ALA 2009 Conference Session - ERM: The Promise and the Disappointment

There were four panelists. Sadly, these were four of the poorest presentations pulled together in a session. I don’t blame the panelists, as I believe it’s a result of what they were told to do for the session. Each addressed a different ERM – Serials Solutions 360 Counter, Ex Libris Verde (which is no longer being developed by Ex Libris), III ERM Module, and Gold Rush from the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries.

Way too much detail was presented, digging down into the nitty gritty of menus, settings, etc. complete with screen shots. I was familiar with all but one of the products and it still did nothing for me. Someone with no familiarity with any of the products or who was simply investigating ERM would just be lost.

Having said all that, there was information to be gleaned from all of this:

• Define why you are purchasing an ERM product. Know what you expect to use it for and then match the product to your requirements.
• Pick your product carefully. Look at how long others are taking to implement, the track record of the company, etc. Verde is a product that has taken many customers two plus years to implement and many still aren’t. In the meantime, they’ve announced no future development for this product while they turn their energies to another similar product. I know from a previous job this product was not inexpensive.
• Is training available? Is the documentation good? Verde’s training is good; their documentation not. III’s documentation is fairly good; but all training is done on-site at an additional cost. However, to purchase the III Module is probably 1/10 of the cost of what some customers paid for Verde. So, I guess that’s perspective. The Gold Rush presenter had switched from Verde due to it’s complication and then proceeded to bring Gold Rush up in a matter of months. She praised both their documentation and training.
• Don’t think you have to implement all modules at once. Maybe there are a few features that will be useful and can be brought up fairly quickly. Acknowledge that you may not use every feature from day one, but that other features can be implemented as time goes on. For us, there are several features of the III ERM we could use and then focus on others later. For example, the tracking feature for database problems would be useful, while usage stats (because of product limitations) would only be implemented should the product improve how usage stats are loaded.
• Consider “out of the box” implementations over a lot of customizations if possible.

I had thought this presentation would be an overall discussion of ERM products as whole, focusing on how people are using them and if the automated process is working. I saw what the problems were with the systems but not necessarily with the idea of using an ERM. Is the ERM system better than the spreadsheet or the Access database? Would other "tracker'" systems provide the same type of workflow? Is it better to go with a product from a company you already do business with or should you simply select the best ERM to meet your needs? How have others defined their ERM needs? If you've used certain features, such as incident tracking, have they been useful when re-negotiating the license or did it just give you a nice report? What features did you turn on to the public? What was the value gained from doing so?

While it was not the session I expected and was a bit too detailed, I did learn a few things and have some of my thoughts and ideas validated, so in the end I am glad I attended.

Print only, anyone...

MPOW is trying to finalize a serials cancellation project. Since I gather and analyze usage statistics, I'm a big proponent of using them to help determine what to keep and what to cancel. Granted, there are some titles that need to be kept usage statistics aside, mainly those required to maintain accreditation. The rest, especially in times of declining budgets, to me, are fair game.

Faculty and librarians got a chance to lobby for those titles they considered essential. In a few cases, titles have been declared essential that have little or no usage. At least not electronic usage. There in lies the rub with usage statistics - we only have them for our electronic subscriptions (and a few vendors still don't provide them). Here until very recently, print and electronic was the standard subscription, so some titles could have print usage that I'm not aware of.

What then is the solution when the usage stats say no one is using this title and the faculty and/or librarians say we must have this title? The trend of course is to go electronic for everything. While most of the time, electronic subscriptions are equal in price or cheaper, there are still cases where print only is cheaper (Nature for example, at least at MPOW). So, my query is, if the usage doesn't back up the subscription, but the journal is still given priority, and print only is the same or cheaper, why not consider dropping the electronic piece and go print only? Even if the prices are the same, in some cases, it may still be better to go print only. Electronic only requires a license agreement and several vendors actually set a minimum spend on their agreements, meaning once you sign that agreement, nothing can be cancelled (spend level must be maintained for the life of the license agreement) or a title may be canceled as long as it is replaced with a title that is of equal or higher cost. These vendors may also prefer a multi-year agreement, which given the current budget situation, may not be doable for some libraries. In this case, the overall spend may be the same as electronic, however, there is increased flexibility in managing your subscriptions and there is no set spend amount to the vendor for the next three to five years. Added consideration here is the requirement for shelve space and potential binding costs. Not every vendor requires spending to remain the same, but for those that do, unless the publisher is willing to come up with a more flexible license agreement, libraries will have to look at other options and print only will have to be one of them. Right now, for MPOW, this mainly applies to journals that are not held in aggregators.

Part of this is simply thinking out loud. Trying to maintain electronic subsriptions is tricky when budgets are cut, but I sometimes wonder if we've gotten ourselves over a barrel with our reliance on electronic versions and the ease of use and access they bring. Maybe there are still times when carrying the print and not the electronic is what is most cost effective for the library. The content is still available to patrons, but the convenience is lost. Distance education is the one ara where electonic versions would, of course, win out over print.

Social stuff and the Cloud....

Since I set up my Twitter account, I've become completely fascinated with it. To my surprise, I find that I enjoy Twitter. I'm not a constant poster, but I do check it several times a day. I follow friends, people from other social networking sites, vendors, Library Journal, whatever catches my fancy. It's interesting the variety of people who follow me. Some I don't follow back; a few I've blocked. I've also discovered that Twitter is a great way to see if something is just you or is it affecting everyone. Recently, Google went down. I knew I was having problems, but wondered if it was just me. I checked Twitter. It wasn't just me. And, apparently a lot of folks weren't happy.

This bit of everything Google being down made me wonder about our dependencies on "the cloud." If calendar, documents, e-mail, photos (I'm sure there is more) is on Google (or another web based service) what do you do when that service goes down? I don't think it was down for more than a couple of hours, but if this is your primary source for your calendar and your documents, is this a problem? After all, computers crash, networks go down. There is always the possibility that due to some unforeseen circumstance we'll be without our online tools. Maybe it's a simple matter of back-up; rather than backing up what's on your PC, you back up what's in the cloud.

I've been in the unfortunate situation of having a home PC blow up and losing everything. The worst was six years of digital photos. Some had been placed online, but not all and while I was planning on saving them off, I'd never gotten around to it. I only had myself to blame. Now I make sure I put my photos in several places. I'm also not willing to pay the extra for all the apps for my home PC, so I use a variety of online services including Google Docs and Zoho. The Google down remineded me that I probably want to back those documents up as well. Better safe than sorry.

Rejection Letters....

While doing a bit of catch-up reading at the reference desk this afternoon, I came across an article on college rejection letters, "Rejection: How Colleges Do It." It appears students have started not only sharing their rejections, but critiquing them as well. It made me reminiscence a bit about my job hunt. While applying to a college and applying for a job are different, the sting of rejection is fundamentally the same. The reactions from some of the students to wording in the letters made me laugh. Not at them, because at that age it's all so important, but because as you continue in life you'll still get strange rejection letters.

For me several stand out. One wasn't even a rejection letter per se. I had the honor of being offered an interview and then a week later having the interview offer pulled. Due to budget constraints, they could only interview two, so sorry, not you. Believe it or not, almost a month later the same university called to see if I was still interested. It appears the other two interviews did not go well. I said yes. Friends were aghast, but I wanted/needed a full-time job. I was also impressed that they did call me back as many universities might have been too embarrassed. And, yes, I was offered and accepted the job and have very fond memories of my two plus years there.

The other was a rejection letter with somewhat of a twist. I had already received rejection letter one from this particular institution. Then, several months later, I received an e-mail that they were again considering candidates from the applicant pool, was I still interested. Again, what the heck. I don't remember if the interviews fell through or if the selected candidate declined. At any rate, I didn't hear from them again until I received the second rejection letter. They thanked me for interviewing with them, but advised they had selected someone else. I never interviewed with them. It would have been a great location and probably a good job, but I still think of that institution as a bit flaky.

The other one that stands out was a rejection letter to an entry level job stating there were more qualified candidates. This for a job that encouraged new graduates to apply. Now, I realize that many times experienced librarians apply for entry level positions due to location, goals or any number of other reasons, but to be told I was underqualified for an entry level job is still something I shake my head about. I'm sure that's not how they intended it, but that's how it came across.

I also have one reject letter that stands out in a good way... a positive rejection. It had wording stating something to the effect that they hoped I would apply for future positions at their insitution. That one made me feel pretty good.

I'm sure I could cull a few more from the folders I have (for some reason I still have many of my reject letters) but those are the ones that years later still stand out. Do you have any rejection letters that stand out?

Thoughts on online training...

As with a lot of institutions, most of the required training here is done online. It's done through a site that is poorly laid out and cumbersome to get into (a 14 character/digit/special character password is required and it frequently has to be re-set). Once in there, apparently whatever group is responsible for the training creates the training. There is nothing resembling consistency.

At previous positions, it was simple PowerPoints. You read them, maybe took a short quiz, then completed the training. Here it's a bit different. Almost like some have discovered some new funky technology and it must all be incorporated into the trainingl. I've see everything from extremely busy, cluttered, flashing PowerPoints to plai, nothing but bullet points PowerPoints.

The most recent was a short notice training. Another PowerPoint, but with a few twists I hadn't seen before. One was a timed, boxed highlight of each of the bullet points, forcing you to either read at their speed (slow) or ignore the slowly highlighting bullets and read at your own speed. The worst feature though had to be the flow charts. Yes, the flow charts. Not only was the process documented using flow charts, but the user had to click on each step to read about that part of the process. These were not two or three step flow charts. They were very detailed, mulit-step flow charts.

Going through this training made me realize that not only is it important to convey the information, but it is equally important how that information is conveyed. Just because there are a lot of bells and whistles available, doesn't mean they should be incorporated into the training. Sometimes, simple is best. What do you want to be remembered from the training? The valuable content or the funky presentation?