Implementation and Management Approach

As a totally new concept within Ireland the development of Digital Book Service from South Dublin posed many challenges and opportunities. Content and accessibility as well as ease of use were the most important issues which drove decision making in the early days of the project. 

The Project Team:  A team of five people headed by the ICT Executive Librarian and a librarian who had worked for NCBI was formed. The team included the ‘change agent’ from the library department who formed part of an authority wide team delivery innovation and improved business processes. This team along with corporate ICT and a member of the bibliographic services personnel formed the core group for the design of the new ebook service. 

ICT management: a multi departmental strategy between corporate ICT and the project team allowed for quick solutions to problems –such as firewall issues, management of SIP protocol etc- streamlined the roll out of the eBook service.  

Management and Documentation Strategies:  Agile team management was necessary as the project evolved as new possibilities emerged and added functionality was identified. Milestone planning using open source Gantt charts allowed structure within  the project and helped visualise milestones and tasks. Weekly progress reports were provided to stakeholders and test pages from the site were made available, as the build continued, to all staff with suggestions and comments welcomed. Documentation of the project was managed using iDocs, an online document management system available from the corporate Intranet. 

Partnerships within the project: Working in partnership with NCBI, VICS, focus groups and existing library users a strategy developed  for delivering the service from scratch.

 Priorities of the project: Critical to the success of the project was the need to provide from the library website  universal accessibility. The design of a ‘virtual’ branch library then began from which digital media could be delivered. This required a re-engineering of existing process in terms of internal activity from the department’s viewpoint but also externally from customers viewpoint. Underpinning the project planning were the following criteria: 

• Seamless experience for users
• Contemporary, interesting, informative and challenging content for readers and learners
• Easy content and collection management
• Clear mappable costs and financial implications
• Future proofing of the service and flexibility as technologies evolve
• Managed licensing of digital content
• A back end reporting system which would deliver real time information on the digital site and it’s usage
• In house digital publishing capabilities
• Long term library to library content sharing of local material

Overdrive, an American digital book provider were identified as the supplier of digital content. Webinars were used to share ideas and discuss elements of the build.

Human resource management:  Webinars were also used to train staff across South Dublin Libraries on how the new service would operate. A ‘digital’ champion within each service point further developed the new skills required as the service was rolled out.

A pilot project was designed and tested with user groups across South Dublin.

 Costs for the pilot study was provided from National Disability Strategy funding to SDCC.Resources and spending were managed by the ICT Executive Librarian in association with the financial and resources senior executive librarian.Costs of the ongoing service are now managed by South Dublin Libraries.

Project Evaluation:  The pilot project was evaluated after a seven month period period and based on extremely positive feedback form users the service was launched in January 2008.

 

Technology solution

Digital publishing for mainstream consumption is still in it's infancy. Publishers in Europe are still looking for ways to distribute books digitally without compromising the rights of the creator or their own income streams. As a public library department we needed to offer a product that had built-in digital rights management and which could be offered through our own website. The customer experience needed to be seamless and easily managed. With all these factors in mind we chose, after a year of research, Overdrive, a digital book service which provided some of the solutions we required. Interoperability with the Library Management System was also required, using SIP technology to allow authentication and statistical analysis.