In this guest post, Stuart Hunt explains the migration of the M25 Consortium libraries from Search25 to Library Hub and the benefits this has brought to members.
Discovering collections and items in the collections of M25 member libraries has always been an important part of M25 membership. For many years the Search25 service provided this service but as libraries and technology moved on it became clear that the discovery of M25 collections could be improved. From it’s creation Search25 had provided a unified search across the catalogues of most M25 member libraries. Since that time many libraries have become participants in the Jisc Library Hub services.
Search25 formally retired on 31st July 2021 and all M25 members not already Library Hub participants were encouraged to contribute their bibliographic metadata to Library Hub. Library Hub offers many advantages to M25 members.
As a national service, members can take advantage of enhanced discovery beyond the immediate M25 membership as well as the Compare, and Cataloguing services. Library Hub clearly takes members beyond what Search25 was able to offer.
To help member libraries not already participating in Library Hub, the M25 ran a seminar on migrating to the service which included speakers from libraries already participating in Library Hub and Jisc staff. A buddying scheme to connect existing M25 members of Library Hub with non-members based upon a common library management system has been established. This enables the sharing of experience of one member with another on the nuts and bolts of how to manage contribution to Library Hub.
The benefits that Library Hub delivers to M25 member libraries for resource discovery, collection analysis and comparison and for cataloguing represent a step-change for the consortium and a real bonus to member libraries.
Stuart Hunt
Director of University Library & Collections Services and University Librarian
University of Reading
Related
– Selecting the search code to the right of each library name on the Libraries list page enables you search for all the records from an individual library.
– To browse or limit your search to the holdings of any library, or group of libraries, use Advanced Search to select the Libraries filter and choose the library name(s) from the list of libraries.
