Transitioning a Vision to Reality: The Wales Higher Education Library Forum (WHELF) Shared Library Project Gareth Owen, Programme Manager, WHELF Mark Hughes, Head of Collections, Swansea University Image from Cornelia Kopp -

So, who or what is WHELF anyway? Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum Grouping drawn from all the higher education institutions in Wales Mission: – promote library and information services co- operation – to encourage the exchange of ideas – to provide a forum for mutual support – help facilitate new initiatives in library and information service provision Image from WHELF:

The WHELF Strategy Student Experience Research and Enterprise International and Globalised University Workforce Development Marketing and Promotion Shared Library Management System Ken Teegardin

Share an LMS, Share a Smile Image from Doug North America – Orbis Cascade Canada – Conifer, OCUL Europe – BibSys, Libis UK – Bloomsbury Group Welsh Public Libraries …and many, many more!

It’s a vision thing… 1UpLego: A collaborative platform and shared service to provide mutual benefit to the member institutions, their users, and Welsh Higher Education overall An engine to provide further collaboration opportunities and enable member libraries to share data and services more effectively

,000 Partners Libraries Staff Customers 6 Different LMS’ Scope and Scale

10,000,000 Bibliographic records Scope and Scale

The Next Generation game… More than just a marketing label Print and Electronic integration Unified workflows Cloud hosted & dynamically scaleable Collaboration baked in Marsmettn Talahassee

Sharing.. Procurement Process The selected platform Implementation Development Expertise & knowledge Development Data, data, data! Image from RyanC

More seamless experience Wales wide discovery Easy access More & better resources What’s in for us – the users? Betsy Weber:

What’s in for us – the institutions? Toban B: Cost Saving -process Cost Saving - ongoing Shared development Shared knowledge Business process refresh Shared data..and all that opens up!

Managing the transition Making the vision a reality Challenges Stages of the process Managing the process Lessons learned Stephen Shore

Challenges Joel Meyerowitz ‘What are the challenges and how would you overcome them?’ Diverse group of institutions Geographically dispersed Limited tools for engagement

Agile governance One size doesn’t fit all - different approaches for different stages Pre-procurement Procurement Implementation Business not as usual Diane Arbus

Pre-procurement Getting everyone on board Horizon scanning Building the case Political buy-in Developing resources Lee Friedlander

Procurement Evaluating the product EU procurement Evaluation framework Tool-kit for engagement The results Paul Reas

Implementation roadmap Managing a large scale implementation Phased implementation Ex Libris Support Institutional Project teams WHELF support Paul Seawright

Post-implementation Gathering the fruit Enabling benefits Collaboration opportunities Managing the process William Eggleston

Lessons learned Time to reflect on the process Valuable lessons Could have done some things better Did a lot right Maurice Broomfield

Questions Please feel free to ask any questions Go raibh maith agaibh Diolch yn fawr Thank you Martin Parr