from technical services. Implementation has often been led by those already doing ERM without broader input from all of technical services, and there is little expectation that the staff outside ERM will actually use the system in their day-to-day work. The implementation process, although necessary and beneficial to e-resource management in and of itself, therefore sidelines the ERMS as an add-on to the technical services primary management tool, the ILS. As Marshall Breeding (2008: 8) warned:
Librarians will do well to carefully examine the balance of activities carried out between the ILS and the ERMS to ensure the least redundancy of effort and to maximize efficiency. One of the issues related to the adoption of an ERMS involves the bifurcated workflows that may result when one product manages electronic content while another deals with physical formats.
Overall, although the ERMS has done a great deal for e-resource management, there is still a long road ahead for truly effective ERM. Jill Grogg (2008: 88) conducted informal interviews with e-resource librarians to understand the state of the ERMS and found that “implementation has been slower than desired and often the process of implementing an ERMS opens a Pandora’s box for the library”. She noted several significant issues, such as that respondents were already managing multiple systems on top of an ERMS and struggled with duplicate and manual data entry during implementation as well as with license data input and data exchange with existing systems. Likewise, Silton and LeMaistre’s (2011) 2009 survey of libraries that had implemented III’s ERM uncovered that, although a majority of respondents saw improvement to end-user access, many found the implementation unsatisfactory and no single respondent felt the system completely met expectations.
The standards problem
As mentioned above, one of the barriers to a successful ERMS is a lack of interoperability. Many of the ERMS currently on the market do not adequately interoperate with the ILS, or if they do it is within a limited scope, such as batch-loading cost data from the acquisitions module, and the interoperability relies on librarians cross-walking data elements from one system to another. If an ERMS is acquired from the same company as a library’s ILS, interoperability can be less of an issue, but the system is still limited to what the ILS can handle in terms of data transfer and extraction.
There is a solution to improving interoperability: adherence to effective standards. The current standards landscape is promising, with initiatives such as ONIX for Publications Licenses (ONIX-PL), CORE (Cost of Resource Exchange), KBART (Knowledge Bases and Related Tools), Project COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources), SERU (Shared Electronic Resources Understanding), IOTA (Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics) and SUSHI (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative), but for the standards to be successful, they have to be broadly adopted by the library automation industry, and so far adoption has been slow and limited to a few key areas.
This is not surprising, as library automation vendors for the most part operate closed, proprietary systems that are in direct competition with each other for sales of ERMS and other e-resource tools such as OpenURL resolvers, usage statistics repositories, A–Z lists and MARC record services. Also important, and possibly even more challenging because of their wide array and large number, are other vendors, such as publishers, subscription agents, search and discovery tool vendors and even campus enterprise system providers, that supply libraries with data and services. If all the members of the data chain adhere to the same standards, there is a greater chance of success.
Oliver Pesch (2008, 2011) of EBSCO Information Services makes a good case for the benefits of adopting and adhering to standards. As Pesch underscored, if standards were adopted broadly, redundancy of data held in the many “data silos” that libraries run – the ILS, ERMS, OpenURL resolvers, discovery tools, WorldCat, etc. – could be mitigated. This would not only improve data accuracy, but would also allow those managing electronic resources to focus more on data analysis to improve end-user access (not only in library web spaces but, more broadly, wherever user discovery happens), fine-tune collection development practices, better understand user behavior and demonstrate the value of e-resource collections to library and campus administrators.
The standards listed above, promising as they are, still relate primarily to ERMS work. For deeper library automation, beyond what currently exists with electronic invoicing, MARC loads or any systematic batch processing in the ILS, ERMS also need to open up to accept data feeds from other library vendors and allow librarians to extract data at will through web-based protocols such as APIs. In addition, the need for standards must be expressed (and demanded) by all areas of technical services and library administration, not just those working with electronic resources. As Ted Koppel (2008: 380) noted, “ERM systems are in some ways a catalyst for interoperability in the future”, with the standards laying part of the groundwork for new systems and new workflows where electronic formats and ERM processes are primary.
A new paradigm: resource management
With ERMS implemented and running for a number of years, librarians and the library automation industry as a whole are coming to understand that they can only go so far in truly addressing the management issues associated with library collections dominated by electronic content. Jill Emery (2005: 142–3) saw this need in her reaction to stalled ERMS development:
what is needed is a tool that provides us with the ability to perform transaction processing, house needed knowledge management elements, and provide room for decision support mechanisms. The merger of these three information systems requires a complete redesign or reconceptualization of what an integrated library system was originally intended for…
Library collections, particularly of electronic resources, are complex and dynamic, and librarians need systems that are as complex and dynamic as the collections they are designed to manage. As such, a library system for the twenty-first century becomes less useful if it merely controls and organizes the number of holdings a library owns or only accommodates data for managing electronic content. Relevancy for library systems is now predicated on how well they can control, organize and give access to all the information a library provides for its users, even beyond what is directly acquired.
In this new paradigm, as Collins and Grogg (2011: 28) concluded, the ERMS can be seen as “a bridge between the traditional ILS and what lies ahead. No one single system currently available – commercial, open source, or homegrown – can possibly meet all needs.” Marshall Breeding (2009: 60) echoed this sentiment: “One of the fundamental assumptions of the next generation library automation would involve a design to accommodate the hybrid physical and digital existence that libraries face today. This environment would include inherent support for all the ways that libraries deal with collections and services.”
The ERMS, then, is essentially transitional software between the ILS and the future library management system. As Ted Koppel (2008: 382) pointed out in predicting the future for libraries:
The ERM, combined with the disintegration of the traditional ILS and the reshaping of the library around discovery and delivery, will evolve into the RM (that is, generalized resource management) or perhaps the URM (the universal resource manager). The “electronic” focus of ERM will stop being a delineator of library function, and become an adjective − one of many categories in the greater world of resource management.
“Resource management”, as defined in this way, encompasses both physical and digital resources, collections that are purchased, leased and created locally, and access to other collections and content outside the library landscape. Resource management is a new way of doing business for technical services that is based on new standards and workflows and will require skill sets grounded in ERMS workflows that follow a life-cycle approach rather than the linear and somewhat static workflows utilized in the traditional ILS environment.
Resource management in the cloud
How these new resource management library systems will actually work is still in an early stage of development, but some commonalities are emerging that support a resource management culture. Marketing literature and public presentations tout flexible, open systems based on a services-oriented architecture that not only incorporate a library’s data but also connect to larger system environments like campus enterprise systems, and offer local development and customization through web services and APIs. Workflow utilities are accommodated for all formats, including print and electronic, as well as other types of media and digital collections. As Breeding (2011: 34) noted, these developments are significant:
To make up for functionality absent in their core integrated library systems, many libraries implemented a cluster of ancillary products, such as link resolvers, electronic resource management systems, digital asset management systems, and other repository platforms to manage all their different types of materials. The new products aim to simplify library operations through a more inclusive platform designed to handle all the different forms of content.
Most will be offered in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model using cloud computing, making local client installation unnecessary and allowing for continuous and real-time updates. Even with systems that can be locally installed, real-time updates are built into the software. Shared data networks are also a key component, in some cases as extensions to current knowledge bases that run ERMS and OpenURL resolver systems, which promise to include greater business and collective intelligence for all libraries using a particular system. Enhanced reporting, as part of these data networks, is meant to foster stronger decision-making for collection development and management purposes as well as enhancement to end-user services.
Some of these systems offer front-end discovery platforms, and most incorporate interoperability with whatever discovery solution a library employs, whether it is home-grown, open source or from the vendor’s competitor. Many do not even use traditional ILS module names – cataloging, acquisitions and circulation – instead constructing entirely new modules based on workflows and services that allow for multiple functions.
One of the leaders of this movement is Ex Libris, which is putting forth Alma as its resource management solution. Collins and Grogg (2011: 24), reporting on Alma, noted:
Ex Libris’ Alma, currently in development, will combine ILS and ERMS functionality and benefit from lessons learned from Verde. Ex Libris continues to prioritize workflow management with Alma, which will be built on a business process engine, will be rules-based to allow users to customize workflows locally, and will automate processes via locally assigned thresholds.
Development partners for Alma include Boston College, Princeton University Library, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Purdue University, with early adopters including libraries in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Another traditional ILS vendor, III, is developing Sierra as its resource management solution, with development partners including the law libraries of Yale University, George Washington University, Notre Dame and Texas Southern University. III takes advantage of ERMS integration within the current ILS platform as a jumping-off point for Sierra’s new infrastructure, with integrated resource management through cloud-based and local installations.
There is also a great deal of development of resource management systems taking place outside the traditional ILS vendor field. Serials Solutions released Intota in 2012, a web-scale management solution which builds off the well-established knowledge base that already powers its ERMS, discovery service, MARC record service, OpenURL resolver and metasearch system. OCLC, another library vendor outside the traditional ILS market, has developed Web-Scale Management Services, the first cloud-based, next-generation system to launch, built off the WorldCat bibliographic database and including added functionality such as a license manager, knowledge base and workflow utilities. OLE (Open Library Environment) from the Kuali Foundation is a community source alternative built off the Kuali campus enterprise system. Development partners of OLE include the lead school – Indiana University – Duke University, the Universities of Maryland, Florida, Pennsylvania, Chicago and Michigan, and LeHigh University.
Although these systems are intended to serve all formats, much of their functionality is built from the current e-resource management approach. As with Ex Libris’s Alma, III’s Sierra and Serials Solutions’s Intota, “both Kuali OLE and OCLC’s Web-scale management services propose to provide an integrated environment for the management of print and electronic materials with electronic resource management (ERM) services underlying the infrastructure of these systems” (Collins, 2010: 93). Robert McDonald from Indiana University underscored this point in talking about Kuali OLE’s development in an interview with Maria Collins (ibid.: 99):
The aim here is not to create ERM functionality within Kuali OLE as an add-on solution, rather this functionality should be integrated. The same general rules of use to acquire print materials will also apply to electronic and digital materials. Consequently, the functionality required to support electronic resource management will be part of the software and could eventually replace commercial ERM systems.
Applying resource management to academic libraries
All these systems will present both issues and opportunities for academic libraries. Knowledge bases, for example, a standard data management tool for ERMS and OpenURL resolvers, serve as the bedrock for many of these new systems, but they will need to cover a far wider range of formats than they do now. Companies currently maintaining these tools are working to enhance existing metadata and functionality to accommodate new formats such as streaming media, e-books and digital collections, but libraries are also increasingly tasked with the acquisition and maintenance of even more complex formats such as proprietary and locally created datasets, both quantitative and qualitative, and interactive e-resources containing geo-spatial data merged with statistical data. Vendor-managed knowledge bases will be required to address these data elements beyond setting up URL linking to the resources if they are going to be truly useful to libraries. Extending the concept of “holdings” beyond full-text journal metadata to incorporate these many different data elements is key.
This is a significant hurdle, as extending knowledge-base metadata outside the journal schema has, thus far, not been without problems. E-book metadata, for example, are often especially lacking for titles published outside the large library vendors or hosted on platforms with heavy digital rights management. Thankfully, the larger issues of knowledge-base currency, accuracy and delivery from content producers are being addressed by the KBART initiative. Libraries, now more than ever, need to support this work in light of the fact that most of the new systems will run off these vendor-hosted knowledge bases.
This does raise a further, emerging issue: how data are supplied and delivered to these knowledge bases is dependent on the contractual agreements between vendors and content producers, and the resource management vendor environment has shown a new and troubling blurring of the roles of library system vendor and content producer. The traditional ILS market was made up of, for the most part, “content-neutral” companies that produced systems and services but did not publish content. The resource management market has shown a significant change – companies that produce content are also launching new cloud-based systems. This potential conflict of interest has already become an issue with discovery layer implementations as vendors negotiate the use of each other’s content in proprietary indexes, knowledge bases and search interfaces. With the launch of these new back-end systems, libraries need to be cognizant of how vendor relationships affect data currency, accuracy and delivery.
To avoid potential conflicts of interest and support an open data exchange environment, the Kuali OLE project has partnered with JISC to launch the Global Open Knowledgebase (GOKb). The knowledge base builds off JISC’s work with Knowledge Base +, supporting academic libraries in the United Kingdom. The aim of the GOKb project is to improve overall data quality, in terms of currency and accuracy, but also to mitigate the current inefficiencies libraries face when managing multiple, redundant knowledge bases with variable coverage and data delivery because of a lack of standards and interoperability. In addition, the project seeks to incorporate linked data technology in the GOKb.
Another important issue for libraries to be aware of in the resource management environment is data security. Patron privacy as well as ownership of library-created data, not only metadata describing collections but also confidential license data, will become murky in a SaaS model in which authentication and circulation data and financial transactions reside in a cloud computing environment on a vendor’s server, not held locally on library, campus or consortial servers. Secure transmission of license and cost data through initiatives like ONIX-PL and CORE could help mitigate trust issues from a financial and contractual perspective, but fundamental patron privacy ideals will be challenged as libraries look to extending services based on usage data. How vendors adhere to national laws like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and campus regulations is an issue. Vendor security measures in this context need to provide local control and ownership of data while maintaining flexibility to support a fully realized library resource management system.
Although these are serious conceptual and practical issues, opportunities for libraries using these new systems will be great. Collaborative collection management and development across libraries, with increased sharing among consortia, are compelling, especially as resource management systems are expected to support all formats. As Collins (ibid.: 93) pointed out with regard to shared, networked data, “Web-scale management services will broaden this concept of community to include networked collection and acquisition data. Given the proper security measures, shared vendor, transaction, acquisition and license data could potentially transform the manner in which libraries make collection decisions.”
Usage data standards, already supported in ERMS, should also expand to help form a more comprehensive approach to materials management. Systems should be flexible enough to ingest historical collections data from locally developed metrics and analysis tools, as libraries have been tracking “usage” (whether it be circulation data or full-text accesses) for years.
Resource management as a catalyst for change within libraries
There are intense workflow challenges inherent in shifting from a disconnected print and electronic systems environment to one based on a unified, global approach. Even the adoption of an ERMS, which can be regarded as a type of training camp for technical services staff shifting to a resource management culture, has been shown to be difficult to fit effectively with the electronic resources collections and workflows for which it is built. As Marshall Breeding (2009: 60) pointed out, “One of the difficulties that libraries face today involves finding ways to allocate staff to deal with increasing levels of electronic content, often having to wrest them away from the entrenched workflows surrounding print materials.”
The new skill sets required in a resource management environment will most resemble those of e-resource librarians, metadata librarians and systems librarians, and will look less like those of copy catalogers, acquisitions librarians and serials librarians. More staff will be required to understand licensing and digital rights management to deliver content appropriately to end users, to understand what can be acquired or cancelled within the terms of a license, and to understand the true scope of a library’s collection. Skills focusing on metadata manipulation to enhance the user experience, data analysis to support library business practices and workflows based on active management in systems running off vendor-maintained knowledge bases containing data created by the library as well as third-party data will be required.
As such, traditional technical services work will evolve. The acquisitions process will continue to shift toward purchasing in bulk through increased numbers and sizes of packaged collections, but will also become more granular at the chapter or article level through automated means based on standardized metrics. Acquisitions and access services staff will likely merge some currently separate functions to develop increased automated purchasing of all types of materials based on a certain number of patron requests that hit access services and are within specified budgetary maximums set by acquisitions. If campus enterprise systems integrate successfully with new library systems, user accounts could include distributed funds designated by patron type for purchase or lease of various types of content such as book chapters, articles or print-on-demand books. This individualization of patron service could extend to customization of search and discovery interfaces based on past behavior, requests and overall usage of library materials.
Collection management practices will also become more automated as data are mined and analyzed to allow for flexible collecting practices based on how flush a library materials budget is from one year to the next. Just-in-time collecting will continue to blur what is meant by a library’s collection, and systematically tracking usage and cost data over time in a system that is linked to vendor and publisher datastreams could allow for mechanized processes, such as automatic cancellation of an e-journal if a minimum cost per use is not maintained within a given license and subscription period.
A fully realized resource management system will inevitably have a significant effect on cataloging. Cataloging units will progressively focus on overall metadata management, and if a true knowledge base for all content can be created, copy cataloging will eventually cease as a job function. Metadata librarians will be less concerned with accuracy in terms of title-by-title creation and scrutiny of records, and instead will focus on global changes to record types. They will also be less concerned with local cataloging practices and instead gear their work toward greater discovery and ease of access for the end user. This is already occurring with discovery layer implementations where local cataloging practices can lead to confusing search results and facet displays – problems that can be recoded and fixed in batch. Active data management is primary in this resource management environment, much like what currently occurs in ERMS and OpenURL resolver knowledge bases, but to a greater extent than is currently possible in the siloed library systems environment.
Conclusion
It remains to be seen whether new systems will force a wholesale transformation in academic libraries toward a resource management culture or if libraries will cling to the ILS and traditional workflows as long as possible, with the ERMS and ERM practices not wholly integrated into technical services. Most likely, on a case-by-case basis, innovative libraries utilizing ERMS and running strong, integrated ERM processes will logically migrate to new library systems, leaving behind both the ERMS and the ILS. For those in technical services more broadly defined, the choice is about whether to be prepared and mindfully proactive, embracing this new paradigm, or to let the inevitable implementation of an entirely new system force abrupt change on staff and workflows.
It is also still uncertain if the development path and adoption of these new systems will mirror that of ERMS implementations, with promising systems falling short of enthusiastic librarians’ desired functionality. The ERMS, however, has certainly changed library management of resources by serving as the foundation for a new technical services paradigm and library systems environment, and resource management has even more potential to revolutionize the work of libraries.
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