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Is the Cloud for a ll Libraries?. Wesley College Libraries and Information Services. Wesley College Melbourne . 3500 Students P-12, 500+ staff Three m etropolitan campuses Clunes residential campus, Off site camps Mallana , Healesville, Studio School Fitzroy Crossing, WA.
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Is the Cloud for all Libraries? Wesley College Libraries and Information Services
Wesley College Melbourne • 3500 Students P-12, 500+ staff • Three metropolitan campuses • Clunes residential campus, • Off site camps Mallana, Healesville, • Studio School Fitzroy Crossing, WA
Library and Information Services • 5 sites • 3 City campuses • 21.5 EFT staff • Extensive services to programs and to users • Online digital collections • Off site storage of 30% of hard copy resources
Cloud Computing • Limiting this talk to externally hosted services • Web enabled services • Subscription Model
Cloud Services Involvement • 2008 ongoing Atlas Rubicon Curriculum Management System • 2009- ongoing • Aquabrowser Search and Discovery System, Proquest • 2009- 2010 and ongoing • ContentDM, OCLC
Factors we considered in deciding on cloud- based services • The quality of the product or solution is 1st consideration, hosting is 2nd consideration • Whether the solution or service fits with the strategic intent of the library services (or client) • Establish risk 3 case studies for consideration..
Hosted solution was chosen • Faster implementation than locally implemented solution • Proven track record with international schools across Asia Pacific and Europe • Vendor relationship- responsive • Set up trial database for the stakeholders to test and view • Training and support program was clearly articulated and part of implementation costs • Reliability of service, speed and operability
Aquabrowser Search and Discovery System 2009 - 2010 • Goal – to implement a one stop search and discovery platform • Use syndetics to add layers and additional information • 360 Search & federated search over all Library Databases • Centralise the collections – both hard copy and digital across the college in single search interface • Search system available from home and 24/7 access • Add on bibliographic tools such as ‘Refworks’
Process implementation Aquabrowser • Consultations with our IT Department • Agreement on hosted solution • Implementation would be faster than local solution • Proposed solution easy to replace if better could be found • Allowed for access to the community from home • Incorporation of e-texts from EBL – in line with Library strategic direction • Support from Finance department • Rationale communicated and understood • Consultations with stakeholders- Curriculum
Archives Project 2008- 2013 • Requests for assistance from the archives staff to digitise the collection of year books ‘The Chronicle’ dating from 1876- 2013 • ‘The Lion’ college magazine, 1961 onwards • Year books from MLC Cato, now Elsternwick Campus, ‘Silver and Green’- 1931- 1960 ‘The Coolaroo’ 1961- 1986 • Four histories of the College, and biography of L.A Adamson • Gift books from 1947 onwards currently being uploaded
Implementation • Implementation scheduled from beginning to end with the Bowker/Proquest Team in the US- via Base Camp • Step by step process fully documented • Decision-making for all aspects of the set up was staged via Base Camp meetings • Homework between stages to be completed by the client • Handover complete once the client had signed off on the full working of the system
Process • Project planning and partnerships • Library team, Archives staff and Wesley Old Collegians • Project scope developed, goals, targets • Further stakeholders • College community- students, staff, former students, the general community • Considerations • Priority in digitisation given to fragile documents • The archives collection contained many objects of value to the organisation- uniforms, furniture, paintings, and memorabilia • Consideration needed to be given to making provision for pictorial as well as 3 D objects in the digital collection
Implementation of Project • Funds raised by Old Collegians – Library Donations Fund • Scanning of materials by Caval Bundoora- priority to year books • Research Process into Content Management System Investigation into ContentDM Decision made November 2009 • Upload of objects- over 6000 currently • Raw PDFs, OCR process • Metadata (Dublin Core IMS) and tagging
Issues • Lack of preparation on our part- not familiar with the system we were purchasing • Restructure at vendor and client simultaneously at time of implementation- slowed our process • Project planning stalled • What did client groups expect? • What was feasible? • What needed to happen next?
2011- 2012 • Re-established relationship with the OCLC support • Work through technical issues- • Identified errors on our part in upload process • Resolved dates searching issues in advanced search • Resolving other issues in display of resources
Improvements to ContentDM • Speed of upload of objects • Speed of retrieval of objects in search • Valuable local assistance from OCLC Australian office when encountering issues • Continuing development of the product • Newsletters and updates
New Directions • Commenced indexing project in anticipation of World War 1914- 1918 100 years anniversary • Create a publication derived from the Chronicle on Wesley War experiences • Project team established to further index topics such as Performing Arts, Sports at Wesley, Headmasters of the College, Famous Old Collegians
Lessons Learned • Research all aspects of the hosted service and product you are purchasing • Ensure that a good rapport and service standard can be expected from the vendor • Establish the costing over the years beyond immediate implementation • Weigh up the advantage of hosting with local management • Ensure the content be migrated to another service in the event that the product fails in the market place.
Acknowledgement • Bart Rutherford • Maree McFarlane • Marie Turnbull • Richard Turnbull
Contact Wilma Kurvink College Head of Library and Information Services Wesley College Melbourne Wilma.kurvink@wesleycollege.net