Library Management System
The current Library Management System, including library search, has been in use at St Andrews for over eight years. It has now been classed as ‘end of life’ by its developers, and no longer meets accessibility standards. While it’s not necessarily how we’d have chosen to say goodbye, we at Libraries & Museums have taken this as an exciting opportunity to upgrade our digital systems.
There’s some more information below, and we’ll keep updating this page as the project moves along, but if you have any questions in the meantime, please get in touch library@st-andrews.ac.uk
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Did you know that the Library currently provides access to 2 million+ ebooks, 200+ databases and 150+ thousand ejournals? Or that we hold almost 1.5 million print books, as well as other physical stock including over 13 thousand DVDs? While we love browsing the shelves as much as anyone, it would be almost impossible to find much of our content without a Library Management System (LMS).
Not only does the LMS provide the framework that means you, our users, can search for and access items in our digital and physical collections; it’s also the tool that we use to acquire and catalogue new items, and to manage our journal subscriptions; it’s the system that allows us to lend and renew books, fill up the hold shelf, and check-in DVDs via the Returns machine. While it’s not something that our users need think very much about, none of the 3 million+ online articles, or almost 2 million ebooks viewed in the last year could be seen without it. This means that the LMS is key not only to all aspects of the Library, but to study, research and teaching too.
The current Library Management System has been in use at St Andrews for over eight years. It has now been classed as ‘end of life’ by its developers, and no longer meets accessibility standards. While it’s not necessarily how we’d have chosen to say goodbye, we at Libraries & Museums have taken this as an exciting opportunity to upgrade our digital systems.
The goal has been to find a world-leading Library Management System, with an integrated reading lists platform, which will make it easier for our users to discover and access the digital and print materials we have been collecting for over 600 years. After much hard work and investigation by our project team, we are very happy to say that we will be moving to a new LMS, going live in January 2025.
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Information about the catalogue, reading lists and web pages.
Library Management System (LMS) and library search
Our new LMS (used by Libraries & Museums staff) will go live in January 2025. Our new 'library search’ (the side of the catalogue that users search and interact with) will also come online at this time. Together, these will replace our current systems, including Encore and the Classic Catalogue, all of which are being decommissioned.
The new library search will function similarly to the existing system, albeit with some planned improvements, so there should be few surprises to users. We understand that some users will regret the loss of Classic Catalogue, but we have been working with the developers and undertaking user testing to ensure that the new system functions as intuitively and accessibly as we can make it, and that it will be an improvement on the current regular search function.
Reading lists platform
In June 2025 we’ll launch our new, integrated reading list platform. This will replace Talis, our current reading list software. We have taken the decision to roll out this change later in the year to make sure that everything goes smoothly with the implementation of the LMS, and ensure that all users (Libraries & Museums staff included) have had time to familiarise themselves with the new systems and properly prepare for the next stage.
We’ll have more information about this part of the project soon, but the new integrated system will make it easier to edit reading lists and request additional materials for teaching, as well as providing improved accessibility functionality.
In the short term, no action is required. Reading lists will continue to be available while the work is undertaken – this includes editing and creation of new lists – and all current links will be updated.
Updates to web pages and policies
Work is almost complete with colleagues in IT and Digital Communications to simplify, improve and update the websites for the Unit – Libraries, University Collections, and Museums. The LMS and reading lists platform changes are being tied into this, to ensure that website use is as simple and intuitive as possible.
Existing policies will be reviewed and updated where appropriate to reflect changes required as a result of the new systems, though no major changes are planned at this stage.
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Information about disruption, training and feedback.
Disruption
We don’t anticipate any significant disruption to students or academic staff as the changeover takes place for the LMS. The system changeover is due to take place over the Christmas period, with work planned to begin on 22 December 2024, and completed by 12 January 2025. Electronic resources will continue to be available via the current library search during this time.
As usual, we will shift to vacation hours for Libraries & Museums, details of which can be found here. Once we return from the Christmas vacation, we will have to pause any updates to our physical collection. As such, the following services will be unavailable from 24 December to 12 January:
- Borrowing, renewal and recall of all printed items from library sites and other patrons.
- Requests for items to be delivered to different sites.
- Return of items (items can be physically returned, including through the book drop at the Main Library when the building is closed, but will not be checked in on the system).
- Inter-Library Loan requests, renewals and returns.
We always encourage our users to plan-ahead for the winter break, but with the extended pause on borrowing for physical titles, we really want to highlight that if there’s anything you may want to borrow, try do so as early as you can. Loans will automatically renew once the system is up and running, and of course no fines will be levied.
Training
While the changeover to the new LMS is designed to cause minimal disruption, things will of course be a little different. Various help and training options are already being prepared to support academic staff and students. Whether you prefer to stream some videos, read a blurb, or if you’d rather speak to someone face to face, we’ll have some options to suit you.
This will be much the same with the change-over to our new reading lists platform, but we’ll have more details on this a little later.
Feedback
We welcome feedback throughout this process, and indeed we are seeking to engage with our users in a number of ways, including testing of the new system, and via the recent Libraries Open Forum. We want the new system to be as user friendly and accessible as we can make it, and the best way to do that is to speak to you, the user.
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Access to resources, and your Reading History.
Access to resources
As mentioned above, the system changeover is due to take place during the Christmas break, and we will shift to vacation hours for Libraries & Museums, details of which can be found here.
Again, electronic resources will continue to be available via the current library search during this time, and access to reading lists will not be affected.
As always, we'd encourage any users wanting to borrow physical items over the break to plan ahead, and check them out earlier in December. Please see above for information about service restrictions relating to physical items between 24 December and 12 January.
For academic colleagues, if there are additional resources you’ll require for teaching in the new year, we’d recommend getting in touch as soon as you are able, ideally by early December.
We will be extending our Scan and Deliver service for this period, to allow requests for collections held at all of sites, including the Main Library, during opening hours.
If you have any concerns about renewals or borrowing times, please speak to colleagues at the Main Library Help Desk, or email library@st-andrews.ac.uk
Your reading history
This is the record the current LMS holds of all the physical items that you've checked out from the library. Unfortunately, the new system will not be able to transfer this data over. If you would like to keep a record of this information, it can be downloaded from the Library account area of the website. There's a step by step guide available here. You can do this at any point before 21 December, as many times as you need.
Links in reading lists, module handbooks, and elsewhere
The new library search will be situated on the library homepage as it is currently.
We’re working with colleagues from Talis to ensure that all current links to library resources held in our reading lists will carry over to the same resources in the new system. As such, no action is needed.
Colleagues from IT and Digital Communications are planning updates where appropriate across the University’s digital estate, and redirects will be put in place from external sources. These redirects will lead to the new search system, not directly to a specific resource.
Any links to the current catalogue held in module handbooks will not be caught by the work that Talis are undertaking, and so will be redirected to the home page of the new search. If this is a concern, please get in touch and we can give help and advice about online reading lists.