UKJ - Towards a New Library System for Finnish Libraries
Libraries in Finland and their systems NOW
- appr. 40 higher education libraries, 300 public libraries and 70 special libraries
- 2 consortia (Linnea2 for mainly university libraries and AMKIT for libraries of the Universities of Applied Sciences), appr. 50 public library co-operational networks, councils for the different library sectors (university libraries, special libraries and public libraries)
- appr. 10 different integrated library systems
Towards a New Library System
The aim of the process is to assess the feasibility of a library system entirety for all types of libraries in Finland. In the libraries in different library sectors in the daily
routines, there are different traditions, domains of expertise, and social language. This will be the first case in Finland when representatives from different library sectors
together formulate the hard core aims of the library system.
Preliminary Planning Phase 2012
During the preliminary planning phase 2012 there was appr. 70 people involved in 8 working groups and a joint committee. All the groups are using a common wiki-site and email lists for documentation and informing, having a lots of web meetings as well as face-to-face meetings, workshops and webinars.
Planning Phase 2013
For the planning phase there was hired a team of a project manager and 5 information specialists. During the planning phase 2013 the team is preparing a requirements analysis and developing the formal requirements specifications along with top level architecture. As part of the process, the team has been looking for suitable open source solutions. All specifications and plans are documented on a common open wiki-site where anyone has rights to comment the documents. In order to meet the user needs the functional requirements are written as user stories.
Libraries are participating the planning phase by joining 4 working groups where there are appr. 60 specialists involved. The working groups are commenting the specifications actively and validating the plans.