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"WorldShare Management Services give each LIBROS library greater autonomy to control the policies, workflows and functions that work best for them."

Lea Briggs
Former Project Management Librarian, LIBROS and the University of New Mexico

When your consortium includes 17 libraries, ranging from large universities to small museums, how do you find one management system scalable enough for everyone? Especially when you've been using your existing ILS, in some form or another, for about 25 years?

For the LIBROS consortium, the answer was WorldShare® Management Services. Lea Briggs, the former Project Management Librarian for LIBROS and the University of New Mexico (UNM) explained, "We were looking for a next-generation product." LIBROS needed a system that was simple enough for a small library with minimal staff and robust enough for the diverse and complex needs of a major research university.

"With our previous ILS," Lea said, "we had central control over the configuration. If you wanted to add users, if you wanted to make changes to policies, it all had to come through the consortium's centralized support team." WorldShare Management Services (WMS) allows the libraries to customize functions to meet individual needs while still providing each library with access to the same LIBROS system. "Some groups have chosen WMS so they can be very much the same, but we chose WMS so we could be very different from each other and have more local control in each library."

"The continuous improvement [of WMS] is a phenomenal benefit. We are very happy to be helping guide the process and work with OCLC to make those improvements."

What's the biggest benefit LIBROS has seen so far? "No server to maintain!" Lea said. "Before the year of the migration, we devoted 6.1 FTEs at UNM to support the LIBROS consortium. ...Our expectation is that next year, when we are completely post-migration, that support will be closer to 2.0 FTEs." Most of that support will focus on best practices and training for LIBROS member libraries.

Since the consortium is no longer supporting its own servers and full technical staff, "the savings for members has been tremendous," Lea said. "Each library got a lot more autonomy, and that was a great benefit, one thing they really wanted." The time and money savings WMS brought to LIBROS has opened more opportunities for the consortium. "We really are looking at what this new era means for our consortium," she added. "I expect us to grow and change looking forward."

Map showing locations of libraries in the LIBROS consortium

Consortium at a glance

  • Includes 17 libraries in New Mexico
  • Collection includes more than 4.7 million records
  • The libraries in the University of New Mexico system hold more resources than the other LIBROS libraries combined
  • Selected WMS in January 2014, and all libraries completed implementation in January 2015

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