LSP Kickoff February 1st: Getting Ready | Council of Chief Librarians

Library Services Platform Kickoff February 1st

The official kickoff for the full LSP implementation begins Friday, February 1st with a face-to-face meeting in Costa Mesa. On that day, one library representative from each of the 110 participating colleges will gather together to hear what the 11 Vanguard (pilot) colleges gleaned from their early involvement and how those lessons learned will improve the statewide implementation. Participants will also receive a more detailed implementation schedule and preliminary training from the vendor (Ex Libris), meet the newly expanded CCC Technology Center project team, work group leads and meet together as legacy system groups.

Before the Kickoff on February 1st, as per Ex Libris instructions sent by e-mail and Basecamp, you’ve been asked to read and review these documents:

Getting Ready for Alma and Discovery Implementation https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Im... Technical Requirements for Alma and Discovery Implementation https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Im...

In the “Getting Ready” document, it’s helpful to review roles you’ll need to account for during migration and implementation. The “Getting Ready” document also provides optional data preparations you can undergo to best prepare your data. Look for additional recommendations from the Vanguard colleges, the CCC Technology Center library consultants, the Governance work groups, and from Ex Libris. In the Technical Requirements document, you’ll see information about early—basic-- work you’ll need to do with IT to get started, including ensuring Alma and Primo IP addresses are allowed, ensuring the correct port is open of OCLC Connexion, and verifying your authentication protocol (e.g., LDAP, SAML 2., or CAS 2.0).

We are looking forward to a great day together for the kickoff on February 1st in Costa Mesa. Already, the level of collaboration, support, and effort from librarians across the state has been a wonder and an inspiration. We are already moving together in a more connected way, and that will feed our goals of student success for years to come. I know that each of your library’s representatives will be excited to return to your college and share all that they have learned.

Implementation - What Has Happened So Far?

In November, you (or someone else on your team) completed the Alma & Primo Implementation form, which provided Ex Libris with information about your existing environment, including collection size, e-resources, number of staff who may need access to Alma and/or Primo, authentication services (LDAP, CAS or Shibboleth), and information about your current system. In that form, you were advised to look into possible charges related to extracting data from your current ILS. If your data is hosted by your vendor, it’s possible your vendor will charge you to extract your data. I encourage you to look into this immediately if haven’t done so and to make sure you’ve budgeted for this expense or secured additional funding from your college to do this. If you’re having difficulty with this issue, please contact Amy Beadle at the CCC Technology Center immediately (contact information at end of this document).

Supporting and Improving the Process

Since late August, library staff from eleven colleges have participated as part of a Vanguard group to pilot the migration process. They provided extremely valuable feedback to provide the most successful process state-wide. Their experience has influenced many changes to improve the systemwide implementation. Vanguard members will be at the kickoff and will provide ongoing suggestions and support throughout our implementation.

Move to Canvas

One significant change that has come out of the Vanguard experience is the switch from using Basecamp to managing the project in Canvas. Librarians and library staff will be able to enroll in the Canvas shell, hosted on the Online Education Initiative-California Virtual Campus server, and access all the training modules, discussions, resources, and “helps” produced by Ex Libris to guide us through migration and implementation. An invitation to join this Canvas shell will be coming shortly.

Added Support from the LSP Project Team

To provide adequate support throughout the migration process, the LSP project has contracted with three part-time library specialists: Moon Kim is an acquisitions librarian at CSU Fullerton who has participated in three previous migrations to the Alma platform. Ian Chan is Head of Library Technology Initiatives and Development at CSU San Marcos, chairs the Library Web and User Experience committee and leads the Discovery work group at CSUSM. Both librarians had key roles in their colleges’ migrations to Alma and Primo. Aleah Kropholler is an adjunct librarian at two community colleges and is a product of our community college system. She has a technical services background and understands the varied landscapes from college to college within our system.

Governance Committee Work Groups and the Project Wiki

The eight Governance Committee work groups—Acquisitions & Electronic Resource Management, Analytics, Cataloging, Circulation, Discovery & UX, Instruction, Professional Development, and Systems—are creating documentation and recommendations for configurations during migration and implementation. Meeting notes and other documents produced by these work groups—comprised of over 100 librarians from the CCC system – as well as a listing of project staff and the governance committee-- are archived at the CCC Library Services Platform Project Wiki (https://cccnext.jira.com/wiki/spaces/CLSPP/overview. ) This site will be updated frequently and will serve as the repository for project documentation.

CCL Support

The Council of Chief Librarians will hold workshops during migration and implementation and will provide additional resources to support our work as needed. Early discussions include the possibility of hosting regional meetings periodically to connect and support each other. Five of CCL’s board members are part of the CCC Technology Center Task force, which has met weekly for the past year to do long and short-term project planning. CCL has received funding from the project to do ongoing support for librarians.

Ongoing Funding Update

The proposal for ongoing funding that was part of the Board of Governors’ budget requests did not make it into Governor Newsom’s January budget. While this is disappointing, it is not yet cause for concern. Things are always tricky when a new Governor is sworn in and has to release a draft budget within just a few days! Given Governor Newsom’s obvious commitment to higher education, there is still time and opportunity to secure ongoing funding for the LSP project. Representatives from the California League of Community Colleges, the Council of Chief Librarians, ASCCC and the Student Senate will work diligently to get that funding into the May budget revision. If ongoing funding is not secured in the 2019-20 budget, there is another opportunity to apply for funding in the 2020-21 budget cycle. Do not panic! The project is well-supported by stakeholders across the system and conversations will continue as to how to best move the project toward an ongoing funding source. If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me or the Statewide LSP Program Manager, Amy Beadle (abeadle@ccctechcenter.org).

Doug Achterman
President, Council of Chief Librarians
Co-chair, LSP Governance Committee
dachterman@gavilan.edu