presentation

I attended the Internet Librarian International (ILI) 2014 Conference at Olympia a couple of weeks ago and found the opportunity to talk about our experience of transforming SUNCAT, learning about the latest library trends and generally meeting follow Librarians very useful.

My presentation is available on the SUNCAT website but unfortunately the other presentations from the conference are password protected.

After mistakenly trying to join some of the numerous other conferences taking place at Olympia at the same time some of the highlights for me included:

The opening keynote from Michael Edson of the Smithsonian who talked about the dark matter of the Internet – the huge amount of cultural activity on the Internet which is valuable but difficult to capture so is not well covered by our cultural institutions. He made particular reference to the Vlog Brothers who you can check out at http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers

A number of the speakers spoke extensively about or at least touched upon the changing and new roles available for Librarians with the advent of new trends and technologies. Developments in publishing, open access, open source, mobile apps and research data management were highlighted by Brian Kelly (CETIS) as key findings from the 2014 NMC Horizon Report for Libraries.

Suzanne Enright from the University of Westminster described how they used Agile Methodology to develop a Virtual Research Environment, while Mary Antonesa from Maynooth University Library presented on the development of a simple directional app to assist users find locations and items.

Ben Showers Head of Scholarly and Library Futures at Jisc encouraged us to follow three principles when collecting and measuring metrics:

Principle 1: Measure what really matters, not just what you can get data for
Principle 2: Don’t collect or measure if you are not going to act on it.
Principle 3: Make as much of your data available as possible.

And finally of great interest was the presentation around engaging users in the tender exercise for a new LMS and discovery tool at the Open University. This included setting up a user panel, interview and observation sessions and creating wireframe prototypes to gather initial feedback. Sodertorn University in Sweden also conducted similar exercises with users and discovered the importance of:

Relevance ranking
Terminology is vital – we should avoid using too much library lingo in discovery system
Facets should be highlighted so that users don’t overlook them

All very helpful as we continue to develop the SUNCAT service…

I thoroughly enjoyed the recent Interlend 2014 conference at the Carlton Highland Hotel in Edinburgh. Interlend is the annual conference for the Forum for Interlending and Information Delivery (FIL), which is an organisation for those involved in interlending and document supply, enabling them to exchange ideas and views and also to raise the profile of this area of work nationally and internationally.

This year’s conference took place on EDINA’s home turf in Edinburgh and featured an excellent range of talks focusing on marketing interlending services, developments to systems supporting interlending and case studies of evolving interlending services in practice. My highlights would have to include:

Anthony Brewerton, Head of Academic Services at the University of Warwick, who kicked off the conference with a lively and engaging tour of the key concepts to be considered when marketing and branding a library service. This included the ladder of loyalty – developing relationships with your customers, until they become advocates of, then champions of and finally partners in developing your service.

Ann Lees and Stephen Winch from NHS Education for Scotland Knowledge Services Group (NES KSG) recounted the trials of dealing with a “no copying” policy across NHS Scotland (NHSS), following the Scottish Government’s decision several years ago not to renew the then existing CLA licence. To compensate, a service was set up to provide copyright fee paid copies of material via the British Library. In order to streamline this process NES KSG utilised the British Library’s API to enable NHSS users to make requests via the Knowledge Network search platform. Users can run a search on the Knowledge Network and if no full text is available to them a link to login to the new Document Delivery service is displayed. The user is asked to fill in details about the reason for the request, preferred delivery option and then the order is placed via the British Library DDS API. NHSS librarians also receive email copies of the requests and go into the system to approve them. The system went live earlier this year and usage is gradually taking off. However, since June this year a revised CLA licence has been signed so restricted copying is now also available within NHSS.

I feared that a presentation on copyright could be rather dry but Emily Stannard, the Copyright & Compliance Officer from the University of Reading gave an engaging and informative update on the current status of key copyright developments in the UK, particularly the copyright exceptions which came into force at the start of June 2014. These include:

Supplying single copies of published works to (non-profit) libraries and to library users. No contract or individual licence can override this exception, which could have implications for those libraries looking to fulfil ILL requests via copies of articles from e-journals. Potentially libraries would not need to check individual licences before supplying copies. Emily advised us to keep our eyes peeled for more information on this topic.

Other exceptions include:

Preservation copying covers all works
No requirement for paper copyright declarations, an online declaration with checkbox or digital signature is now sufficient
Libraries can copy all types of work for persons doing non-commercial research/private study
Text and data mining for non-commercial purposes
Accessible copies for disabled people
Making works available on dedicated terminals (providing there is no contract saying you can’t)

Marjory Lobban’s (Document Delivery Supervisor at the University of Edinburgh) review of interlending at the University of Edinburgh was set against the backdrop of the changing environment the library is operating within the University, with more online courses, more distance learners, more students overall and reduced library sites.

Following a downward trend in ILL requests from the late 1990s to early 2000s with the emergence of e-journals, figures started to level out again when the University started using WorldShare in 2007 and started to increase in 2010 when the University started using Iliad leading to more exposure to overseas libraries accompanied by a move to online requesting, which streamlines the process for users and ILL staff. An increasing number of supplies to the University are coming from overseas libraries so ILL requests are now often sent straight overseas rather than to the British Library or other UK libraries. Lending to overseas is also increasing.

Future plans include looking at pay per view options where full text isn’t immediately available to the user. Purchasing items if cheaper than the interlending option and rebranding the ILL service.

I also gave a presentation focusing on the new SUNCAT service, including:

Background and context to the recent redevelopment
Highlighting the key features which can be found on the new service
Describing how SUNCAT can assist end users, library staff and in particular ILL staff
A live demo of the new service
An update on future plans for the service

Attending Interlend 2014 not only let me introduce the new SUNCAT interface to one of our valued user groups, but also helped to give me more information on what is happening and some key priorities in the world of interlending, all very helpful as we consider how to continue to develop the SUNCAT service.

The presentations for all the sessions will soon be available on the FIL website.

Internet Librarian International 2014 (London Olympia, 21-22nd October 2014)

SUNCAT features at Interlend 2014