Implementation of Coral in the Irish Parliamentary library

Coral Online Summit: June 9th 2021

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Patricia Dowling

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Overview

• 1. Who we are

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• 2. Resources we provide

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• 3. Our Systems

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• 4. Our implementation of Coral

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• 5. Next steps

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The Oireachtas Library

12 staff – 7 librarians (one librarian vacancy) and 4 administrative staff.

2 teams:

Systems & Content Services AND Information Services

Coral is managed by the Acquisitions Librarian supported by 1 clerical officer under Systems & Content Services team but is used by both teams

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Key Information Resources we provide

• We provide access to a wide range of premium resources from over 40 suppliers:
• Electronic Databases (20+)
• We purchase a range of databases such as Westlaw, OECD iLibrary, Ebsco databases (Econlit, SocIndex)
• Print & Digital Collections
• Books (some ebooks), core areas of law, politics, history, social sciences, economics – c. 100,000 bib records
• Government Departments and Agencies formally deposit or ‘lay’ documents before parliament using our digital repository - c 120,000 bib records

Media resources– Print and online news, media monitoring services (Factiva)

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Integra (Office Finance System)

Our Library Systems

Coral Implementation

• We migrated data from Excel. Excel spreadsheets systems were unwieldy and difficult to track/share with accuracy, which was a key factor in our decision to adopt Coral. Excel can work as a relational database but Coral provides a simple and purposeful relational database for eResource Management
• Coral went live in June 2020, following a 3 month data migration process (3-person team)
• We met with another Coral user (Institute of Technology Tralee, academic library)
• Training was provided by our library systems supplier PTFS Europe

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Coral today

• All 4 modules are available to the Library team although we are only actively using Resources and Organizations modules
• Organizations and Resources : We are managing more than 80 organizations/ suppliers and almost 100 resources in Coral.
• Our organizations include professional bodies (so that we can handle memberships) and some suppliers of print materials (e.g. print book suppliers and newspaper suppliers)

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Future Plans

• Better integration with our suppliers such as EBSCO so that we can import resources from their Knowledge Bases
• Focus on the Usage Statistics Module
• Explore the Licensing module – e.g. how can we track changes in licence terms over time?
• How can Coral interact if at all with Integra, our organization-wide financial management system?

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Questions?

• Patricia Dowling, Senior Parliamentary Librarian(Content Services & Systems, patricia.dowling@oireachtas.ie

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• Laura ÓBroin, Acquisitions Librarian, laura.obroin@oireachtas.ie

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