My first two blog posts of this three-part series focused on license organization, digitization, file-naming schemas, and controlled vocabularies. In this final blog post, I will discuss the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the transition from one library services platform to another with regards to electronic resources.
FOLIO Implementation
I am part of the FOLIO Electronic Resource Management (ERM) Implementation team whose purpose is to guide the transition of electronic resources into FOLIO for DUL and the Professional School libraries. Our team is responsible for customizing the ERM apps within FOLIO, such as Licenses and Organizations, that Duke will be implementing in summer 2020. We are currently working on creating the underlying metadata schemas and controlled vocabularies that essentially build the “frame” for implementing the FOLIO ERM. One of the most helpful tools I’ve found for this part of my internship is the Data Dictionary from the Digital Library Federation’s Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI) Report. This document is a great reference for metadata librarians and other technical services professionals whose work requires the use of controlled vocabularies and metadata schemas.
To help put this in perspective for those who don’t work in technical services, we are essentially choosing the customizable fields and terms that are going to display within the FOLIO interface (also known as FOLIO’s frontend). Because FOLIO is highly customizable and not strictly an out-of-the-box product, we are able to select many of the specific data fields and terms that uniquely apply to our needs. Let’s look at the current state of one of FOLIO’s ERM apps, Licenses. When a DUL ERM user logs into FOLIO to add a new license into the platform, we use the FOLIO Licenses app. Here’s an example of this app’s current interface in FOLIO (see below).
The Licenses app interface
A portion of the Terms information fields
The ERM team is currently working on defining the fields we want displayed in this interface, the terms we will use to populate these fields, and any additional information we think will be pertinent in the uploading of our electronic licenses into FOLIO.
Wrap Up
While some of you may have seen me in Smith Warehouse in our pre-quarantine days running between our licensing documentation filing cabinets and the printer like a mad woman, there is much more to my internship than scanning and filing. I am fortunate to work with a truly great group of library and information science professionals at DUL who have kindly allowed me to dip my toes into the world of technical services and electronic resources management. Having come from a museum collections background before beginning library school, I am thankful I can directly apply my knowledge in information management and retrieval to DUL’s FOLIO transition.