Organizational information and knowledge management activities must be overseen and conducted by highly trained professionals who are supported with cutting edge technology and applications.

The backbone of an information intensive organization is an integrated library system (ILS) that optimizes the management of acquisitions, cataloging, delivery and circulation of critical content across the enterprise.

In addition, there are many other important information management applications (ideally built and maintained by library staff) including:

If you are planning to buy an ILS or KM system, or want to migrate/upgrade, you need to think about your organization's needs both strategically and tactically in order to select the right platform. Here are 20 questions to ask yourself that will help.

Who is ETS?

ETS is a nonprofit organization that advances worldwide quality and equity in education by creating assessments based on rigorous research. They develop, administer and score more than 50 million tests annually in more than 180 countries, at more than 9,000 locations worldwide.

The Accessibility Challenge

ETS’ relationship with SydneyPlus began in 1987 when the demand to catalog their various collections became pressing. ETS’ professional staff produces and collects a significant volume of important content, and offering global access to these materials is imperative. Providing access to their books, general library collection, archives (e.g. institutional history; conferences; papers; proceedings; writings of founding officers and key researchers, product histories) and their test instrument collection was the driving force for selecting an ILS. SydneyPlus was the solution.

At this year’s SLA conference, Lucidea is sponsoring a Hot Topics session, the second in our discussion series on the sustainable library. This time, at “Building the Resilient Library: Leverage Change and Become Indispensable,” you’ll hear from peers and industry experts who know that “adapting” requires reacting positively to change - even creating change - and ultimately ensuring that it works to the library’s advantage. Equally important, librarians themselves can thrive, both personally and professionally, when they become change agents …think “resilience,” not resistance.

I can’t lose if I begin this post with a quote from Aristotle: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” I actually do think of this when I consider the impact of integration. With regard to knowledge management applications, KM solutions should not dictate the way people work and how they do things, but rather should dock neatly with existing systems and processes in order to optimize organizational knowledge delivery and exchange.

People who need people may indeed be the luckiest people in the world, but if you depend on others in order to do your job successfully, you’re going to need a strategy that embraces both daily partnership and situational independence.

Cargill provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world. The company maintains a presence in 67 countries and has over 143,000 employees committed to feeding the world in a responsible way, to reducing environmental impact and to improving the communities where they live and work.

With such a large globally distributed workforce, Cargill’s information management requirements are significant. Cargill is one of many organizations needing to leverage technology in order to offer efficient, easy and global access to data and information, and to ensure productive collaboration with non-library departments, maximizing their return on investment. To achieve this, they selected Lucidea’s Sydney – the leading ILS.

They leverage Lucidea’s Sydney system to:

Originally posted on SydneyPLUS blog 12/16/2014

What actually motivates users of a knowledge management system? It’s the feeling we get at the moment of discovery. Yes, we need the information we are seeking, but it’s the buzz we get when we find it that keeps us searching. And if we get the hit we’re looking for, we’ll come back – guaranteed.

Originally posted on SydneyPLUS blog 11/14/2014 - 12/03/2014

Following on from my blog post about the many benefits of special library marketing, I want to offer some ways to start thinking about marketing, and also to encourage you to consider developing a formal marketing plan for your library.

Before you start on any marketing activities it is important to have targets that you wish to reach through your marketing plan. In addition, you must know to whom you are marketing. After all, there is no point in directing your marketing initiative at your litigation department, if they are your main or only users. The idea is to attract and convert users who don’t currently see your library’s benefits.

Originally posted on SydneyPLUS blog 9/26/2014

In this second of two posts summarizing takeaways from this year’s ILTA SharePoint Symposium, I’ll focus on trends in cloud computing for SP users. “No doubt, cloud.” Microsoft’s cloud-first message for SharePoint and Office is clear. Although, “all in” is not a requirement – while new features will be delivered on Microsoft cloud platforms first, they are likely to be available via on-premise platforms second. *There was a loose Microsoft commitment to on -premise support, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Originally posted on the SydneyPLUS blog 9/19/2014

At 2014’s ILTA SharePoint Symposium, solution providers and attendees were very focused on mobile and cloud computing. There are some interesting takeaways that I’d like to share. In this first of two blog posts, I’ll focus on trends in mobile and BYOD.

Originally posted on SydneyPLUS blog 8/21/2014

Visitors to your library’s website have often formed an impression of it before they even see it, thanks to search engine “snippets.” You can exert some control over what these snippets contain...

Originally posted 8/27/2014 on Imagic's blog
Faceted searching is becoming a standard for special libraries that want to help end users find relevant content quickly and easily. Not all library automation systems today offer faceted searching. If they do, it’s definitely a competitive advantage.  

Originally posted on Inmagic blog 7/30/2014

The majority of firms that approach us are struggling with low intranet /portal user adoption. There are many factors that contribute to this problem, but “empty portal syndrome” can be overcome if administrators stay focused on some key success factors.

Originally posted on Inmagic blog 5/30/2014

The simple truth is, there are serious challenges to the long term sustainability of special libraries, many of which may threaten your future if you don’t act. These challenges include the need to:

• Stay relevant by leveraging and managing social tools
• Reach an increasingly mobile user base
• Integrate your library’s knowledge with an increasingly complex IT environment
• Do more in an environment of ever-shrinking budgets
• Avoid being made redundant by content providers who reach out to end users directly

Originally posted 3/12/2013 on the SydneyPLUS and Inmagic blogs

“If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.” Lew Platt, CEO, Hewlett-Packard

A KM strategy may not actually achieve 3X productivity, but impact - whether it is measured in profits or even in lives saved - can be dramatic, with amazing results as shown by the examples below:

• A mountain rescue organization proactively communicates warnings of adverse conditions to equipment retailers, guides, the media and individual subscribers. Four novice climbers decide to stay home rather than risk death.
• A professional services firm repurposes prior work and increases their billings by 1% -- resulting in 10% increase in profitability.
• A software company reuses existing intellectual property to enter a new market segment. The lowered development costs result in a triple digit ROI.