Ken Chad Consulting can help organisations realise opportunities for the delivery of improved services and considerable savings through ‘shared Services’  is one the key strategies being evaluated and implemented by central and local government and Higher Education (HE). For example:

Research system options for White Rose Libraries (WRL)

White Rose Libraries (Leeds, Sheffield and York Universities) employed Ken Chad Consulting to help confirm requirements and identify options for the next iteration of repository infrastructure. Over a three month period the project engaged around 150 stakeholders from the three WRL institutions using a variety of approaches including online and face-to-face workshops, one-to-one interviews with researchers and a survey. The project met the WRL goals to deliver a requirements document, an implementation blueprint and a review and analysis of the repository and research system marketplace. Claire Knowles, Associate Director, Research & Digital Futures at Leeds University remarked ‘in a short period the project covered a lot of ground and provided very valuable outputs. It has given WRL a sound basis to move forward’.

Library management system for Wales. Pre procurement support
LMS Cymru is a joint working arrangement of 20 of the 22 Library Service Authorities within Wales to share a library management system.  Ken Chad Consulting assisted with the pre-procurement phase of the re-tendering process for a new solution. This involved engaging with a wide range of stakeholders including library staff, members of the public, Welsh government and library system vendors to better understand and define needs and the current marketplace for solutions. This work fed into a requirements document produced by Ken Chad that formed part of the subsequent Invitation to Tender (ITT) in 2023 and the selection of a new library system for Wales in 2024.

 

Improving library technology infrastructure in the NHS

In September 2020 we began work with Health Education England (HEE) NHS to help on an ambitious HEE funded programme to deliver a more efficient and coherent infrastructure of library management systems (LMSs). The present LMS landscape in complex and costly with over 91 separate systems across England. This will be reduced to a small number of regional shared systems delivering improvements for library staff and end users. For more information see: Moving to regional library management systems: the journey begins‘. Knowledge for Healthcare [blog]. 30th September 2020

 

Jisc’s Library Hub Discover  

Library Hub Discover is a major UK shared service that gives access to details of materials held in many UK over 160 national academic and specialist libraries. Catalogue metadata is at the heart of this shared service. We worked with Jisc and staff from UK universities to make recommendations about how Jisc can use its influence to change the dynamics of the library metadata market and better support the its goals

A shared library system infrastructure across a number of UK public libraries.
We  worked with the Greater Manchester Libraries Shared Services Project board to  evaluate and analyse the library systems options for providing a one library card based entitlement across 10 Greater Manchester library authorities. The Project Board reported that: ‘The  report has given us a clear overview of the options for us to move towards an integrated library systems solution and provide better services to our users. It has helped us clarify the direction for the future’

 

Shared Services feasibility study into the library systems landscape in UK Higher Education.
The study was commissioned by SCONUL and funded by HEFCE. Ken Chad worked in partnership with  Sero Consulting (project lead) and  Curtis + Cartwright.