Sharing services – or shared services?

Knowledge, information and library services and the

Transformational Government agenda
Peter Griffiths

Sharing library services – focusing on the customer

 Outline

• Transformational Government
• Shared services
– Principles and landscape
• Outsourcing, joint libraries
– Examples of shared KIRM services
• Sharing services
– Principles, case studies and good practice
• Sharing, shared or - ?
– future models for KIRM
• Lessons and conclusions for the profession
 Transformational Government

• Technology
leadership for the
transformation of
government services
• Efficiency
– Efficient corporate services
release resources for the
front line
• Effectiveness
– Effective delivery of
technology for government
 Opportunities from TG

The specific opportunities lie

– in improving transactional services (eg. tax and
benefits),
– in helping front line public servants to be more
effective (eg. doctors, nurses, police and teachers),
– in supporting effective policy outcomes (eg. in joined-
up, multi-agency approaches to offender
management and domestic violence),
– in reforming the corporate services and infrastructure
which government uses behind the scenes, and
– in taking swifter advantage of the latest technologies
developed for the wider market.
– Transactional Government, 2006, paragraph 7
 Achieving the TG vision

• Achieving the vision will require three key

transformations:
– Services enabled by IT must be designed around the
citizen or business
– Government must move to a shared services culture –
in the front-office, in the back-office, in information
and in infrastructure – and release efficiencies by
standardisation, simplification and sharing.
– There must be broadening and deepening of
government’s professionalism in terms of the
planning, delivery, management, skills and
governance of IT enabled change.
» Transformational Government, 2006, paragraph 21
 What are shared services?

CIO Council definition

• What do we mean by shared services?
– Deploying shared services involves separating the
transactional operations of a business or function into
a self contained unit which is reorganised to deliver
more effective service at lower cost. Savings made
through sharing can then be passed to front line
services to improve public services.
http://www.cio.gov.uk/shared_services/faqs.asp#2
 Shared services –
new models for local government libraries

• “… a collaborative approach to service delivery in which

a number of local authority library functions are
concentrated into a discrete, semi-autonomous business
that has a management structure, staff and other
resources designed to add value to the participating
authorities and their stakeholders, be this in terms of
cost reductions or efficiency gains, and/or improved
service delivery. It will also involve either geographic or
virtual co-location, through maximising the use of ICT
investment.”
• New ways of working and new models of provision within the public
library service – a working paper. CLG/PwC, 2007
 Shared services or sharing services?

• It’s important to distinguish shared services

from sharing services
• Shared service models can include
– Integration of front- or back-office processes across
two or more authorities
– Integration of end to end delivery of individual or
multiple functions across two or more authorities
– Creation of a separate organisation that delivers
individual or multiple functions across two or more
authorities
– See on
Three models of shared service

New ways of working and new

models of provision within the
public library service – a
working paper. CLG/PwC,
2007
 So much for the theory…

•What happens in practice?

 Sharing services

• Long-standing in principle and practice

– Subscription agents (1793 or earlier)
– Joint Libraries
• A library operated for a single location by two or
more independent authorities
– Upper Norwood (1900)
– Cardiganshire Joint Library (1947)
– LC catalogue cards (1902-1997)
– Joint Use Libraries
 Upper Norwood Joint Library

• Opened in 1900
• Unique organisation
• Jointly owned and
funded by two
London boroughs
(Croydon and
Lambeth)
• Does not belong to
the library service of
either authority
 Joint use libraries

• “A joint use library is one in which two or

more distinct sets of users are served in
the same premises, the governance of
which is co-operatively arranged between
two or more separate authorities”
• State Library of New South Wales. Guidelines for
joint-use libraries, 1983
» Available at
www.sl.nsw.gov.au/pls/policies/jointuse.cfm

• Institute of Classical Studies Library – Joint Library of

the Hellenic and Roman Societies (1953)
 Sharing information services in central government

• Joint libraries – FCO

and Overseas
Development
(ODM/ODA)
• Sharing libraries –
Moorfoot, Sheffield
• Stockwell deep tube Moorfoot Library, Sheffield
shelter store
• Shared records stores
– Often historical origins
– DHSS -> DH, DSS,
DWP
Stockwell deep level tube shelter
 Outsourcing – early initiatives

• US – 1983 federal circular

– No early candidates
• UK – 1990s approach to the issues
– Market testing (in central government)
• Department of Health
• Department of the Environment
– Compulsory competitive tendering (local
authority libraries)
• Brent (In-house provider)
• Hounslow (Trust)
 Outsourcing in the UK

• Some commercial examples

– BP e.g. to Kodak in Hemel Hempstead, to Britannia
Data Management in Aberdeen and Stockley Park (c.
1995)
• outsourced structured information, retained unstructured
information storage and exploitation inhouse
– Other companies decided against outsourcing
• reasons include corporate view of information as an integral
corporate asset, sensitivity, retaining character of current
service
 Shared services– a French perspective

• L’Alcazar, Marseille
– Originally a café-
concert then a music-
hall
– Reopened in 2004 as a
library
– BMVR – Bibliothèque
Municipale à Vocation
Régionale (12+ in
France)
 Characteristics of BMVRs

• Large, central libraries in major cities

• Architecturally striking and advanced
• Use modern library technology as well as
modern library IT systems
– Automated loans and returns, automated storage and
shelving systems for archive, etc
• Provide shared services to smaller libraries in
the region
– Regional library catalogues, regional heritage
collections, etc
– Ensuring that funding for BMVRs does not penalise
smaller municipal libraries
 Washington Research Libraries Consortium

• Eight university libraries

in DC area
• Consortium established
in 1987
• “sharing library
collections and IT to
enhance resources
available to students and
faculty
– ALADIN library
system
– electronic resources
– offsite storage
 PwC study for CLG

• New ways of working and new models of provision

within the public library service – a working
paper. CLG/PwC, 2007
• Use of technology to improve
• stock procurement
• cataloguing
• delivering core services – subscriptions, direct delivery
• An example – SELMS
• South Eastern Library Management System
• 6 local authorities working with a service provider
 SELMS benefits to the customer

• Library membership of all partner authorities with one

ticket.
• Access to catalogues of all partners.
• Access to catalogue with enhanced content and new
functions for users.
• Improved communications with users through SMS, email
etc.
• Ability to directly request items across authority boundaries.
boundaries.
• Harmonisation (as far as possible) of library service policies.
• Ability to borrow and return at any library in the
consortium.
• Quoted from SELMS presentation slideshow
 Other new(ish) models

• Better Stock, Better Libraries

– PwC project for MLA, Phase 2 final report, 2006
– Libraries to act as specifiers of requirements and
outcomes, not as procurement or processing experts
– Improving customer service through shared service,
e.g. ethnic minority language stock
– Proposes regional hubs with national back-up
• National Library Board of Singapore
– National Library also responsible for public and
government libraries
 Libraries as shared services

• Analysis by AtosOrigin
– Suggests that many routine,
high volume transactional
Adds value by services are a good fit to
shared services
High technical skill Efficient processing
– Complex transactions are
Classic typical of professional
Enterprise Centres of
Shared services
Generic Expertise
Services • They may rely on shared
services to deliver outcomes
Business
Business but are themselves not
Unit “Grey Zone”
Unit Analysis ideally suited to delivery by
Specific
shared services
• Library enquiry and
research services are strong
candidates for this group
 Libraries as shared services

High volume
Repetitive activity
Easy to measure
Customer requirements
Adds value by
remain consistent
High technical skill Efficient processing Skill set is transaction-
focused
Classic
Enterprise Centres of
Shared
Generic Expertise
Services

Business
Business Activity defined by
Unit “Grey Zone”
Unit Analysis reference to external
Specific
standards
Specialist skills
Locally Locally
driven driven Customers include top
based on based on management
local needs local needs
 Libraries as shared services

High volume
Repetitive activity
Easy to measure
Customer requirements
Adds value by
remain consistent
High technical skill Efficient processing Skill set is transaction-
focused
Classic
Enterprise Centres of
Shared
Generic Expertise
Services

Business
Business Activity defined by
Unit “Grey Zone”
Unit Analysis reference to external
Specific
standards
Specialist skills
Locally Locally
driven driven Customers include top
based on based on management
local needs local needs
 Other issues

• Shared standards
– International
• Dublin Core, AACR, XML, ISBN-13 ...
– National – should integrate with TG
• IPSV – Integrated Public Sector Vocabulary
• Change management
– Supporting users of the new models
• Information Literacy
– Supporting the profession to cope with change
– Models for managing “new change”
• “Born digital” information resources
 Tentative conclusions

• Shared services are the latest

manifestation of a process that is over 100
years old …
• … but that process has become intense in
the past 20 years
• Libraries are no longer special or exempt
from change on grounds of public good
– if they ever were
• Our profession has considerable good
practice to share with other professions
 Achieving the requirements

• The ability to specify needs and

requirements, not processes
• The ability to assess the ability of partner
organisations to deliver the requirements
• The ability (and willingness) to seek
alternative models of delivery if these
create efficiencies and deliver better
service
 Achieving the requirements

• The ability to specify needs and

requirements, not processes
• The ability to assess the ability of partner
organisations to deliver the requirements
• The ability (and willingness) to seek
alternative models of delivery if these
create efficiencies and deliver better
service
• The ability not to behave like an ostrich
 Benefits for customers

• The best possible service, whoever

delivers it and wherever from
• Innovative means of delivery
– New technology, 24/7 virtual libraries
– Shared services supporting local delivery
– Web-enabled access to information services
across the world
• A choice of library service
– Eventually from any library in the world that
wishes to provide it
 Benefits for organisations

• Keeping library and information services

affordable
• Demonstrating that librarians are business
managers too…
– … and protecting against Apache raid styles
of financial management
• Sharing best practice with partners in the
library sector…
• … and sharing skills and risk with the
private sector
 We’ve been here before

• Market testing, compulsory competitive

tendering
• Outsourcing
• Writing service level agreements
• Library purchasing consortia
• Application service providers
– Remember them?
• Making the business case for [the defence of]
information and library services
• Getting best value for users and funding bodies
 Implications for librarians

• Our professional judgement matters

– We must ensure that we are heard and heeded where only our
professional skill can make the call
• We must become (even) more business like
– Talk the language of benefits, branding, supply chains, and
transformational government
• We must be politically aware (with a small “p”)
– What drives change in your organisation?
• We must prove that what we do is worthwhile
in terms that business managers understand
• We must develop new models of leadership, and
true leaders to drive those models
 A message for our profession

• LIBRARIANS MUST MEAN BUSINESS !

 Contact details and disclaimer

Peter Griffiths
pdg@dircon.co.uk

Important disclaimer

I am grateful to the Home Office for allowing me to take part in

this conference and to make this presentation. However all views
expressed are my own, and do not constitute any form of official
statement. No mention of a product or company implies any form of
endorsement by the Home Office or other government department.