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Some stepping stones toward unification:  Creation of a brand (and promoting it!)  Streamlining a discovery framework  Unifying disparate web presences  COLLABORATION! And projects resulting... And, How the heck we did it and what’s left to do [HINT: a lot!]?

Who are we? Ginny M. Boyer, MLIS Virginia Bacon, MLS

 The East Carolina University Libraries  Joyner (ALS)– Main Library (big)  Music Library – a branch of Joyner (littlest)  Laupus (HSL) Health Sciences Library (little)  About the university  24k full time enrollment  Located in Greenville, NC  Doctoral/research University & Medical School

 Ours is a complicated situation…  Administratively separate  Different cultures, both internal & external  Physically separate & different division affiliations  Solutions  Buy-in for a shared Libraries brand  Neutral persons to facilitate collaboration  Shared discovery interfaces

 Resources, tools, and positions funded out of the Virtual Library  ILS (Symphony)  An ILS Administrator  ERMS (Serials Solutions 360RM, 360 MARC)  Costly resource acquisitions  Science Direct  Web of Science, etc.  And later… Summon (but that’s where things got tricky…)

 Public access points and discovery tools  OPACs (Symphony’s e-Library)  Database List(s)  ILLiad  OCLC (WorldCat Local)  Library websites  And pretty much everything else…

 What kind of problems did this division produce?  Duplication of effort  Wasted and fragmented staff resources  Multiplicity of access points  Poorly designed and outdated search tools  Poor communication between complimentary departments (mostly)  Fragmented resource discovery  Isolated library websites  I could go on, and on, and on, and on….

 A resource discovery solution for the Libraries  The tool was branded One Search  Search widgets were deployed to both of the libraries homepages  Decision: Include the Libraries local catalog MARC records…  Problem: At the item level the resource links out to the native OPAC... So what was the issue?

 Consolidation = dirty word… ‘collaboration’ and ‘unification’ are safer  Why, yes! Everyone is special!  Task forces– how the ECU Libraries get stuff done  You need one heck of a project manager, and strategic leadership  You have to be willing to give a little…  You need tech folks to play nicely, or tech leaders to be directly involved in the projects  Communication and interaction across departments is key!

 First of all, why? Why is this necessary?  Served to fortify us from within  A public declaration of our combined efforts to benefit the University  Approved by university marketing as an official logo  Recruiting to support the ECU Libraries  Creation of a cohesive user experience under a combined front

In the beginning…  Summon, ILS, WorldCat Local In the now…  Search tools and their overall usability  User experience and its impact on discovery  Integration of library websites as an essential piece of discovery  Overall access and retrieval concerns as they affect discovery

 Step 1: Consolidate Classic Catalog (and a re-brand Summon)  Step 2: Consolidate WorldCat Local  Step 3: Consolidate the Database Lists  Step 4: Redesign Research Guides (LibGuides) [and LibAnswers too]  Step 5: Implementation of VuFind/Bento  Step 6: Redesign all Serials Solutions pages/tools (Citation Linker, link resolver, e-Journal/e-Book Portal)  Step 7: Blackboard Bento – embedded subject specific resources  Step 8: Who knows?!

Where we are…  ECU Libraries  Blackboard  ECU ‘Libraries’ link  Joyner’s Web  Music is a sub-site  Laupus’ Web Where we’re headed…  Hopefully, an ECU Libraries Web  How?  ECU Libs is trending  Centralized IT dept. serves all websites, so consolidation is more feasible… and in progress.

 A web/discovery experience that:  Fronts a strong, consolidated ECU Libraries  Delivers seamless navigation  Delivers optimal discovery and retrieval of resources  Integrates *everything* the ECU Libs have to offer  Demonstrates a combined effort to serve the University community  Demonstrates fiscal & organizational responsibility  Provides what our users want!

 “If [the user] ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!”  User Testing as our guide  UX Working Group  Collaboration with UX faculty  Recruitment: UX/UI developer  Assessing the need for more staff support for UX