Letter from the President

Letter from CCL President Doug Achterman

Library Services Platform (LSP) Update
February is full of activities in support of the LSP initiative. For a complete rundown, see the “News & Events” section of the Council of Chief Librarians website (http://www.cclibrarians.org/news/library-services-platform).

Provide Feedback and Input for an LSP through Ideascale

Ideascale is a crowdsourcing tool designed to gather feedback and provide input into major projects. A call has gone out to all CCC library staff (faculty and classied staff) to register with Ideascale and provide that input. For a more detailed description of Ideascale, see http://cclibrarians.org/news/lsp-task-force-needs-your-help.

To register:
1. Navigate to https://lsp.ideascale.com.
2. Register will your college email address (all other domains will be rejected).
3. Confirm your account via a link set to your inbox.
4. Start participating!

What Does It Mean to Share a Library Services Platform?

Since the LSP project has begun, I ask this question every day.  Some of the answers are straightforward and obvious. Right now, we operate systems from no fewer than nine separate vendors, and that does not even include the multiple ILS or LSP products we use from single vendors.  A shared system will result in significant cost savings. And as colleges opt in to a shared system, the expertise we will build around that system will grow and grow.  Other types of sharing will unfold in their simplicity or complexity as we engage in this endeavor together. What’s most exciting to me about this project is the opportunity it affords for deeper, sustained collaborations within our library community.
 
To share an LSP at this level requires continual dialogue across our community. Whereas many of our collaborative efforts in the past have been regional, in bursts, or with a core group of colleagues, this collaboration will bring all of us to the table in one way or another. How we accomplish this—the mechanisms and supports we build, the degree to which we collaborate, the flexibilities we require, the autonomy we exercise—are all questions we need to begin addressing now.
 
We know that the multi-tenant, single instance architecture of an LSP will result in tremendous time and resource efficiencies.  Bugs fixes, updates, and upgrades can be applied once, and the vendor knows that all the users are operating the same, current software.   There are some essential areas around which we know there will be sharing, but we still will have work to do in deciding both how and how much we’ll share. These include

·      Cataloging
·      Discovery
·      Analytics
·      E-resource management
·      Interlibrary Loan
 
We’ll need working groups to monitor and assess how well the platform is working in a variety of areas, groups to build policies for inputting and modifying data and system features, a professional development group for ongoing professional learning, and more.
 
While a tremendous amount of effort is being devoted in the coming months to creating an RFP and selecting a product for recommendation, the work to maintain our collaborations will be ongoing. This deepened collaboration will be, I believe, the most significant legacy of the LSP project.