some providers take our data and sell it back to libraries – but it is an issue that needs further thought and examination,” adding: “We’re working nationally with CILIP and Libraries Connected to determine how data in public librar- ies can be used to ensure the value of libraries is understood.” In her own borough she said: “We’re looking at family hubs and libraries and how we can work together. Using data to find out if families use both services – making sure that we haven’t broken any GDPR rules – and seeing if people use the family hubs use the library and if we are providing them with what they need.” She says the data from these integrat- ed systems might provide insights into why teenagers are happy to use libraries in some boroughs but not others: “We don’t have that problem because they come and study, we’ve had to put out more tables and chairs, but I know that other boroughs have seen the opposite so it will be interesting to see if the data helps show what is different.”
CIPFA
Kelly says the new LSP “produces all the CIPFA reports that we need to sub- mit. I remember where I used to work we had one person doing it – she’d start in April and would be finished a few months later. Now we have a report that does that for each authority.” While this could mean that some library services will no longer see the bureaucracy and staffing time as an ex- cuse to opt out of the CIPFA survey, more importantly Kelly says: “You have live or real-time version of CIPFA. It would tell you about how many books have been lent or library visitors there have been, or how much each library spending on books. But it doesn’t include a lot of the financial detail, like employee numbers, not yet, but there’s a thought.”
Preferences AI
But for now most of the data is about preferences and making the platform as user friendly as possible. Kelly said: “If I pick a book, I can say if I like it or not, add it to a list I want to keep, I can share it in other platforms, suggest to friend… you can tweet friends.” Anthony says: “It will build up your preferences regardless of the stock for- mat, so it will build in a similar way to the other platforms you’re used to already like OverDrive, but we’re not using their preference engines, we’ve got one that covers all providers and physical stock.”
Sector unity
As the sector awaits more news on the Single Digital Presence (we will be pub- lishing an update from the BL in the next
38 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
The browsable Discovery platform.
issue) what are the possibilities for this Discovery platform to tackle some of the issues?
Anthony said: “We are very confident of the impact the Discovery platform is having on the sector and is a way of demonstrating to suppliers what we want from our online systems. We continue to be part of national discussions regarding sector improvement in this area. We’re presenting at the International Inter- net Librarian Conference in October again and we’ve been invited to speak at EDGE2023 in Edinburgh.” Kelly added that the LSP (built by Solus) can sit on any LMS system. It’s not tied to one supplier but its potential for unifying the sector’s digital presence had not been explored.
However, she said that expansion of the consortium would require it to explore some of those issues anyway. “We already have tiered systems which means that you can have local differences. So, some authorities have gone for a lighter version of the Discovery platform and only have their catalogue, while others like us have everything, our heritage, events and all our library
information. This will be due to local differences, how different authorities might be set up, so some library services might not have as much control over their IT.
“For TLC, if we look at the possibility of larger expansions across the UK, we would have to look at the reality of sharing physical stock, its environmen- tal impact, so we could look at regional hubs or other solutions.” She said: “We’ve been speaking to a number of other consortia who are interested in our model and a couple of other authorities are open to further conversations. We would encourage anybody interested in joining to contact us. The consortium has demonstrated over a number of years how effective it is in terms of saving authorities money whilst also improving services. New members also get to increase their resources hugely. Before joining the consortium, Sutton held about 250,000 items of physical stock, now as part of the consortium, Sutton has access to over seven million items of physical stock. You can see further benefits at our website:
www.thelibrariesconsortium.org.uk”. IP
September 2022
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