Adapting workflows to acquisitions of e-resources UKSG 7 and 8 april 2008 Karin Grönvall Karin Perols Karolinska Institutet University Library (KIB) Department of Acquisition and Cataloguing

Adapting workflows to the acquisition of e-resources  Buying books and journals in electronic format instead of in print – what’s the big deal?

Karolinska Institutet Stockholm, Sweden  One of Europe’s largest medical universities  Education (students)  Medicine, Odontology: 2800 FTE  Nursing: 2400 FTE  Other: 600 FTE Harriet Wallberg- Henriksson, The President of Karolinska Institutet

Karolinska Institutet - Research  2000 FTE Researchers and Teachers  4000 publications in international scientific journals each year  400 doctoral degrees are awarded annually  Karolinska Institutet Nobel Assembly handles the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Karolinska Institutet University Library - KIB is situated on two campuses in Stockholm

 KIB has around 3000 visitors/day

 KIB has 120 employees  65% women and 35% men  Average age: 47 years

 ”Important player in the collaboration of Swedish research libraries”  ”One of the most innovative research libraries in Sweden!” KIB was awarded the Swedish Library of the Year Prize in 2007!  Strong service focus  Ambitious human resource development

Meeting the challenge of the digital world  Does the management of electronic resources take more time than the management of print resources?

Acquisiton of print resources is straight forward! Catalo guing Acquisitions

Acquisition of electronic resouces looks even more straight forward, but is not…

Print resourcesElectronic resources  Acquisition: buying a selected item once  Preservation: keeping it on the shelves of the library  Description: cataloguing it  Access: borrowing it The working process is an internal library business.  Acquisition: signing a license with a provider  Preservation: outsourced  Description: metadata providers, knowledge bases, large packages  Access: through providers’ servers The working process lies in collaboration with providers.

Acquisition of print resources as measured in meters of shelf-space

Usage of electronic resources in downloads (2007)  2 million fulltext articles/year  …or over 5000 articles/day  …or over 200 articles/hour  …or 3,6 articles/minute! also…  fulltext documents from ebooks

Media policy  Customer suggestions are first priority  Everything E-only!

Resources spent on print and electronic media (2006)  Money  Working time

A change was needed because of the imbalance! We needed to:  reallocate staff time but…  there was demarcation between staff working with e- and p- resources  lack of knowledge of electronic resources  assure quality in the work with e-resources but…  lack of common understandning of the working process for electronic resources  different people used different routines in the work with electronic resources

 integrate the e- and p- resource work processes but…  demarcation between the working processes for e- and p-resources

”The spirit of KIB”  Non-hierarchical organisation  Flexibility in working tasks  Team orientation  Tasks organised by functions

 Invest in continous professional development  Involvement of all staff in library development  Coaching important in leadership ”The spirit of KIB”

Examples of problem areas identified by the flow analysis  Prioritizing problems of internal administration (for library staff) and access (for customers)  Handling access problems  Updating of the home-grown journal list as well as SFX Updating of the home-grown journal list  Communicating the licensing terms

Dealing with problems…er, challenges!  Priority  Activity  Problem definition  Causes  Suggested solutions

Problem areas

Purpose  The purpose of this guideline is to ensure good quality and customer focus. A purpose is also to fulfill the goal of e-media support which is: ”to give a fast and reliable service to our customers when they experience access problems with our e- resources”.

Description  Customers should receive a personal reply as soon as their message has been read.  As soon as access is restored or if any other progress (that is, of importance to the customer) has happened, a message will be sent to the customer.  Messages will be prioritized in the following order: 1. New incoming messages from customers 2. Older messages where new activities take place 3. Messages where no activity takes place in four business days 4. Other messages

Description continued…  E-media support will await an answer from suppliers for a maximum of four days. After that, a follow-up needs to be done by e-media support.  If a problem hasn’t been resolved within two months, a summary of the problem is sent to the Head of Department who decides how to move on.

Updating of the home-grown journal list as well as SFX  Journal list Journal list

Acquistions Quality Assurance System

Continual professional development  Regular workshops on practical tools e.g. SFX  Focus on specific topics in departmental meetings  e.g. cataloguing, licensing, ERM  Informal knowledge sharing  Generous conferences and course attendence policy  Networking encouraged

We needed to: reallocate staff time but… We needed to: reallocate staff time… How did it go?

Resources spent on print and electronic media (2007)  Money  Working time

We needed to: assure quality in the work with e-resources… How did it go?

Acquistions Quality Assurance System

 We needed to: integrate the e- and p- resource work processes How did it go?

Some reflections…  Defining work flows is a time-consuming business  Making guidelines helps staff to rethink and structure their tasks  Easier to introduce new staff as the work flows are made transparent  Better communication since staff has a common language  All customers are ensured the same level of support

More reflections…  Even if staff are positive, they adapt at their own pace  It is important to assign roles that fit staff competence profiles  Staff with good knowledge of e-resources spent perhaps too much time sharing their knowledge

Challenges for the near future!  Implementing Verde ERM-system as a tool  Developing the overall structure of roles and functions  Measuring what we do?  Continuing to adapt to changes  Evaluating the resources – value for money?  Improving licensing knowledge

Please share your thoughts?