On the road to completing interactive reading lists with BI Norwegian Business School

Kristin Danielsen, Senior Librarian from BI Norwegian Business School presented at the EBSLG Northern Group Meeting in October, Kristin has shared with us below what she discussed in her presentation on reading lists.

EBSLG (The European Business School Librarians’ Group) is a network of library directors, managers or senior staff from academic libraries attached to, or serving, accredited, world-ranked European business schools. The purpose of the EBSLG is to provide members with a forum for discussion around topics of interest; to promote a network of cooperation and assistance among the member libraries, and to enable the mutual exchange of information that can enhance the support services the libraries provide to their respective institutions.

The agenda for the session was to present the phases we have been going through in choosing and implementing Talis Aspire Reading Lists, and our needs for better routines and tools for copyright clearance and digitisation. The participants were encouraged to ask questions, and participate by sharing their experiences during the presentations.

You can see the slides here:   

At BI, reading lists have been a part of our course management system, Lotus Notes, a tool which has become clearly outdated over the years. A project started up in 2014 in order to choose a new system for course management. As the library had requirements for reading lists, such as harvesting metadata and linking to library discovery and electronic information resources, reading lists were defined as a subproject and planned to be integrated with the course management system.

A Norwegian HE institutions project in 2013-2014 investigated the need for a reading list system at Norwegian universities, set up specifications of requirement, and evaluated relevant systems on the market. This is how Talis Aspire was introduced to BI.

Talis Aspire Reading Lists was implemented in March 2015. After an implementation webinar and training sessions with the Talis team, we were ready to start up. A team of librarians and people from the program administration department manually transferred reading lists from our old system. We made step-by-step instructions using LibGuides and arranged drop-in workshops. By October 2015, we were ready to launch Reading Lists to students.

Our reading lists are not yet complete. Articles and book chapters are often distributed as printed compilations or on our VLE. One of our goals is to gather this material in our reading lists. We started out with the compilations of articles and moved on to create pilots for a few modules. The academics involved were enthusiastic about the result, and we hope they will be good ambassadors as we proceed.

The participants were familiar with the fact that reading lists and course material are published and distributed in many ways, and it is not easy for students to get an overview. We discussed routines and workflows at the universities. None of the participants has a reading list system. At one place, reading lists were published in the VLE only, and this worked fine both for the academics, the library, and the students.

One of the major issues has been the integration with a new course management system. A company we worked with for more than a year was constantly behind schedule according to delivery plans, and we were set months back having to change to another partner. We also needed an integration for draft lists, as they have to be in the workflow before they are published, and the API was developed for published lists only. This has temporarily been solved by adding links for draft lists manually, and the integration is scheduled to be done by November 2016.

Our next step is looking into licensing and digitisation. It is mandatory to report all use of book chapter to the Norwegian copyright legislation office (Kopinor). In addition, the use of book chapters exceeding 15% of the total pages needs licensing. We have to establish efficient routines and workflows for reporting, licensing and digitisation. In order to distribute digital book chapters, we will need a repository for licensed material. Of course, Talis Aspire Digitised Content answers these requirements, but there are also issues. TADC is not yet set up for Norwegian copyright legislation rules and Kopinor’s pre-licensed agreements.

In Norway, a national consortium is established in order to acquire a reading list system. BI is not a part of the consortium, but we monitor their progress closely. Their decision on reading list system will influence us, especially when it comes to implementing copyright clearance and digitisation.

The participants had a discussion on copyright legislation rules in the different countries, and copyright agreements from different publishers.

To round up we discussed how we ideally wanted it:

• Complete reading lists included digitised book chapter and no printed handouts or course material distributed on other platforms.
• Smooth integration with library discovery and course management system.
• Seamless workflow from list creation, licensing, digitisation, approvals, review, and publishing.
• Optimised use of licensed electronic resources because the reading lists work as a marketing channel.
• Increased student experience when all curriculum is in one place, with library availability, bookshop integration, and links to online resources.

The participants were very active during the presentation. We had interesting discussions, and they expressed that the topic was of interest to them and their universities.

We thank Kristin for sharing their experience of reading lists at the EBSLG Northern Group Meeting.