JISC

The Library Management Systems strand has now completed.  The projects involved in this work have helped academic library's explore the future of their management systems, and are providing users with convenient and easy access to the huge range of digital information resources which they make available.

More information about this strand of work and the projects involved can be found in the final synthesis report for the programme.

The Library Management Systems (LMS) work is addressing some of the concerns and dissatisfaction that the library community has expressed over the current provision and suitability of the systems available.

This work builds on a number of reports and studies that have explored the LMS market within the United Kingdom and user expectations when they search for information and resources on the web. More details of this work can be found in the links at the end of this page.

Aims of this programme

Tag for this strand #jisclmsThe programme aims to affect substantial change within the information and library sector and its use and consideration of LMS in the following key areas: usability of library systems for end users (UX), advantages of open source library systems (OSS), management of electronic resources (ERM), and prototypes for surfacing library resources on the Web.

Parallel to this work there will be a synthesis project that will be drawing all of this work together and aiming to help nurture and maintain this fledgling LMS community. Find more about this through the synthesis blog.

The projects

Strand A: Usability Case Studies

• Case studies which trial and explore the implementation and usability of new resource discovery interfaces.
• Eight projects funded to embed user experience in library systems.

Strand B: Enhancing existing interfaces

• Enhancing existing interfaces and the visibility of library resources & services on the Web.
• Creating prototypes that enhance existing Online Public Access Catalogues (e.g. provision of content enrichment, social bookmarking, etc.)

Strand C: Electronic Resource Management (ERM) in libraries

• Creating case studies which express the current methods used in managing electronic resources
• This strand of work has helped feed into the shared electronic resource management project that is currently undertaking a user requirements study.

Strand D: Open Source systems

• Creating case studies which demonstrate the value of open source systems and their effective use in libraries

Strand E: Synthesis and dissemination

• Peer review of case studies and endorsement of findings to other UK HE/FEs, library vendors and community organisations