Notice: Due to ongoing construction, 4 East is currently closed to the public.  To obtain items located on 4 East, please place an online request for the item to be paged for you using the ‘Place Request’ button in the catalog. Please visit our Circulation FAQ page for assistance in using our catalog.
Notice: Due to ongoing construction, 4 East is currently closed to the public.  To obtain items located on 4 East, please place an online request for the item to be paged for you using the ‘Place Request’ button in the catalog. Please visit our Circulation FAQ page for assistance in using our catalog.
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FOLIO Project at MSU

Commencing in fall 2019 and continuing through summer 2020, the MSU Libraries welcomed and reviewed proposals as we sought the optimal integrated library system (ILS). An ILS allows the Library to order, receive, and invoice for materials; generate, organize, and make available metadata; track inventory as users borrow and return materials; and provide an online public interface for users to search and discover. After the extensive review FOLIO was selected. FOLIO is an acronym for the Future Of the Library Is Open; it is open source software - denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. This site intends a brief chronicling of the migration and implementation of FOLIO at MSU. The monthly updates are meant to give a glimpse at the actions and directions of the project. We are loathe to reduce so much thought and effort into these few paragraphs.

Migration & Implementation Timeline

Implementation timeline (This public view "snapshot" of the project management tool will be updated regularly)

Active Task Forces

  • EDS and Open Athens (Chair, Christine Tobias)

Sunset Task Forces

  • Electronic Resource Management (Chair, Breezy Silver)
  • Acquisitions (Chair, Kim Wiljanen)
  • EDS Custom Catalog (Chair, Elizabeth Webster)
  • Access Services (Chair, Erin Weller)
  • Cataloging and Metadata (Chair, Joshua Barton)

Monthly Updates

June 2022

On June 30, 2022, FOLIO is live and is considered the source of truth for cataloging, circulation, and finance activities! The project is now closed and post implementation activities are now active.

April 2022

GoLive announced! MSU-LM approved a June 30, 2022 GoLive Date for FOLIO, and expanding EDS by adding the remaining content from the Sierra Catalog, and other associated software tools.

Completing this migration marks a new beginning and is a culmination of over 18 months of active project work which built upon the months of effort by the RFP taskforce that recommended FOLIO and EBSCO for the integrative library system replacement. This decision means the final data load from Sierra to FOLIO and that all back-and front-of-house operations will be live on June 30. On that date FOLIO will be considered the single source of truth for MSU-LM Inventory, Users, Agreements, Finance, and Courses. Display and discovery of FOLIO Inventory data will be through the EDS-based Custom Catalog, displaying with the existing records for e-resources already available as part of the larger EDS discovery platform. The decision to GoLive on FOLIO requires instigating several steps on specific dates for when Sierra-based activities must freeze, referred to as cutoff dates:

Cutoff Dates:

  1. Acquisitions: 6/21/2022
    1. Activities to freeze:
      1. Creating order records in FOLIO
      2. Editing order records in FOLIO
      3. Opening/un-opening order records in FOLIO
      4. Receiving orders in FOLIO
    2. Activities that may continue:
      1. Creating orders in vendor systems
      2. Paying invoices in FOLIO
  2. Cataloging: 6/09/2022
    1. Activities to freeze:
      1. Creating/updating bib records in legacy ILS
      2. Creating/updating holdings in legacy ILS
      3. Creating/updating check in records in legacy ILS
      4. Creating/updating item records in legacy ILS
  3. Circulation: 6/26/2022 Please note this is a Sunday.
    1. Activities to freeze:
      1. Creating/updating patron records (stop IT patron load)
      2. Checking out items
      3. Checking in items
      4. Renewals
      5. Creating requests
      6. Fulfilling requests
      7. Sending out notices
  4. Courses: 6/26/2022 Please note this is a Sunday.
    1. Activities to freeze:
      1. Creating/updating course records
      2. Creating, editing, or deleting reserve items

 

March 2022

The FOLIO Test and Production tenants received upgrades to the Kiwi software release bringing many desired features.

Public Display

We were pleased to implement Syndetics Unbound’s Browse Shelf feature in the test EDS Custom Catalog. This allows users to browse by call number in a graphical display. The two EDS focused task forces continue their investigation and configuration of the software controls and user interfaces. Key among this effort is the pursuit of displaying both the summary holdings AND the item holdings. Summary holdings matter in the MSU context because we have some locations that have ONLY recorded holdings in the summary view and there are bound volumes of serials that do not have item records. Without the summary holdings, there is no way to know if the Library has a particular volume or issue short of walking to the shelf and looking.

Preparing and cleaning data loads

As a shared tenant, it is important that MSU and Library of Michigan patrons be treated separately. Each institution will be able to assign different mblocks, allowing searching and sorting and additional address block customization. However, there are limitations on email address domains emanating from the EBSCO hosted FOLIO circulation application.

Instances and checkin records were transformed and loaded into FOLIO. Additional Sierra exports of item files were required. The new files were needed in this area to address the addition of the LDR field as well as the new call number mapping for 098. There are numerous material types to consider (printed material, audio/visual, electronic resources, archival, 2D/3D kit, microform, manuscript), and mappings have been painstaking to avoid items linked to legacy types. We are seeing inconsistencies with notices, specifically “MSU Overdue Notice – Fac/Staff/Community.” Library IT made considerable progress in establishing a protocol for a nightly user feed from the campus solutions to FOLIO. Progress has been slower on the Aeon integration.

Lessons from Acquisitions and Finance

From within the FOLIO Receiving App, when looking up a Purchase Order (PO), limiting the search results in "receiving status" to be "expected" will be helpful for receiving approval plans that have many Purchase Order Lines (POL). It is important to be sure that a PO is marked to ‘open’ before creating and reviewing invoices because paying invoices in a pending state can result in money not being properly disencumbered.

February 2022

The Production Tenant is live on the latest FOLIO software release, Kiwi. The Kiwi release is welcome as it removes a blocker hindering completion of several important acquisitions reports that will be made available from the Panorama Essentials and Library Data Platform (LDP) tools. Kiwi also allows staff to open and un-open the Purchase Order Lines (POLs) of an order which enables efficient item receiving and instance record updating.

Data loads dominated this month’s activities.

The first patron load has been completed in the Test Tenant. Due to variable spacing and punctuation in the existing dataset, mailing addresses will likely require some manual correction in FOLIO. The patron load does not contain ~2500 users that were missing both UUID and barcode or NetID and barcode. These records are under review and will be loaded separately. The patron data load is a major step forward for testing patron empowerment (such as placing holds or “Get it” functionality with patron account information) in EDS.

The Cataloging and Metadata Task Force has been reviewing the latest Inventory data load and reporting issues. Inventory data is the backbone for description, asset management, circulation, and discovery. A major concern is the handling of holding statements and their real time interaction with EDS. The TF and vendor continue to explore options. We were grateful for a resolution to the presence of a second barcode for items located in the remote storage facility. The Remote Storage barcodes will go in the “Former identifier” field in the item record. It is repeatable and it will not be exclusively Remote Storage barcodes. The “Former Identifier” field is only accessible via a query search, which is presently quite slow. At the close of the month a decision to move the Test Tenant to high-availability server stack expects to improve performance.

MSU shared key priorities for future FOLIO software feature releases. The identified features for cataloging and acquisitions-related activities include:

  1. Bulk/global update

  2. Inventory browse (Author, Title, Series, Genre/Form) capabilities

  3. Performance improvements

  4. Authority control

  5. Search enhancements in Inventory

  6. Ability to delete instance records from Inventory

  7. Add additional functionality to GOBI mapping profiles

  8. Search retrieval normalization (e.g., the display of order data on Instances)

  9. Claiming

  10. Order export enhancements that update the export to incorporate additional filters for some of the paid info data points

  11. Receiving materials without an order

  12. Creating invoices automatically from a purchase order

Exploration and testing of the EDS-based Custom Catalog continues. The Custom Catalog will be the primary public user interface for a range of items (e.g., books, print journals, CDs, DVDs) that emanate from FOLIO Inventory. The target public release of the EDS-based Custom Catalog is June 2022.

We have sunset the Acquisitions Task Force. They were the first Task Force constituted and the first to be transitioned to FOLIO for regular functions (e.g., ordering, receiving, paying invoices). Future acquisitions-related activities like FOLIO enhancement requests and training sessions will be managed by the Acquisitions staff.

January 2022

Several behind the scenes technical tasks continue to dominate the migration and implementation phases. Two task forces (ERM and Acquisitions) have ended the migration phase and transitioned to maintenance. With that, the Task Forces will sunset, and the regular activities will be handled by the functional areas. EBSCO Global Customer Support will now provide routine help in the areas of FOLIO electronic resource management and ordering and receiving applications.

Acquisitions and Finance Activities

Handling invoices at the scale of a large Library like MSU pushes the limits of current FOLIO functionality. After configuring a job profile, the staff managed a successful import of a ca. 500 lines Harrasowitz file, possibly marking the largest single invoice export in FOLIO to date. Improvements to the GOBI mapping files so that all orders placed are set as “Pending” automates payments.

Data Migration Activities

MSUL staff prepared a data file required for the initial patron load into FOLIO. This is important for inventory control and will enable better tests of the “patron empowerment” functionality like requests and holds of materials.

Inventory data is the backbone for description, asset management, circulation, and discovery. Migration from the extant system, Sierra, to FOLIO is a complex undertaking that requires several iterations. The latest Inventory load was complete toward the end of the month. Initial testing revealed that there was an issue with call numbers on approximately 750K item records that were an artifact of the Sierra export parameters. The fix required a new export and overlay lasting a few days. There are still occurrences of multiple call numbers in some records. Single record overlay testing uncovered an issue with the HRID handling on the migrated records.

The Catalog and Metadata Task Force recommends the use of FOLIO Holdings format instead of MARC Holdings format. This is a change from the original stated goal to utilize MARC Holdings in FOLIO to preserve the data granularity that that afforded as well as interoperability of holdings data with other systems. There’s hope for the FOLIO community’s transition to the development of QuickMarc as a MARC-based helper app to include MARC Holdings and MARC Authority functionality.

Public Discovery and Display Activities

There will be a new Task Force launched in early February with a focus upon the EDS-based Custom Catalog. The EDS Custom Catalog will be used to display data from FOLIO and integrate into a single interface that will include article, eBook, video, newspaper, etc. metadata primarily in electronic format. The new task force will place particular emphasis on how the multi-institutional records are displayed. There are questions about how records that are shared between MSU Main, MSU Law, and the State Library of Michigan are represented in the EDS Custom Catalog. The Real Time Availability Checking (RTAC) and patron empowerment functionality (requests and holds) will be put through a series of tests. During this phase of testing, the online public catalog for the Sierra database will be available for patron use.

December 2021

General Updates

Acquisitions Task Force

  • Investigate an issue with the GOBI orders API preventing the completion of GOBI orders placed via the API, prompting a pause in ordering activity.
  • Made progress on the Harrassowitz invoice import issue – creating the invoice records, but not the invoice lines.
    • This issue was escalated to the FOLIOJET development team.

Resource Access Task Force

  • Reviewed and finalized the patron record mapping in support of the Sierra record export slated for early January 2022.
  • Explored item statuses and loan type mapping related to resource access.

Cataloging and Metadata Task Force & EDS Custom Catalog

  • Began latest Inventory migration is underway, made possible after significant efforts in updating Sierra export specifications to meet new mapping requirements
  • MSU-LM Technical Services staff adjusted Sierra bib records to better account for OCLC numbers and other metadata attributes required for the migration.
  • Bib record have been successfully transformed in preparation for the EDS-Custom Catalog rebuild
  • Item transformation is still pending as MSU and EBSCO work to resolve export formatting and content issues
  • Holdings records have been successfully transformed with minimal location mapping issues, as well as the first run with bound-with records.
  • Reviewed mockups for FOLIO browse features for call number and subjects; development has been prioritized for the FOLIO Lotus release (2nd quarter 2022)

November 2021

We write to celebrate one year of active migration and implementation of FOLIO and its allied tools Open Athens and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). We also write to communicate the decision to postpone the next phase of FOLIO Go Live.

The official FOLIO Project kick off was in late October 2020. In July 2021, the Library went live in production for FOLIO applications like Finance, Invoices, eHoldings, Licenses, Orders, and Organizations. Those applications are crucial to Electronic Resource Management (ERM) and Acquisitions activities. In July 2021, Open Athens for authentication management and EDS for public discovery and dissemination were also launched.

Throughout the spring and summer 2021, we used language that signaled a tentative December 2021 Go Live date for Cataloging and Circulation, the two large remaining pillars of FOLIO. The project plan outlines a several weeks evaluation period of the extant FOLIO features, local workflow development, and training requirements. Following that analysis, we have concluded that a December 2021 Go Live for FOLIO Circulation and Cataloging is not practical for MSU and our partners at the State Library of Michigan (LM).

The Task Force members advanced the project by:

  • refining mapping of fields from the Sierra-based catalog to FOLIO
  • testing the EDS-based Custom Catalog
  • devising a training regime for affected library staff
  • migrating and testing circulation rules
  • enhancing an external application to automate acquisition invoice handling
  • exploring reporting tool Panorama
  • advocating for and advising on call number browse capability

September 2021

We are pleased to announce that 10,942,677 item records now populate the FOLIO Test Tenant! This is a substantial milestone in the migration and implementation, preparing the way for cataloging and circulation functions in the production environment. The data migration also serves as the foundation to create the EDS-based “Custom Catalog,” the anticipated public interface and patron empowerment tool for the FOLIO metadata. This iteration of holdings is the first of what is expected to be many data loads.

Ordering activity is intensifying, and the Acquisitions staff continue to learn the system. The volume and velocity of MSU ordering activities has surfaced gaps in functions. The EBSCO and GOBI staff assisted in diagnosing and offering a fix for GOBI EDIFACT invoice handling. The FOLIJET community developers pinpointed an issue with specific tag in Harrassowitz serial invoices which will be reported before the large fall renewal arrives. GOBI invoices issues were resolved recently.

Cataloging and Migration Task Force members are working through Sierra to FOLIO mapping exercises and considering implications of long-standing local practices. For example, non-serial, multipart resource holdings statements in 866/867/868 are in the bib record and not in the checkin raising questions about if and should these location-based strings be normalized. Staff continue to serve on FOLIO Community Special Interest Groups and are keen to see MARC related functions advanced.

Significant advances in Circulation policies, procedures, and workflows happened during September. The Resource Access Task force is now creating a training plan. With the load of the Test Tenant holdings data, there’s an increased emphasis on coordinating with our partners at the Library of Michigan. While FOLIO is a multi-tenant system, the Circulation application requires greater coordination than do the Acquisitions or EDS applications.

The EDS discovery interface has been in production since the start of the MSU fall semester. Monitoring and collecting feedback has been a chief aim of the EDS Task Force. The EDS-driven API is leveraged in the Library’s Bento Box interface. It was decided to make use of the EDS Publication Finder as a reliable means to locate known items, especially Ebooks. A prominent link was added to the Library’s homepage, labeled Ebooks and Journals.

August 2021

The month of August has allowed ERM and Acquisitions staff to learn the intricacies of the FOLIO applications while creating workflows. GoLive for the public interface for many of the Library’s electronic resources via EDS brought many learning opportunities as well.

The ERM TF has refined the “show to patrons” settings as well as the “order link” to the instance record in FOLIO Inventory. They affirmed that Custom Labels for concurrent user counts can be added as part of batch upload to EBSCO HLM. We have had to sort out issues with the Custom Labels appearance in the Full Text Finder and the Publication Finder. The Library renewed a subscription to Client Center and the 360 Link tools to enable migration troubleshooting especially for subscribed serial packages.

E-book workflows posed a thorny challenge during this interstitial period where some activities (eg. Orders) are performed in FOLIO and others (eg. Cataloging) in Sierra. To make access of ebooks more straightforward for patrons, Library Acquisitions staff will work on a project to generate bibliographic records in Sierra for ebooks ordered in FOLIO. These will mainly be e-books ordered via Gobi, but other vendors will be included. Discovery via Sierra will be temporary until the full EDS-based Custom Catalog is created and tested. The Library’s Bento Box discovery will also be modified to add a pane exclusive to e-books.

The Cataloging and Metadata TF has reenergized to begin mapping Sierra checkin records to FOLIO holdings records. We have explored moving monograph holdings from the Sierra bib record to attached item records to help make the mapping less conditional, but Sierra will not let us create these fields in item records. Another option might be to attach checkin records to these bibs and move the relevant fields there, but this would be a big departure from longstanding practice and would need some work. For most of our collection, every volume of a multipart resource has a separate item record with its own barcode.

Resource Access and others surfaced an issue with how the Remote Storage facility currently tracks materials with a second barcode in the item record. This means we have substantial number of item records with more than one barcode: one used for circulation, one used for Remote Storage retrieval purposes. Since Barcode in FOLIO items is not repeatable, we are exploring options.

The overarching project plan has been reassessed and modified to reflect the current state and anticipated reasonable approach to phase two, see snapshot GANTT Chart.

Open training continues with sessions for Subject Selectors on Orders, Order Lines, and other basic acquisitions data.

July 2021

We are excited to see the FOLIO production tenant in action! All Acquisitions functions are live in FOLIO, but it’s been slow and bumpy. Discovery via the EDS tool is operational, and Open Athens is working with campus Okta and EZProxy so that electronic resources can be found and accessed.

The Acquisitions TF worked with counterparts at EBSCO and GOBI to iron out overarching technical specifications and details for EDIFACT invoices. We learned about the GOBI order key, which is a unique identifier for the order. This is a safeguard for firm orders, which should also have a POL, but is a necessary matchpoint for approvals where there is not a POL match point. And for the EDIFACT invoice import in FOLIO, there is a default field mapping profile that does require some information to be added (e.g. acquisitions unit, batch group, vendor). GOBI ordering should be functional by August 1st. The open orders that migrated from Sierra require some additional massaging. Permission sets were tweaked as all Acquisitions staff began working in the app.

The EDS TF continues to monitor the implementation of EDS for electronic resource discovery as well as for how the EDS API is leveraged in the Library’s Bento Box interface. Much learning continues for how HLM operates. The EDS TF has created a set of talking points to be shared with the Library’s liaisons to normalize communications.

As of July 5, all electronic resource management activities are happening in the FOLIO ERM application. Therefore, the ERM TF is winding down. The final TF sunsetting obligations are to see to orderly transfer of knowledge and protocols to operations staff.

The Resource Access TF continues to create and fine tune polices and rules. Completed this month are Loan, Request, Overdue and Lost policies. The loan type mapping and material type mapping exercises have also been complete. Final touches on the patron group mapping are wrapping up. All of which adds up to completing the primary circulation rules. Next steps will include testing policy decisions which can begin after item records are loaded into the test tenant.

With the arrival of August and the addition of item records to the test tenant, the Cataloging and Metadata Task Force will ramp up its activities. The sights are on completing data migration and working closely with the EDS TF to create and test a custom catalog for bibliographic items. These will be indexed in EDS.

May 2021

The priority FOLIO applications will GO LIVE on July 1, 2021. They include FOLIO Acquisitions, FOLIO Electronic Resources Management (ERM), and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). The Task Forces are active and EBSCO provided train the trainer sessions have begun.

Permission sets across the applications continue to be specified and are being applied to user accounts so that staff have expected access to FOLIO functions. Open Athens continues to be configured so that it interoperates with Okta and enables content access through EDS while leveraging EZ Proxy.

Updating and formatting for vendors/organizations are underway and will be loaded as a single event. This will enable all future edits to happen directly in FOLIO.

Resource records (most closely equate to eHoldings in FOLIO) are being reviewed. They will be attached to agreements and joined to licenses as agreement lines. Agreements require “a more manual process” and will be better handled after we have migrated both organizations and licenses into the Production Tenant.

Completed a “Gobi API” worksheet and expect to begin testing the Gobi order process soon. Training and testing for paying invoices is well underway—staff continue to appreciate the EBSCO provided Explore Sessions, a series of recorded how-tos.

Coding to integrated EDS into the Library’s bento box search display is well underway. The EDS TF held an introduction to EDS session for Library staff. Good questions raised about collocation and call number searching. Reaffirmed use of the Sierra OPAC through the fall academic term.

Testing “dry run environment” for the Iris software release surfaced two issues: single record import hangs "in progress," and exporting order information to Excel. These were reported to the EBSCO Hosting Team. MSU-LM have a stated intent to upgrade to Iris Release for the Test Tenant and then the Production Tenant during first two weeks of June.

April 2021

GO Live!

We are excited to announce the GO LIVE date for FOLIO Acquisitions and the attendant Electronic Resources Management (ERM) and EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) applications! These applications and services will be in productive use beginning July 1, 2021. All other functions like cataloging and circulation will remain in Sierra until at least the December 2021 FOLIO Kiwi release.

Taskforce Updates

The ERM Task Force held its kickoff meeting. The members are Anne Swan, Main Library; Ranti Junus, Main Library; Breezy Silver, Business Library (Chair); Don Todaro, LOM; and Brent Domann, MSU Law Library.

The Acquisitions TF continue to add organization records and have submitted a document to map Sierra order fields to FOLIO. They met with representatives of GOBI to decide how orders from this heavily used vendor will transition on July 1st. We will be ordering via the GOBI API for the first time.

The Resource Access TF have loan and overdue policies well fleshed out. The TF is particularly focused upon any missing combination of page, hold, and recall policies.

Members of the EDS TF are reviewing configurations and considering details like how service points correspond to location codes, how location faceting impacts discovery of different copies, and what messages are displayed to users.

MSU Library staff are contributing time and talent to a FOLIO Community Working Group focused on Inventory application user interface design and functionality. There is concern about the lack of call number and subject heading browsability in the current interation of FOLIO and EDS.

A MSU Main Library ad hoc working group reviewed options and determined that MSU will continue to lend and borrow with Sierra-based MeLCat through November 2021. There is an anticipated 6 months winddown time to fully exit Sierra. We are monitoring the FOLIO InnReach integration development closely and hoping for a Kiwi release.

Reporting

Staff have seen demos of the developing reporting tool Panorama. It is a Tableau analytics tool that has data pipelines to FOLIO and eventually EZProxy, each important for MSU. Each Task Force continues to think about what reports will be needed, what can be set aside, and what can be retired.

March 2021

We continue the strong push toward a July 1, 2021 GoLive. Each of the active Task Forces are working independently and increasingly together, as we are consistently reminded of the data dependencies and important interactions across the several FOLIO applications.

The Acquisition TF is refining workflows and mapping expectations to extant FOLIO JIRA Issues with an attention to providing rankings to help the worldwide developer community set priorities. Crucial workflows involving the campus enterprise business system have been settled and an interim script is being written to translate FOLIO-based invoice data for ready ingest into the University Kuali Financial System. Ledger accounts have been added so that budgets can be established. We are beginning to add “organization records” (vendor/contact information) and bill to/ship to addresses in FOLIO.

Iterative bibliographic data, items, and holdings loads continue. This requires the Cataloging and Metadata TF to perform painstaking review. Both MSU and Library of Michigan currently put donor information in MARC 590 in the bibliographic record. It allows lists of items by donor to be created. It is being investigated whether or not it is possible to migrate data from the bibliographic 590 to the electronic bookplate field in the item record.

The EDS-Open Athens Task Force is completing the Patron Empowerment/Custom Catalog Questionnaire. Due to the many overlapping pieces, the EDS TF will work in concert with the Resource Access and Cataloging and Metadata Task Forces. They are working with a sample set of records in Source Record Storage, mapping external user ID, and other activities to optimize discovery and use of resources.

Resource Access TF has identified fields that contain pick up locations (pick up locations = service points), begun to finalize pick up and loan rules, and established material types not in circulation.

Discussions with MCLS staff concerning how and when to transition from Sierra to FOLIO for MelCat took place. Current thought indicates a much shorter downtime than the six month gap we were told would be needed.

Beyond the extensive local effort to migrate data and begin implementation, MSU and the Library of Michigan staff (Joshua Barton, Lisa Robinson and Tim Watters) have contributed time and expertise to the MARC in FOLIO subgroup.

February 2021

This month marks the first time each Task Force is at full strength tackling the complex and thorny migration issues. The Access Services TF is reconciling patron categories, deleting some and merging others. They have explored loan roles and determiner tables. Support teams are performing data cleanup activities in the patron database in preparation for data migration.

The EDS and Open Athens Task Force completed the EBSCO partner database questionnaire and reviewed the EDS holdings management knowledge base. Branding and other elements of the EDS public display are being finalized--maintaining the look and feel of the Library’s current discovery layer. Important discussions around how eBooks are managed, indexed, discovered, and displayed are happening. Preliminary decisions point to acquiring and loading eBook MARC records into the FOLIO source record. We have asked EBSCO to provide a technical schematic drawing of the authentication and permissions journey, as the MSU path will include these applications and systems Okta, EZProxy, and Open Athens.

The Acquisitions TF continues to refine workflows and found video recording entire procedures to be a valuable exercise. Voucher handling and the linkage between FOLIO and the MSU enterprise business system has solidified. It is helpful that the FOLIO voucher export supports both XML and JSON format. The TF has held several successful meetings with staff from GOBI to firm up ordering processes. The budgeting elements (ledgers, groups, and funds) have begun to take shape.

The Cataloging and Metadata TF worked on mapping cataloging processes and understanding the Inventory Application. After the initial migration of bibliographic data from Sierra to FOLIO Inventory, the Cataloging and Metadata TF have done the painstaking work to review load reports, verify data, explore how the applications behave, and outline a plan for data clean up. A second major load of bibliographic records is now under review. It is most assuredly an iterative process.

The FOLIO co-chairs and the Task Force chairs led an open forum where staff members from MSU Main and Law Libraries as well as those from the Library of Michigan received updates and the first live demonstration of the test tenant.

January 2021

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Access Services Task Force with the following members: Erin Weller (Chair), Kim Pierce, Karen White (LM), Robin Lozier MSU Law. The Access Services TF shall articulate needs and recommend solutions and programs to optimize and enable the use of the collections, including the general circulation functions, inter library loan, reserves, shelving of materials, as well as general stack maintenance. This marks the fourth active task force, see above for a running list.

The focus across all the task force members remains on data migration. The initial source record load (ca. 10.5 million items) is being explored to understand how the field mapping and ingest script function. For example, MSU Main Library's (MSUL) use of tagging and call numbers in Sierra were not exported to FOLIO as part of the MARC output. This makes determining the correct call number a challenge. The Metadata TF is exploring the Sierra API to identify and retrieve tagged call numbers and make them “visible” to the FOLIO ingest scripts.

The FOLIO acquisitions and related financial microservices continues to be MSUL’s top priority and primary determinant of an implementation rollout. MSUL is planning to migrate 2 fiscal years’ worth of orders into FOLIO, and efforts are underway by the EBSCO migration specialists to map and ingest this data. Current thinking is to include the following information from straightforward firm order and approval legacy orders in the item record as a type of ‘historical acquisitions note’: Sierra order number, Fund, Pay line (date paid, invoice date, invoice number, voucher number), and Vendor/Vendor Address. The goal is to migrate this information to FOLIO for storage on the item record in a dedicated note type.

The Acquisitions taskforce met with GOBI representatives to set up FOLIO as our means of purchasing via the GOBI database with the goal of moving as seamlessly as possible, from Sierra to FOLIO for all approval and shelf-ready profiles and other functions we currently access.

MSUL staff volunteered to help with accessibility testing across the FOLIO applications. MSUL will concentrate on screen-reader users. It is anticipated that both the methods and results can be shared with the entire FOLIO community.

December 2020

We were pleased to witness nearly 10.5 million bibliographic records migrating into the source record storage (SRS) of the MSU-LM test tenant at the beginning of December. This event triggers many activities that will be the focus through most of January.

Authentication and Discovery

Decisions for authentication management were made to accommodate our unique consortia. There will be two domains utilizing the OpenAthens utility, one full setup for the Library Michigan and MSU will pursue a core setup. As a core implementation, MSU and MSU Law will continue to use their existing authentication environments for electronic resources while OpenAthens manages connections through the FOLIO-specific applications.

For discovery, there will be two instances of EDS, one for the Library of Michigan and a separate instance for MSU. The MSU region will have two distinct profiles, one for the Main Library and one for Law.

Task Force Updates

The Acquisitions Task Force continues to finalize workflow diagrams and review current order coding schemes. There has been significant consideration of legacy order data, with a decision to include records for everything paid in the past one or two fiscal years. Payments for open standing order records will be limited to those payments posted during the past one or two years with earlier payments stored outside of FOLIO.

The Cataloging/Metadata TF has begun the painstaking effort to verify that the mapping of the ca. 10.5 million instance records was faithfully followed. For example, how is the MARC 880 field with non-roman scripts mapped?

A new EDS Taskforce was constituted with the following members: Hildur Hanna, Ranti Junus, Christine Tobias, and Diane Warner. The TF is charged with setting up the custom database, developing policies for patron functionality, and establishing an online public interface for users to search and discover resources of all formats.

Other Activities

MSU joined the conversations around developing an InnReach integration and articulated requirements for a native cataloging utility, tracking specifically the development cycles for MARCcat and QuickMARC. Toward the end of the month EBSCO staff began the process to upgrade the MSU-LM tenants to the Honeysuckle release.

November 2020

At the close of November, we have several accomplishments to announce. The EBSCO Dev/hosting team has successfully created production and test tenants for the MSU and Library of Michigan consortia. This is the initial step to welcome data migration, the focus of our initial phase of the project. Members of the two Taskforces continue to advance through documentation and mapping workflow exercises.

Data Preparation

The Metadata TF, working with EBSCO staff, ran a script to prepare the ca. 12 million bibliographic records for analysis and eventual migration.

A "reference data" spreadsheet containing over 400 location codes and related service desk designations drawn from across the MSU and Library of Michigan consortia was completed and is now under review. We provide a static version here. This data serves as the backbone for a great deal of the FOLIO application functionality and is expected to iterate through time.

Learning Opportunities

Our priority remains on all things Acquisitions. Committed to transparency, the FOLIO Community provides sessions called FOLIO Forum, see the Youtube Channel. A recent Forum offers an overview of the acquisitions application, found at this site FOLIO Acquisitions Apps

Contributing to the Community

We are pleased to have joined the FOLIO Community and will be reviewing the tickets to exercise our voting privileges to shape development priorities. MSU Library is pleased to have completed the search for a new developer. We expect the incumbent to join the Thunderjet development team’s java and js developers, all devoted to acquisitions and other financial applications.

October 2020

We are so pleased to formally announce the commencement of FOLIO migration and implementation! In late September the contract between MSU and EBSCO was finalized. EBSCO** will serve as the project management team as well as software host. We are proud to welcome our partners at the MSU Law School and the Library of Michigan into the migration and implementation project.

FOLIO will touch all aspects of the library management system. So, we must plan for and work toward documenting interactions, effectively migrating data, rolling out modules, and refining workflows.

Dean of University Libraries Joseph Salem announced Kay Granskog, AD for Technical Services, and Shawn Nicholson, AD for Digital Initiatives will lead the migration and implementation of FOLIO. Modules and microservices for Acquisitions and associated finance applications is the highest priority, with a goal to launch in production by June 30, 2021.

Taskforce workgroups

Two migration taskforces have been named:

  • Acquisitions--to maintain targeted communications with FOLIO/EBSCO during the migration phase. The Taskforce shall articulate needs and recommend solutions and programs to meet those needs to optimize Acquisition workflows and policies.
    • Devon Davidoski (Chair), Lisa Smith, Susan Smith (Library of Michigan), Kim Wiljanen
  • Cataloging and Metadata--to serve as the direct and primary contact with FOLIO/EBSCO staff for questions, comments, concerns for issues in the realm of metadata migration.
    • Janet Baldwin, Joshua Barton (Chair), Autumn Faulkner, Dao Gong, Tim Kiser, Lucas Mak, Emily Sanford, Tim Watters (Library of Michigan)

**EBSCO does not own, nor does it sell FOLIO as a product. EBSCO provides services around hosting, implementation, workflow analysis, change management, and support/experience.