LMS update

This is a short post to keep you informed about what is happening across various areas of the project.

Contract: Today we reached final agreement with SirsiDynix about the legal contract that will underpin the consortium. While this has taken some time, this has been more to do with time zone differences and the number of parties involved than in any gulf between us as we started on the project.

While we have not had a contract in place up until now SirsiDynix have been prepared to commit resources to the project to ensure that we can proceed as quickly as possible. They have appointed Mary Batley as their project manager for our project. Mary is based here in Adelaide, so that will make things easier.

System rules and configuration: As you're aware the Transitional User Group has been hard at work & their 4th paper is now out for comment. This paper covers borrowing suspensions, customer payment of fees, ILLs for non-participating libraries, management of the bibliographic database and default item prices. If you are interested in these areas your manager has a copy of the paper. Comments are due in by 13 January.

While the User Group has been hard at work nominated project lead people from the first 9 libraries have been working assiduously to set up their collection codes and borrower types with all of the attendant rules etc that go with this. I would particularly like to thank Kathy Haese from Onkaparinga who agreed to come & work at PLS for a few days a week to ensure that we keep this part of the project on track. Kathy's skills and time have ensured that much of the preliminary database configuration is almost complete.

Resources for the project: As you will know we advertised for the "Technical Lead" position & applications are due in by COB Friday. We hope to have this position filled and someone in place by the end of January - ready to join the 1st lot of training in early February.

We have also advertised for some project management support. We will be using some external, experienced private sector project managers to run the implementation. We have done this because the demand for such skills will fluctuate over the next few years. Sometimes we may need two project managers, sometimes one and perhaps there will be quiet periods where no project resources will be required. So using external resources allows us to flexibly alter our resource profile to match project requirements.

I will provide you with a further update in mid-January as we will be working on a range of issues between now and then.

I'm taking a couple of weeks holiday until 9 January, but know that a couple of LMS deadlines will need actioning during this time so will pop into the office as needs be during the holidays.  I trust that all who have some leave will have a great time & be ready to fire up for 2012 when you return to work.