Re: Staffing support requirements for next-gen discovery tools : was : VUFind and other discovery interfaces

From: Bess Sadler <eos8d_at_nyob>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 11:31:29 -0500
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Hi, Marc.

At the University of Virginia we're moving forward with Blacklight  
[1], which is a discovery interface for both our Sirsi/Dynix Symphony  
OPAC and our Fedora digital repository, as well as for a few other  
previously siloed collections like digitized Roman coins from our art  
museum [2]. I can't really say we've analyzed the requirements and  
then staffed accordingly; I've never seen a library with that luxury.  
We've reallocated existing staff for the most part, but we've also  
been able to justify the creation of one additional full-time  
position. Currently we have, for a very ambitious digitization  
workflow, an institutional repository implementation, and our  
Blacklight implementation:

1 project manager / systems architect
1 FTE dedicated to Blacklight
1 FTE dedicated to solrmarc [3] (this is the solr indexing engine used  
by both Blacklight and VuFind) and marc4j [4]
2 FTEs dedicated to repository implementation and digitization workflow
.5 FTE for writing documentation and open source community support
.5 FTE (outsourced) for graphic design and general front-end work

We've had to do a lot of staff re-training, but I consider this a  
healthy process and so do the staff, who for the most part are quite  
happy to get paid to pick up new and in-demand skills.

Once this system is in production I certainly don't anticipate  
requiring this level of staffing to run its core functionality.  
Instead, I expect we'll re-allocate some of these staff to expand the  
system to include more collections, expand our repository services to  
include features like self-ingest for end-users, expand the kinds of  
data we can handle to deal meaningfully with geospatial and  
statistical data in our repository, harvesting more linked data to  
augment our metadata ... we have a very long wish list. :)

If anyone is interested in learning more about Blacklight or the UVA  
implementation of it, please contact me or write to the Blacklight  
mailing list.

Cheers,
Bess

Elizabeth (Bess) Sadler
Chief Architect for the Online Library Environment
Box 400129
Alderman Library
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904

bess_at_virginia.edu
(434) 243-2305


[1] Open source project available at http://blacklightopac.org and UVA  
implementation visible at http://blacklightdev.lib.virginia.edu
[2] http://blacklightdev.lib.virginia.edu/catalog?source_facet=U.Va.+Art+Museum
[3] http://code.google.com/p/solrmarc/
[4] http://marc4j.tigris.org/


On Feb 24, 2009, at 11:44 AM, Marc Truitt wrote:

> A query to those large (say, 1,000,000 or more bibs) sites that have
> implemented (or are considering implementation of) a 'next-gen'
> discovery tool -- whether a commercial product such as Endeca or Primo
> on the one hand or an open source one such as VuFind on the other.   
> Have
> you analyzed the staffing requirements for implementation and ongoing
> maintenance of these products?  If so, can you offer details as to
> number of FTE required, and their particular skill sets?  Are you  
> adding
> staff in order to offer these new interfaces, or moving forward with  
> the
> staff you already have?
>
> thanks,
>
> - mt
>
> Chris Bourg wrote:
>> Stanford has put up a prototype instance of VuFind, which we  
>> branded as
>> Searchworks
>> Try it here <http://searchworks.stanford.edu>.
>> Learn about it here <http://www.stanford.edu/dept/sulair/web/searchworks 
>> >.
>>
>> Chris.
>>
>
>
> -- 
> *************************************************************************
> Marc Truitt
> Associate Director,
> Bibliographic and Information       Voice  : 780-492-4770
>    Technology Services             e-mail : marc.truitt_at_ualberta.ca
> University of Alberta Libraries     fax    : 780-492-9243
> Cameron Library                     cell   : 780-217-0356
> Edmonton, AB  T6G 2J8
>
> "Oh, sweet blindness, a little magic, a little kindness.
> Oh, sweet blindness, all over me."
>                                    -- L. Nyro (1968)
> *************************************************************************
>
Received on Tue Mar 03 2009 - 11:34:06 EST