Wichita State’s Ablah Library has been using the same system to keep track of its collections and other resources since 1999. After planning to move to a new system for over a decade, the switch was finally made on Sept. 16.
“We were holding together the old system, which was called Voyager, sort of with baling wire and duct tape, and we needed to migrate to a new — a modern system,” Brent Mai, dean of the university libraries said. “I think seven or eight, maybe 10 (years) is when … most libraries get new systems. We had just managed to keep this one — the old one — going for so long.”
Mai said that the Voyager system the library had been using previously had stopped being developed, which made managing the library’s electronic resources difficult for staff. Voyager was an integrated library system. Most of these systems have a focus on print resources which made managing electronic resources more difficult.
“A few years prior … we were looking at other systems, but because of where they were in their development and other factors, we wound up not going with them at that time,” technology development librarian Samuel Willis said. “So we’ve been planning this for a decade at least.”
WSU libraries made the switch to EBSCO FOLIO library services, which is an open source software that makes it easier for library staff to manage both print and electronic sources. These services are hosted through MOBIUS Consortium, which provides access to resource sharing between all the libraries that are members. By January, WSU will also integrate about 29 million resources in other MOBIUS member libraries into its system.
“For me, it was kind of a no-brainer to go with that system,” Mai said. “We looked at several different vendors that were out there, but we ended up going with one called FOLIO, which is an open source software system, which seems to be where lots of things are moving that way … so we saw two benefits of that. To my staff behind the scenes, being able to manage things better, and then also the way we deliver to you guys is better as well.”
OpenAthens has also been implemented into the library system. This means when students are authenticated on their device as a WSU student, instead of the only way to find scholarly sources being through the library’s website, Google searches will also show sources that are in the WSU libraries.
“Even though you start your search by going out into the world, it redirects you back to the stuff that we’ve already paid for to support your curriculum,” Mai said. “So I thought that was really cool, you know, it helps you without you even knowing.”
Mai said the transition so far has gone well for the library staff. They had to go through a lot of training for these new systems, but Mai said they work much smoother than the old one.
“Now that we’ve gone live … our staff has been very happy with it,” Willis said. “I’ve heard great remarks about it from the circulation side of the house and from the metadata. It’s all working just fine.”
Mai said there was a lot of testing involved with switching to these systems to get them to run as smoothly as possible. Fortunately, not many issues with the online systems have been reported by staff or students.
“My goal was, we went live on the 16th of September. My guess is that you didn’t even notice, and that was the goal, that on the user side, there’s still a box there … the goal was to make it so that it was not a thing for you guys to deal with,” Mai said.
Mai said that if anyone encounters issues accessing resources on the library’s web page, they should contact library staff to get it fixed. Contact information for Ablah Library’s “ask a librarian” service, the reference desk and circulation desk are available here.
