Speakers notes for the presentation given June 26, 2011 at the American Librarian Association's Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA. Presentation Description: To tame the complex and ever-changing electronic resource management landscape, electronic resource management systems need to be flexible, evolving and affordable. Two such systems are ERMes and CORAL, developed by libraries for libraries and made freely available. ERMes runs in Microsoft Access and is suitable for small and medium libraries. Released in summer 2010, CORAL, is a modular, web-based system. Presenters will discuss the development, use and future plans for each system.

1. Open Source ERMS Presentation - Draft Outline
Sunday, June 26 10:30 – Noon
Panelists
Galadriel Chilton, E-Resources Librarian, University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse
William Doering, Systems, Catalog & Digital Initiatives Librarian, University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse
Benjamin J. Heet, Senior Technical Consultant/Analyst, University of Notre Dame
Robin Malott, Electronic Resources Technical Consultant, University of Notre Dame
Bob Nardini, Program Chair:
Intro
This program provides introductory information on two
freely available e-resource management systems (ERMS):
ERMes developed at the University of Wisconsin – La
Crosse and CORAL developed at the University of Notre
Dame. Two speakers from each institution will describe
why they chose to develop their own systems as well as
the benefits and challenges of using and supporting an
open source ERMS. Additionally, speakers will briefly
demonstrate ERMes and CORAL.
1. An Overview of Open Source Electronic Resource
Management Systems
Bill:
a. Implementation: Why are they difficult to implement?
Open source products don’t have the benefit of a large
business to develop, sustain and support the product.
On the other hand, open source systems such as
ERMes or CORAL allow users to quickly change the
code to meet your workflow and local needs. Few
other ERM systems allow this level of customization. If
you need the system to do something, you can make it
happen.
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2. b. One size doesn’t fit all: The difficulties of making a
solution that works for everybody
Bill:
Every library has different work flows, different
purchasing models, and different needs based on
how they operate.
For example, some ERMes users just use it to
keep track of vendor phone numbers and contact
information, others use it for the reports, while
others import use statistics. Some users/potential
users have asked for the ability to manage e-
journal packages while others want to manage e-
resources for multiple organizations. We are
working toward supporting e-journals, but this has
been done at UW-La Crosse by two different units
and ERMes hasn’t been the right way for us to
manage e-journals. So, developing functionality
we don’t actually use can be difficult. Early on,
Norma Dowell from Iowa State University
developed the ability to import COUNTER use
statistics into ERMes. This functionality has been
used by other institutions. This true open source
development worked well for this functionality.
When questions arise, we put the user in direct
contact with Norma. Version control could be a
problem, but hasn’t been thus far.
The benefit with ERMes, is that with nominal
familiarity with MS Access, one can customize
ERMes to fit your own local needs. Additionally,
ERMes functions even if you do not input data into
all fields.
Benjamin:
CORAL has a similar tale of libraries using it in
various ways. Built in a modular fashion, CORAL
can be installed one piece at a time. Much of the
initial interest in CORAL for example has been from
sites which are interested in using it for managing
license agreements only. For these sites they are
able to install the Licensing module without the
need to install any of the other CORAL
components. The same situation has happened
with sites interested in e-journal statistics
management only. The Usage Statistics module
can also be installed as a standalone tool, or it can
be integrated with the other modules.
CORAL also remains highly customizable. Virtually
all field values can be customized through the use
of an Administration page which each module
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3. contains. This frees libraries from being forced to
use vocabulary used and globally determined by
others.
CORAL is also built in such a way where various
pieces of information are edited through the use of
pop-up edit windows. These edit menus display all
of the fields available to the user while allowing the
general display of any particular page to show only
the fields with data. Empty fields are thus hidden
allowing for a much cleaner display. The number of
fields and data points that we track for any
electronic resource can be overwhelming and this
functionality allows us to track and see only the
most relevant pieces of information.
Purchased ERMs see the same problem. One
ends up with a lot of functionality and data fields
that you never use which clutters the screen and
makes implementation difficult.
As the client base grows for an Open Source
product, theoretically, there should be more
support from this larger, invested community.
2. Building it Yourself
a. Local development: Reasons to build your own
and why we made the decision
Galadriel:
We looked at various ERMs over a period of a couple
of years. All of them required a significant cost and
time investment. After an initial purchase, there were
significant annual maintenance fees which cost a lot of
money and didn’t meet our needs. Additionally, we
began hearing from many institutions (via listservs and
conference programs) that commercial ERMs were not
meeting expectations.
Ultimately, building ERMes saved us time, and money,
allowed us to build an ERM that matched our current
workflow, but is easily adjustable to the ever-changing
evolving world of managing e-resources.
For ERMes, we choose MS Access because we use
Access on a daily basis for all sorts of other projects
and I knew enough about MS Access to know that we
could build a basic system to meet our immediate
needs.
Benjamin:
At Notre Dame we tried for several years to implement
a commercial ERM but like many others found it a
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4. difficult fit. Implementing a robust ‘all or nothing’
system was very difficult. The available systems
seemed designed for some theoretical lifecycle of an
electronic resource that just didn’t translate well to day
to day use. Instead our wish was to have a system
which was designed towards what processes and
activities staff needed to perform on a daily basis.
What are the series of steps that staff perform, and
what information do they need at their disposal along
the way? It seems like the same question, what is the
lifecycle, but it really isn’t. We focused on the staff
rather than on the resource.
b. Risk Assessment: Dangers/challenges of local
development
Bill:
It is sometimes hard to find the time do the
development and development is limited to time/skill
set presently available.
When you develop locally, staff expectations can be
very high. They may have unrealistic expectations of
what can be accomplished. Tempering expectations is
important.
It is still important to challenge and improve workflows,
rather than blindly building a system to support an
unanalyzed and often old workflow procedure. Staff
may not wish to analyze or change their workflows
when developing locally, although I suppose this is a
problem with commercial software as well.
Staff may leave. How do you support the system when
programming staff are often difficult to come by and in
high demand? Building the system in such a way as to
be easy for a replacement to pick up and support is
difficult. You must balance simplicity with functionality.
3. Open Source
a. Why we chose to provide open source version of
our ERMS
Galadriel:
UW-La Crosse didn’t build ERMes with the intent of
offering it to others. We built it to address our e-
resource management needs -- a single source for e-
resource information that multiple staff could access
easily. However, we were quickly asked by another
institution, if we would share. We said sure, why
not. Others may find it useful, and they have. In turn,
hearing from ERMes users about ways to improve
ERMes has helped us improve the ERM and refine our
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5. workflow.
Robin:
Notre Dame had a similar experience. Providing an
open source ERM was not our original intention but we
did quickly realize that what we were doing would be a
benefit to others as well. Our library participates in a
few other open source projects which have contributed
to the culture of sharing.
b. Building a community: Benefits of sharing the
code and building a community of adopters
Bill:
There have been 3-4 institutions who have borrowed
the Access code for development. During this time we
cease local development to make sure we have
version control. We have greatly benefited by the
contributions of other institutions as does the whole
community. The ERMes community is growing and
hopefully, more people will help with the actual
development.
Benjamin:
Our community of users is growing as well with over
one hundred members on our discussion listserv. This
has allowed for discussion about desired ERM
components and enhancements but as yet we haven’t
begun a true co-development. We hope to do so
eventually but we are still building the relationships that
will allow that to happen. We did have our first user
group meeting at ER&L which was a success and has
started to build relationships, and we hope to continue
that with future meetings as well.
An open source product cannot be successful and
supported in the long run by just a single institution.
There must be a community to shepherd that product
through the years and to ensure that it is not built to
meet the needs of only a single site.
3. Supporting the product: Sustainability of open
source software and costs/benefits of using open
source software
Galadriel:
It’s amazing and a little scary to think that at least 60
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6. institutions are actively using ERMes and that UW-La
Crosse is the point institution for development and
support. We get moderate support from our
colleagues, and no release time to actually work on
development and support. So, we really depend on
the ERMes community.
Perhaps the largest question we get comes from users
who haven’t used MS Access before. This one is hard
for us to support. We have tried to offer some links on
the ERMes web site to free Access training/tutorials.
Robin:
At Notre Dame, we have all kept our presently full jobs,
so CORAL development is sometimes difficult to
arrange and prioritize. That said we are doing our best
to support the software and have had great help from
members of our discussion listserv. One of the biggest
hurdles we have seen other sites have concerns the
authentication components. Fortunately we have some
systems staff from other libraries who do have that
experience and are sharing their expertise and help
with others on our discussion listserv.
Support obviously will be one of the biggest concerns
for any CORAL implementer. There is no support
contract that libraries have to sign and there is no hard
and fast guarantee of long term support. That may feel
like a bit of a gamble. That said, we are creating a
community of users that have been assisting each
other. And the software is built in such a way that sites
should be able to support it on their own as well. It’s
built using common components, PHP and MySQL,
which should be in the repertoire of many systems
departments.
4. ERMes
Bill:
a. ERMes’ History: how and why an MS Access ERMS
Early development
We did not have an ERM, but had a list of desired
functionality for an ERM, an immediate leave due to
Galadriel’s extended leave in Fall 2008 which lead to a
diagram of initial tables and their relationships.
The first iteration was very primitive, but was still a
huge improvement. The second release in 2009
revealed vast improvements implemented by Norma J.
Dowell from Iowa State University who transformed the
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7. interface added the ability to import COUNTER
statistics among many other enhancements.
The third and current release includes tweaks based
on user requests including multiple new fields. It also
includes several new reports and a new A-Z list option.
How ERMes became and open source ERMS
As mentioned earlier, ERMes was not an intentional
open source ERMS. However, we quickly realized that
there were many other institutions facing similar e-
resource workflow challenges and that have licenses
for MS Access. Creating the ERMs in a widely utilized
application is probably one of the main reasons so
many organizations use ERMes -- like us, they do not
have the technical expertise or access to a
programmer who can help them implement and
maintain another type of set-up.
b. The ERMes Community
Now in its third release, ERMes is used by libraries world-
wide.
60 libraries are currently using ERMes. This
represents 19 states in the US, the Disctrict of
Columbia, and 7 countries outside the US.
Map of users:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=
en&msa=0&msid=109919912470535143116.0
004898daaff90da81fc9&ll=7.710992,24.960938
&spn=168.070651,46.054687&z=2
Supporting ERMes users
There is no official support system for ERMes
users.
However, there is a website with links to
extensive documentation, a Google Group for
ERMes users, the ERMes blog, as well as free
MS Access training and online tutorials.
(http://murphylibrary.uwlax.edu/erm/)
In addition, we do respond to ERMes users
who e-mail/call with questions.
ERMes users have been very grateful for
whatever support we can provide. But more
could be provided.
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8. c. Using ERMes
Galadriel
ii. Demo
Data entry and retrieval
Reports
Customization
b. The future of ERMes
Galadriel:
 There is some key functionality which we
know we need to address including support
of e-journals, version migration, web
interface and simultaneous access. We
foresee that ERMes will see a steady
growth, primarily among small to medium
sized libraries. Perhaps when we get the
above functionality in place, we will see
larger institutions join us.
 Galadriel: Managing Serials
I am currently refining diagrams for the e-
journals management piece of ERMes – I’m
determining basic tables and reports to add
to the next ERMes release. Like the initial
release of ERMes, we view the managing
serials functionality as a work in progress –
the first release will be simple with plenty of
room to hear from users about what works
and what/how to improve. We’re
envisioning simple e-journals functionality to
start with plenty of room to evolve!
 Bill: Paul Benzschawel a Master of
Software Engineerings student began
working with us on ERMes in Spring 2011
as an independent project and plans to
continue development for his graduate
thesis project.
 His work thus far is a Java-based add-on
that provides read-only access to single-
table data in a tabular view.
 His future development includes work on a
report writer, authentication levels, more
functionality and a version to version
migration tool.
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9. Robin and Benjamin
CORAL Introduction (Robin)
- Coral website
- Overall modular design
- Availability
Resource module overview/demo (Ben)
Licensing module overview/demo (Robin)
Organizations module overview/demo (Robin)
Stats module overview/demo (Ben)
The future of CORAL (Ben)
- User group
- Additional modules
- Enhancements
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13. END – Thanks, Questions/Comments
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