WHELF Shared LMS
The WHELF Shared LMS project is entering the final stage of the tender process, with the top 3 ranking suppliers from the ITT stage to be evaluated through reference site visits and supplier presentations over the course of the summer. The supplier ranking in first place on completion of this stage of the tender process will be recommended to the WHELF Shared LMS Working Group to be awarded the contract.
The WHELF Shared LMS project was established to procure, as part of a consortium of institutions including all higher education institutions in Wales, the National Library of Wales and the NHS libraries in Wales, a cloud hosted next generation library management system.
The participating consortium institutions are:
- Aberystwyth University
- Bangor University
- Cardiff University (and NHS Libraries in Wales)
- Cardiff Metropolitan University
- Glyndwr University
- National Library of Wales
- Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama
- Swansea University
- University of South Wales
- University of Wales Trinity St David
It is anticipated that the WHELF Shared LMS will bring benefits to participating institutions. These benefits are financial and non-financial.
Financial
- The project is expected to deliver cost savings, through:
- Sharing the cost of the EU procurement (e.g. programme manager post is funded by a grant from Welsh Government and contributions from all consortium partners)
- Suppliers have indicated that there will be a discount for buying a system as part of a consortium
- Reduced hardware costs through operating a cloud hosted system
- Long-term potential to share collection development and services
Non-Financial
- The project is expected to deliver improved user experience, through:
- Potential to search across collections of participating institutions in Wales from a single point of entry
- Fewer system outages from using a more resilient cloud-hosted system
- Improved workflows leading to service improvements
- Enabling opportunities for further collaboration through use of the shared system, which could include
- reciprocal arrangements for borrowing and licence management
- shared management information and real-time analytics leading to improved service delivery
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