Integrating the British library implementation of Aleph 500

Integrating the British library: implementation of Aleph 500 Alan Danskin Data Quality & Authority Control Manager. Sistema integrado de gestión bibliotecaria: motor de cambio 24 th September 2008, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.

The British Library - Locations St Pancras, London Colindale, London Boston Spa, W. Yorks. Humanities Reading Room 2

British Library British Museum Dept. of Printed Books National Lending Library for Science and Technology India Office Library and Records National Reference Library of Science and Invention National Central Library British Institute of Recorded Sound British National Bibliography National Newspaper Library 3

Legacy systems (simplified) PALAS SPACE WLN LOCAS Acquisitions Systems St. P. OPAC ABRS SPHOA BLAISE SPIS DSC Systems ICARUS BLC edit FINANCE BLPC Catalogue Bridge 4

Legacy architecture Complex architecture Poor user experience Complex dependencies Lack of agility Bureau Service Constraint on collaboration High support costs Low web profile Obsolete hardware/software Redundancy and duplication of data in silos High risk No UNICODE support Catalogue maintenance expensive and difficult 5

‘Vision’ for Integrated Library System Simplifies BL technical architecture Interfaces between different parts of BL Uses international standards Open to external user systems 6

Guiding principles for ILS ‘Off the peg’, unmodified package BL will modify business processes around the package ‘Satellite’ systems only when impossible for ILS to provide business need Priority to acquisitions, cataloguing and OPAC (but take account of document supply) 7

ILS Programme Procure and implement package Migrate data from legacy systems Develop interfaces n ‘Satellite’ systems (if any) n External systems Modify business processes Wind-down legacy systems Future developments 8

ILS Project Timeline 23 April 2002 Advert placed in OJEC (Official Journal of the European Community) n 14 May 2002 DCMS accepted ILS Business Case n 20 Dec 2002 Contract signed with Ex Libris 22 March 2004 First new record added to ILS 1 June 2004 Internal processing starts on ILS 29 June 2004 Reading rooms live using ILS OPAC 7 September 2004 Web OPAC live using ILS July 2006 Aleph Version 17 Upgrade 9

Some implementation statistics 16 Legacy systems replaced 1000+ staff trained 75. 3 million records migrated 12 million UKMARC records converted to MARC 21 5 character sets replaced by UNICODE £ 1, 000 p. a. saved on external systems costs 10

Transformative experience Profound change to public view of collections Re-engineering of collection processing n Previously by function n Now separate workflows for monographs & serials n Re-use of data Investment in catalogue maintenance and data enhancement n LC/NACO name authority alignment n Deduplication n Retrospective conversion Integration of digital collections 11

Derived cataloguing strategy 12

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Access to full text digitised resources 16

Access to full text of electronic resources 17

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Quality assurance 19

Retrospective catalogue conversion Aleph implementation 20

Out of scope Circulation module not implemented Import/Export n Satellite systems Archives and manuscripts Shelfmarking 21

What’s next Integrated search interface n ILS n Archives and Manuscript n Sound recordings Aleph Version Upgrade n Decision pending on implementation in late 2009 ILS Contract n Expires in 2012 22

Conclusion Motor for change Huge volume of work Substantial financial savings Ongoing costs Created new opportunities 23