Migration in Motion: Managing Expectations
Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) Corporate College East
4400 Richmond Rd. | Warrensville Heights, OH 44128
Friday, May 19, 2023
9:00 AM – 3:30 PM
Registration deadline was Friday, May 12, 2023. If you have questions regarding your registration, please contact NOTSL’s Treasurer Laura Maidens at lmaidens@rockhall.org.
This meeting will be recorded, but as it is our first return to in-person meetings since 2019 and the first time we will be recording an in-person meeting, we will not be making the recording available to non-attendees at this time. Please check our website at NOTSL.org and keep an eye out for new information through our listserv on the possible release of a recording some time after our meeting in May. If you are not already on our listserv, reach out to notslboard2020@gmail.com with a request to join. As always, we will be sharing each presenter’s presentation slides on the Programs tab on our website, typically within the week following the meeting.
Please find a detailed agenda, including important documents for review before the meeting, here.
9 – 9:20 | Registration and breakfast |
9:20 – 9:30 | Opening remarks |
9:30 – 11 | Managing Futures: Working Towards the Future You Need, Jennifer Eustis |
11 – 11:10 | Break |
11:10 – 12 | Migration, Reimagining Your Library, Lori Thorrat |
12 – 1 | Lunch |
1 – 1:15 | NOTSL business meeting |
1:15 – 2:15 | Advocating for TS Before and During a Migration, Mike Monaco |
2:15 – 2:30 | Break |
2:30 – 3:30 | Managing an ILS Migration Project Using Microsoft Teams, Robin Buser |
NOTSL is pleased to welcome the following speakers and their presentations.
Managing Futures: Working Towards the Future You Need
Jennifer M. Eustis, Metadata Librarian at University of Massachusetts Amherst
Migrating to a new library service platform can be a daunting project. It involves stakeholders inside and outside the organization. It could potentially involve consortia activities and add another layer of stakeholders. One could conclude that a library migration involves almost every aspect of a library’s activities. It certainly requires a significant amount of change where views may differ on the need for a migration or the role that technical services play. Those views are most likely associated with widely held expectations. Hence, measuring the success of a migration relies on not just the completion of technical tasks but also if that migration met the community of users’ expectations. This begs the question of how it is possible to manage expectations that are met by stakeholders. In this presentation, the presenter will cover concepts on managing expectations and highlight examples of both successful and unsuccessful strategies at all stages of a migration.
Jennifer Eustis is a metadata librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She coordinates batch loading activities for UMass and the Five Colleges Consortium. Before UMass Amherst, she was the metadiscovery librarian at the University of Connecticut. She has over 10 years of experience in technical services.
Migration, Reimagining Your Library
Lori Thorrat, Catalog and Processing Manager at Cuyahoga County Public Library
Nothing says change like migration. Migration touches on all levels of staff and causes you to examine all policies and procedures. Whether you are a single branch library or a large multi-branch system, migration can be a key to reimagining your library and how you serve your customers. The Cuyahoga County Public Library (CCPL) is currently migrating from Innovative Interface’s Sierra ILS and Encore discovery to the open source ILS, Koha and open source discovery layer, Aspen. Having assisted with two other migrations, Lori was a natural fit to help the Core Team at CCPL identify, plan, map, and implement Koha and Aspen. Lori will discuss how the project is being managed, identify some of the unique things public libraries need to consider as they migrate, and share what she’s learned from her previous migration experiences at both an academic and special library.
Lori Thorrat is a technical services professional with over 30 years of experience at academic, public, and special libraries. She has been the Catalog and Processing Manager at the Cuyahoga County Public Library for the last 10 years. She also worked at the Ingalls Library at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the University of Rochester, and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Lori’s specialty is cataloging, but she also has experience with selection, acquisitions, serials, circulation, and even a little bit of reference.
Advocating for TS Before and During a Migration
Mike Monaco, Coordinator, Cataloging Services at the University of Akron
System migration is inevitable. But we don’t have to meet it with despair or resignation! Technical services can and should be involved in the process from the beginning — before the migration is even a twinkle in your administrators’ eyes. OhioLINK is currently reviewing proposals from various vendors, and by the time NOTSL meets in May could be at the beginning of a migration of 117 libraries in 88 institutions. While it’s too early in the process to know whether we’ll migrate and where, we can look at how DIAD, OhioLINK’s technical services interest group, advocated for TS interests in the requests for information, call for proposals, and bid review process for OhioLINK’s current exploration. Migration has a big impact on TS operations and we’ll look at how UA’s TS department is advocating for itself within the University of Akron Libraries, planning for the impact of the potential migration on staff and TS workflow. Whatever the outcome of the current process, there are lessons to be learned about advocating for TS.
Mike Monaco is Coordinator, Cataloging Services and Associate Professor of Bibliography at The University of Akron University Libraries. He has worked as a cataloger in public and academic libraries for over twenty years, his previous position being Senior Catalog Librarian at the Cleveland Public Library. He is currently serving as Coordinator of the Ohio Library Council Technical Services Division, and vice chair of the OhioLINK Database Improvement and Accessibility policy team.
Managing an ILS Migration Project Using Microsoft Teams
Robin Buser, Supervisor, Acquisitions & Metadata Services at Columbus State Community College
This past January, the Columbus State library began using Microsoft Teams to manage library projects. A brief description will be provided including how the process and tools were introduced and how project management has been used so far. The ILS migration project will be managed internally with this process. The project management tools for the ILS migration project have been put into place and those tools will be demonstrated. In addition to the tools, every staff member will need to be involved, and a description of roles and subteams will be provided. There will also be a discussion of how these same tools could be managed in a similar way using Google instead of Microsoft Teams.
Robin Buser has over 35 years of experience as a librarian in academic, public, and special libraries. She became interested in project management while working at OCLC. After earning Project Manager Professional certification, Robin has spoken about product management at many professional library meetings and has co-authored the book “Project Management for Libraries: A Practical Approach”. She also leads projects in her current position as Supervisor of Acquisitions & Metadata Services at Columbus State Community College.