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The University of Windsor has joined 13 other university libraries across Ontario to develop Collaborative Futures, an initiative led by the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) to build a next-generation library management system.
Collaborative Futures is a province-wide cloud-based library system that brings together a collection of over 18 million records from 14 academic institutions. It aims to provide increased support for the educational and research needs of students and faculty at Ontario’s universities through improved discovery and streamlined access to information resources.
“A key part of the Collaborative Futures vision is the implementation of a shared library services platform,” said Cathy Maskell, electronic resources librarian, who is co-leading the implementation for Leddy along with systems librarian Grace Liu.
The platform selected by OCUL to host the project, ALMA/PRIMO, was implemented at Leddy Library in early 2014.
“This puts us in a great position to join Collaborative Futures,” said university librarian Pascal Calarco. “Our experience with the platform will allow us to share expertise, streamline internal workflows, and strengthen inter-university resource sharing and collection management.”
The shared approach builds upon existing OCUL-wide collaborative initiatives such as Scholars Portal and collaborative licensing.
Maskell, who started her library career in 1976, has been witness to a wide range of library developments during her career and is optimistic about the partnership.
“There is so much potential to uncover. This collaboration will put academic libraries across Ontario in a strong position to strategically tackle the challenges we face,” she said. “We look forward to being part of this transformation and are delighted to have the opportunity to build the next generation library that our scholars and students need.”
The consortium plans to go live with the project in late December. For more information, visit the OCUL Collaborative Futures website.
—Marcie Demmans