2CUL TSI E-Resources Troubleshooting Team

Report - PHASE 1: Investigation

Create an inventory of all policies, practices, tools, and workflows related to e-resource troubleshooting at both institutions;

• 2CUL Systems used for E-Resources (updated March 1, 2013) - This spreadsheet describes the tools and systems used for various aspects of e-resource management at each CUL.  E-resource troubleshooting can require access to information and the ability to make changes to records in any of these systems, depending on the source of the problem. 
• Each CUL maintains a Confluence wiki site to maintain policy, procedures, workflows, and best practice information for handling troubleshooting tasks.  Each wiki contains a considerable amount of information.   Work is underway to updating these wikis to a matching organizational scheme with special focus on making troubleshooting information readily available to staff at both CULs.

Identify dependencies and limitations inherent in working with different systems, user populations and e-resource packages and licensing;

The team has concluded that our overall goals are essentially the same regarding e-resource troubleshooting, to provide quick and effective response to e-resource access problems.  Our user populations and our collections share many similarities.  Our libraries share some similar organizational complexities, such as semi-independent health science, law and other libraries that perform some independent e-resources work in addition to being part of the larger institution.  Success in e-resource troubleshooting is dependent on access to and skill with a number of different systems and tools to diagnose and fix problems, track and refer complex issues to the appropriate experts, and a broad understanding of the nature of e-resources at each institution.

Review policies, practices, and workflows related to e-resources troubleshooting at both institutions to identify points of harmony and points of discord;

The team developed a list of points of Harmony and Discord to keep track of where we can make early impact and where we will have to invest more time and resources to bring our tools, policies, and procedures together.  The Points of Harmony center on the common tools we have in Voyager and some Serials Solutions services and on our observations that our overall goals and basic procedures are very similar.  The Points of Discord have a lot to do with a number of different tools we use to perform similar functions, most significantly, our ERM systems.  We also have different ways of users initially reporting their problems and what information gets reported. This discrepancy right at the beginning of the troubleshooting process is significant in that it has an effect on all of the work we perform downstream. 

Establish baseline productivity and staffing at each institution to allow for future assessment of changes and development.

• Productivity - Appear to be very similar levels of troubleshooting volume and nature of incidents - (Some analysis of the nature of incidents is still underway)
  • January-March 2013 - Columbia 244, Cornell 251 (very close month to month totals) - Accuracy of these is limited by different sources of information.
• Staffing levels and general workflow - Very similar numbers of individuals and time spend handling troubleshooting work

Based on our work so far, the team is looking more deeply at the following areas and tools to better integrate troubleshooting efforts:

• Off-campus access and variable browser configuration testing - BrowserStack - implementation underway.
• Troubleshooting tracking system - A single incident tracking system for all troubleshooting reports to automatically populate (Jira?  other?).
  • LIBIT-L@cornell.edu and cul-eproblem@columbia.edu or other appropriate sources of reports should feed directly into the system to avoid re-entry.
  • Easy to identify Cornell or Columbia issues
  • Ability to route issues
• Common ERM/LMS - Information access and data normalization? Variables include:
  • Serials Solutions ERM Suite and Consortial add-on - cost, implementation & migration workload, gain vs. loss regarding Alma migration
  • Alma implementation timeline
• Workflow and information access - Consolidate useful information into parallel wiki's or consolidated wiki?
  •  Develop guidelines of what to handle at 2CUL level, what to route to "owning" library.
• Other tools
  • Automated link/access checking - Callisto