Successes and Challenges of Putting the Integration in Integrated Library Systems

Description:

System migrations are a popular topic at conferences and on discussion lists, but what about system integrations? How do we connect the plethora of external systems (financial, link resolvers, article requesting services, etc.) to our ILS? Whether you are responsible for maintaining systems and integrating new tools and software or are interested in learning more about how to do it and what to consider when talking to vendors, such as data privacy and security, come join us for a discussion on practicalities, tips and tricks to make these integrations successful.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this e-Forum, attendees will be able to:

• Have a better understanding of what questions to ask when considering a system integration.
• Be aware of common issues with an integration project.
• Have specific strategies to employ in their own integration project.

Who Should Attend: Anyone who is interested in or is impacted by system integrations. Anyone involved in managing an ILS and integrations with it or between other library systems, or who has recently completed one and has some words of wisdom to share with the community.

Moderators:

Morag Stewart is Acquisitions and Classics Librarian at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. As a technical services librarian, she works with IT and other colleagues to make sense of the ever-changing ILS, Alma, and systems it connects with, including Workday Finance.

Jennifer Colt is Head, Automation & Metadata Systems at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. She led the data migration of Cornell’s move from Voyager to FOLIO and regularly works with both technical services and IT colleagues to move data in and out of FOLIO, and to connect FOLIO to both local and external systems.

Anne LePage is the Technical Services & Systems Librarian at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. She first helped lead her library through a migration to Aleph when they joined their consortium, Novanet, in 2019. Three years later, in 2022, she led her library through the Alma migration along with the other institutions in Novanet. Our institution uses a system called Ellucian that we have integrated into Alma for our patron data, but we're still looking for ways to integrate our Acquisitions data as well.

Catherine Grove is the Head of Acquisitions & Metadata Services at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. She participated in her library’s migration from Voyager to Alma in 2015 and now leads experts across a variety of ILS functions. She is the co-chair of the IGeLU/ELUNA Alma Working Group and is interested in finding ways for systems to work effectively for libraries of all sizes.

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