Paul Gahn, Kay Cunningham, and Elizabeth McDonald, University of Memphis Libraries
Migrating from a character to a web based ILS required extensive work and flexible prioritizing to meet a six-month deadline.
Planning by the seat of your pants : implementing ILS on a deadline
1. Planning by the Seat of Your Pants:
Implementing an ILS on a Timeline
April 10, 2009
Tennessee Library Association Conference, Nashville
Paul Gahn, ILS Librarian
Kay Cunningham, Electronic Resources Librarian
Elizabeth McDonald, Head of Cataloging
3. Outline
• Background
• Data migration
• Training
• Still to come
• What we would have
done differently?
• Questions?
4. 3rd ILS
Vendor/Product Years
CLSI 1984 - 1994
DRA Classic 1994 – 2008
Innovative Interfaces Inc.’s Millennium 2008-
5. Four Institution Consortium of Sorts
Institution Students Items Joined
University of Memphis 20,000 1,212,556
Libraries
(Main library & branches)
University of Memphis 425 89,625 August 2002
Law School
Jackson State Community 2,705 138,428 1995
College
LeMoyne-Owen College 800 111,596 February
2002
6. Other partners along the way…
• Shelby State Community College
– now Southwest Tennessee CC
– 1995-2000
• Dyersburg State Community College
– 1998-2001
7. How was Innovative selected?
• RFP (Request for Proposal)
• Fall 2004- Fall 2005
• Three phase project
– Writing
– Review
– Finalize Draft
• Task Force with Subcommittees
– Acquisitions/Periodicals
– Circulation/Reserves
– Cataloging
– Public Services
– Systems
8. Selection Time Line
• 2004 /2005 - Draft RFP
• Looking for funding
• 2006:
June Revised RFP
July RFP to vendors
September Vendor responses
October Vendor demonstrations
• Selection, not official
9. Implementation Timeline
2007
– February Budget planning meetings/timeline
No official dates
– March Authority control RFP
– November Implementation meetings set
– December Test extract of DRA database
2008
– January – July Training and migration
– July 22 Go Live for Circulation
– Late August Start of Fall Semester
10. Implementation Team Structure
• Implementation • Teams at III
Team, chairs of each – General Implementation
work team – Federated Search
– Implementation
Technical
– Encore Implementation
– Acquisitions /Serials
– Bibliographic
– Circulation
– Public
Presence/ERM/Federated
Search
– Bursar Interface
– Location codes
11. Challenges
• Age of DRA
• Consortial catalog
• DRA support running out
– Little time to plan/prepare
• Technical issues
• Staff for coming changes
• Doing both simultaneously
12. Other timeline challenges
• Paul started full-time in • III trainer/consultant
March 2008 was pulled to another
project before training
– PLUS: Familiar with DRA
was completed
system and had worked
part-time on reports and – MINUS: Lack of
data extracts and loads consistency
for UM, but had to be
– PLUS: New trainer kept
brought up to speed on
us on track better when
numerous issues
we would ask “What if”
– MINUS: Started after questions
initial system training
took place
13. What was migrated?
• Migrated: • Not migrated:
– Bibliographic and item – Authority records from
records DRA
– Patron and fine records – Acquisitions data
(Vendors, funds, orders)
– Course reserves
– Serials holdings
14. Garbage out/Garbage in
• Migration is often a good time to clean out
and start over, but sometimes there just isn’t
enough time
• Different approaches for different data types:
– Authority records
– Fines
– Serials holdings
15. Authority records
• All bibliographic records sent to MARCIVE for
authority processing
– Bibliographic records sent: 1,053,167
– DRA authority records left behind 475,212
– New authority records loaded into III 719,926
– Ultra-tight deadlines
• GAP period and GAP load
• Post-processing
16. Fine records
• Bursar collects all money, not Library
• DRA/Bursar interface
– Paid/unpaid data out of sync
– Impossible to know when fines have been paid
– Paid fines
• New Millennium WebPac feature: My
Account
– Paid fines from DRA displayed as unpaid
• Fine display suppressed until all current UM
faculty/staff/students’ fines were audited
– Fine display restored, October 2008
– Reconciliation of non-current student fine data
continues
17. Serials Holdings – Starting Over
• DRA Holdings data
– incorrect & incomplete
• Migrated bibliographic data
– titles not scoped; locations not provided
• Alternative
– journal title search
• within ILS, but interfacing with Serials Solutions’ A-Z list
• Solution - February 2009
– Temporary holdings records created
– Exported print title holdings to Serials Solutions for
integration with online titles
18. Search by titles
(subject
browse also
available)
Online AND
print
holdings
statements
display
20. How Many Holdings?
• 2,100 of 3,100? current subscriptions
– after 8 months of data entry
• 9,100+ closed holdings
– will take another couple years
• Started in the Js: Journal of the...
22. Implementation Team Training
4 weeks of onsite Training
Dates Training covered
•ILS WebPac and database evaluation
January 29-
•System and WebPac administration
Feb.1
•Circulation parameters
•Acquisitions and Serials parameters
•Cataloging I, Acquisitions I, Serials I
March 11-13
•Circulation I, Acquisitions II, Serials II
April 15-18
•Systems
•Cataloging II, Circulation II
May 13-15
•Media Management
23. Herding cats:
Staff training issues and challenges
– Trainers were being trained at the same time
– Profile/test database was roughly 25% of database
– Customization of web catalog interface came very
late in the process
– Multiple interfaces
– New search concepts
• Faceted search, Federated search
24. Staff and Public Training
Staff Training OPAC Training
• Millennium • Demonstrations
documentation • Demonstrations with
• Hands-on hands-on opportunities
– Requests for Comments
– Prioritized by
• Hands-on sessions
departmental migration
demands – Assignments
• Cataloging
• Circulation
25. Training Complications
• Multiple Search Interfaces
– Out-of-box Millennium
• Available during the implementation period
• Used during staff training
– Customized Catalog Classic
• Only available one month before Going Live
– Encore, or Catalog QuickSearch
• Only available after “Go Live”
– Plus, a MetaSearcher (ResearchPro)
27. The End is Still Not Nigh
• Acquisitions • Serials
– only UM and Law will use – In process
• ERM • Statistics
– Resource records being • Web PAC customizations
created
– Custom colors for JSCC and
• Licenses and Contacts still LeMoyne-Owen
to come
– Google book preview
• Media management
– Multiple LDAP login to
• Scanned articles/tests for
include JSCC
Course reserves
• Reports (create lists)
28. What worked well?
• Records migrated cleanly
• Getting basic functionality up and running
– Cataloging and circulation
• Separate OPAC pages for each partner library
• No acquisitions money
• Gantt chart forced us to focus
29. What would we have done differently?
• Allow greater flexibility • Project manager based
on who receives system in company’s office
training from vendor • Circ & cataloging
• More thought on design training ASAP
of location codes • Test load should have
– less re-creation of been a full not partial
former system load
• Used mnemonics • Add Google Analytics as
instead of alpha- soon as possible
numeric for codes
31. Lessons Learned
• Understand the product • Involve everyone, the
sooner the better
• Have a bulldog on your
– Tech decisions impact
side
Public Services
• Plan for change
– Public desires have Tech
– even if it isn’t coming consequences
tomorrow
• Always be ready to AND REMEMBER…
move
• Stay flexible
• Any choice has
consequences
32. Questions?
PowerPoint slides are at:
slideshare.net
Contact Information:
Paul Gahn paulgahn@memphis.edu
Kay Cunningham lkcnnngh@memphis.edu
Elizabeth McDonald emcdnld1@memphis.edu
