Frances Griffiths, Deputy Health Library Manager, University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust
The Scenario
The University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust holds a service level agreement (SLA) with Keele University – we manage two hospital libraries: (1) The Health Library at Royal Stoke University Hospital, which operates as a joint NHS–university service with mixed staff, and (2) The Health Library at County Hospital (Stafford), which is an NHS library. Both libraries are open to NHS staff and Keele University’s staff and students.
As part of the partnership, the health libraries use the University’s ExLibris Alma library management system and customer-facing Primo library discovery service, branded as Library Search. These systems are maintained by the University’s Library Systems Manager; therefore, the health libraries are not part of an NHS regional library management system or Hub integration.
The health libraries also have SLAs with the local mental health Trust and integrated care board – we therefore have three NHS Knowledge and Library Hub instances (the Hub), one per NHS organisation. The Hub included national NHS e-resources and some locally purchased resources; however, it did not display our physical book stock or some additional local NHS e-books, which were only accessible via the Library Search catalogue. Thus, NHS customers who only searched the Hub couldn’t see the full range of resources available to them – they had to know they needed to search elsewhere as well.
To improve the discoverability of our resources in one place, we decided to integrate our catalogue into the Hub so that the print books and additional NHS e-books were included. As far as we were aware, our integration would be the first Alma library management system integration with the Hub.
Collaboration
From the beginning, it was clear that the project couldn’t be undertaken solely by the NHS Health Library staff – input from our Keele University colleagues was essential. In April 2024, we formed a project team comprising the NHS Lead Librarian, NHS Deputy Health Library Manager and the University Library Systems Manager.
Collaboration was needed for:
- Setting the project aims:
- Establishing our desired outcomes and which resources from our catalogue to include in the integration
- Identifying that we needed a library catalogue filter in the Hub, and our preferred link labels in the Hub for links back to our catalogue
- The technical side:
- The University Library Systems Manager had detailed technical knowledge about the library catalogue’s structure and metadata. His input was essential for completing the technical paperwork required by EBSCO to match our data to the specifications of the Hub, and for setting up the data export from Alma
- Identification of e-book collections:
- As the project progressed, we realised the catalogue export scripts for the e-books would rely on exact collection names. This necessitated consultation with the university’s library Data and Digital Resources Manager, responsible for e-collections, to accurately identify the names of the e-book collections containing NHS-accessible titles
- Testing:
- The Library Systems Manager verified that the data exports from Alma into EBSCO were functioning correctly, while the Deputy Health Library Manager checked how the imported content displayed in the Hub
- Testing the e-book access links was particularly challenging as we experienced inconsistent behaviour, due to how the Hub interpreted the Alma data. It took us some time to identify what was going on and the best solution
Key questions that had to be asked during the collaboration:
- What do we want NHS users to see in the Hub and with what functionality?
- Is what we want to do possible with the way the Alma catalogue data is organised? Is it possible to only include the Health Libraries’ subset of print books and NHS e-books, rather than the entire university catalogue?
- Are there any limitations to what can be done?
- How much work and time will it involve for the Library Systems Manager to arrange the data export?
- Would it be one-off work, or an ongoing commitment?
- Is there any additional information the Health Library staff needed to provide to the Library Systems Manager about the Hub or our preferences?
- How often will data be exported out of Alma and imported into the Hub – what are our options?
- How soon will any new content added to Alma be displayed in the Hub?
- How can we ensure reliable, consistent access link performance for the Library Search only e-books?
Collaboration outcome
The integration of the library catalogue with the Hub went live for our library members on 1st November 2024. The physical book stock held at both health libraries now appears in the Hub, along with information on its availability. The NHS e-books are also visible, with links directing users to Library Search to choose the correct access option where appropriate.
The future
The collaboration is and will continue to be ongoing in the following ways:
- The Library Systems Manager receives a weekly report from Alma detailing the number of new records identified for export into the Hub, and the number of records identified for removal due to stock weeding or changing collections; any particularly high spike in these will trigger a consultation about if it’s an error or expected
- The Deputy Health Library Manager will inform the Library Systems Manager of expected major collection changes e.g. ending an e-book package or procurement of new packages, which will cause spikes in the Alma export reports, and also require amendments to the Alma data export scripts
- We keep in touch with the Library Data and Digital Resources Manager so we can alert each other to any changes to e-book collections or collection names, which require amendments to the Alma export scripts
As our collections evolve overtime, we will, no doubt, have to review the catalogue export scripts numerous times. Any new features that become available in the Hub will also need to be considered for impact on our integration – such as, in the summer of 2025, we took advantage of the ability in the new Hub interface to stipulate a preferred display order for physical holdings at the different libraries.
Overall, the integration has been a positive experience and has improved the discoverability of our resources for our users.
Health Libraries Group 