New Library Catalog for Oberlin and OhioLink
September 25, 2022
OhioLINK announced in June that the consortium is beginning the process of replacing the integrated library system (ILS) used by its 117 members after receiving funding through the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE).
An ILS serves as the nerve center for many essential functions of the Libraries, such as circulation, acquisitions, cataloging, and discovery. With this project, OhioLINK seeks to modernize the system to provide better access, security, statistical reporting, electronic resource management, and support for teaching and learning. The funding provided by ODHE will cover the costs of selecting a new system and the migration process.
Seeking a better solution for its membership's core functions has been on OhioLINK's radar for some time now. The consortium and its library deans and directors worked with Ithaka S+R to imagine the "next-generation" ILS. The resultant white paper published in January 2020, It's Not What Libraries Hold; It's Who Libraries Serve: Seeking a User-Centered Future for Academic Libraries, envisioned four areas of need for this new system: 1) it must be centered on the user, 2) it needs to be focused on the shared, electronic, and "facilitated" collection vs. the traditional, tangible collection, 3) it needs to integrate more effectively with other campus systems to facilitate teaching and learning, and 4) it must provide modern business intelligence for improved data analysis and decision-making.
Oberlin College Libraries staff have formed a task force to advocate for Oberlin's needs and provide feedback to OhioLINK throughout the RFP process, clean up and prepare data in the existing system for migration to the new system, and coordinate the migration process with OhioLINK and the chosen vendor. Given the Integrated Library System's centrality in library staff's daily work, OhioLINK will involve its membership in the decision-making process. The ILS Migration Task Force will serve as the link to the OhioLINK process as we select a new state-wide system in the spring of 2023 and then move to complete the transition to the new system by the summer/fall of 2024.