PLUS all about Knowledge Base+
newsletter April 2014
About the PLUS newsletter
About the Knowledge Base+
The newsletter will keep you updated with news related to Knowledge Base+ (KB+), details of events we are running and aspects of Knowledge Base+ functionality.
Knowledge Base+ is a Jisc service within the digital content and discovery division.
Please let us know what type of information you would like to see included by mailing us at: kbplus@jisc-collections.ac.uk
News
KB+ Datamanager automatically updates your KB+ account with Jisc subscriptions to avoid duplication. Please contact us if you wish to opt out of this service or would like further information about how it works. We will soon be welcoming BIBSAM (Swedish consortium of university and research libraries) and Gemeinsamer Bibliotheks Verbund (GBV), a German library consortium, to KB+. We hope the continued growth of the KB+ community will provide further opportunities for collaboration and expansion of our knowledgebase. In KB+ there will now only be one title list for all multi-year NESLI2 deals, allowing you to create a subscription and link to one package for the duration of the deal. Over the course of the deal we will continue to update the title list, add information to the coverage notes and amend the holdings to indicate new titles and those that are no longer in the package. This will be more efficient and save time for both you and your data managers by keeping you up to date with all the changes that have occurred in one go.
Knowledge Base+ aims to help UK libraries manage their e-resources more efficiently by providing accurate publication, subscription, licence and management information.
Events Find out more about the Journal Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP), another Jisc service within the digital content and discovery division.
We will be presenting at the ‘Making the Most of JUSP’ workshop on 4 June 2014 at the University of Bath. We are also planning further joint workshops with JUSP (details to follow shortly). We are committed to working closely with JUSP and to providing further integration and ensuring greater efficiency.
Training We recently held two successful training days in Scotland with attendees from 9 Scottish institutions. The sessions included practical exercises demonstrating how use KB+ to perform core tasks such as editing profiles, adding licences and subscriptions. We are seeking collaboration in organising KB+ training. Please contact us if you are willing to provide a venue with PCs.
Massive input from focus groups In early March, the KB+ team of data managers and developers ran focus groups in Edinburgh, London and Manchester, in order to gain input from you on how the key KB+ screens with which you interact might be enhanced to better meet your needs. This exercise required hard work and frank criticism as well as smart thinking. Many thanks to all those who attended; all three events were fully booked, with a total of 45 people participating. Needless to say, we were very appreciative of the efforts made by so many of our library colleagues. What were we trying to achieve? There are around 24 screens (or ‘forms’) that are regularly used in KB+ activities by e-resource librarians. Our key objective was
PLUS newsletter April 2014 to get feedback on those screens so they become more useful and easier to use. Each workshop focused on a selection of 12 to 15 screens divided thematically across four review sessions. The participants worked individually and then in groups to share and document ideas, considering:
‘Screens’ focus groups March 2014:
24
1,000
screens
comments from participants
(or forms)
»» Additional data you would like see on the screen
»» Data
that is on the screen that you don’t need
that are regularly used in KB+ activities by e-resource librarians
45
people participating
»» Additional
functions you’d like to be available from this screen
»» Functions on the screen that you don’t need The main takeaway was that you want KB+ and JUSP to complete the triangle of accurate title lists, reliable usage data and financial reconciliation in KB+ – not only recording what has happened but also supporting best value decision making. You also suggested:
»» Exploring
the potential for taking the integration with JUSP further
»» Completing the picture by the addition
of financial data in KB+ with cost information, which most libraries still manage using spreadsheets.
What next? There will be community voting as soon as the suggestions are collated on the details of forms improvement. Rest assured we are going to examine how we can implement these changes and we’ll keep you up to date on our progress in the next newsletter.
User guides We have recently added some quick reference guides which provide step by step help on how to use KB+ to add licences, subscriptions etc. If you would like to use these as templates to create personalised guides to train your colleagues, please email us kbplus@ jisc-collections.ac.uk at for an editable version. The guides are available at http:// knowledgebaseplus.wordpress.com/ user-guides
Find out what Knowledge Base+ can do for your library today Contact us: Support: kbplus@jisc-collections.ac.uk Twitter: @JISCKBPlus Blog URL: http://knowledgebaseplus.wordpress.com Screencasts URL: youtube.com/user/JISCmedia For more information about the Journal Usage Statistics Portal: http://jusp.mimas.ac.uk For more information about Jisc digital content and discovery services: jisc.ac.uk/content Our next newsletter will be sent out in July 2014. If you have any comments on this newsletter or would like to contribute to the next one please contact us.
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