1. Building a Shared Community for the
Management of Library Resources

2. Principle: Do once and share
KB+ Context:
It doesn’t seem like the best use of academic librarians’ time
to have them all maintaining the same data, in the same
products, when that work could either be done once centrally
and shared or co-ordinated across the wider academic library
community both nationally and internationally.
the challenge libraries face managing different versions of
‘their’ data in different silos – be it the publisher, the link
resolver knowledge base, the subscription agent, or indeed
their own local LMS systems and resource discovery tools.
KB+ has an opportunity to provide one central source of
institutional data that is shared across all stakeholders as
required.

3. What does KB+ do now?(1)
Replaces manual records and filing cabinets for ERM
Maintains local subscription data in one place (currently nesli2
deals)
Populated from generic, verified subscription information held by
JISC Collections
Maintains list of journal entitlements for ‘big deals’ (packages)
for each year
Enables packages to be linked with one or more publisher or
aggregator platforms
Can edit start dates and end dates for individual journal titles
(useful for keeping link resolvers up-to-date)
Enables ‘core’ titles to be identified for each subscription year
(the titles that are so often ‘in dispute’ with publishers at renewal)
Links journal subscription data and entitlements to the relevant
licenses

4. What does KB+ do now?(2)
Provides summary license terms ‘at a glance’, showing ‘rights’:
Coursepacks
Interlending
Walk-in
Partners, etc.
Allows original licenses (documents) to be uploaded
Allows for local and shared Notes to be added
When changes are made to generic subscription data or licenses,
library staff are alerted to accept (or reject) local changes
Journal titles and entitlements can be edited individually or in
batches to suit local needs
Packages can be copied to act as templates for new packages or
created from scratch

5. Dashboard (including Alerts)

6. Subscriptions / Packages taken

7. Manage package

8. Manage journal entitlements

9. Summary licence information

10. Alerts / Change notifications

11. What is planned next? (1)
Renewals functionality being implemented
Enables comparison between deals and years
e.g. between a publisher’s 2013 and 2012 list of entitlements
Differences shown in reports
Local changes can be made and then the data uploaded from
the edited spreadsheet
Historical data and post-cancellation rights
Collect and normalise historical data relating to journal
agreements
Title lists and licences from e and paper formats
Normalise data and load into KB+
Multi-year representation
Navigation / filtering of multi-year data in user interface,
reports and exports

12. What is planned next? (2)
Data Management and Workflows
Maintain and update all current data for 2013 including
updates to Licence and Subscription information
Support for management, tracking and cascading of generic
KB+ changes to your local KB
Add in new agreements, especially non-JISC
agreements
E-journal agreements
Full text databases
E-book agreements
Open access

13. What is planned next? (3)
Consortium relationships
Functionality to enable consortia to use KB+ efficiently,
drawing on the SHEDL exemplar
Communication and building the Community
Improvement of Notes and Alerts to support communication
and annotation across the KB+ community
Community Advisory Group will be consulting on how to make
KB+ the first port of call for library staff and communication
across the community
Integration
Journal Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP) and Electronic Licence
Comparison and Analysis Tool (Elcat)
Other third party services via imports and exports of data, e.g.
see JISC HIKE Project at Huddersfield

14. Sustainability
Free until August 2013
Complete 2 major releases (Dec 12 and July 13)
Pre-populate with local and national data
Relationship to JISC offer not yet confirmed
Continue as part of central offering?
Standalone service?
Part of a collection of other services?
Provisional pricing
based on new JISC bands (feedback)

15. Impact
Improving the reliability of e-library data, thereby
improved end user experience and trust
Reducing time and cost spent managing data that
underpins ERM, especially renewals
Adding value and accuracy to vendor knowledge bases
that drive library systems and link resolvers (ROI)
Improve licensing and negotiation in UK, especially
through more reliable historical data and entitlements
“Do once and share” principle working at many levels
Potential for enhanced communication between
librarians and institutions
Successful shared service

16. l.earney@jisc-collections.ac.uk
@liamearney
@jisckbplus
http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/KnowledgeBasePlus/
Author: Liam Earney with additional edits from Nicholas Lewis, January 2013.