Knowledge Base+ shared service to help libraries manage e-resources

Knowledge Base+ (KB+) is a new shared service from JISC Collections that aims to help UK libraries manage their e-resources more efficiently.

As part of the KB+ project team, led by JISC Collections, EDINA is providing hosting for the KB+ platform, and has also been contributing technical expertise through the development of an authentication layer, and a reporting tool for the display and export of publication information.

KB+ is being established to start addressing the challenges facing libraries due to the inadequate data and metadata about publications, packages, subscriptions, entitlements, and licences that is available throughout the e-resource supply chain.

Sara Marsh, Director of Learner Support Services at the University of Bradford and Chair of SCONUL says:

“The release of Phase 1 of KB+ is the realisation of many years’ partnership working between SCONUL and JISC. It’s a genuine example of a community-owned shared service that has been informed and developed from the start by practitioners who recognised a problem and set out to find a shared solution. I’m delighted to see the service now being launched, and SCONUL looks forward to building on this initial phase as the service is developed further over the course of 2012 and 2013.”

In addition to saving time and cost, KB+ will also provide benefits including:

Improving the reliability of the e-library – making better quality and more accurate information available to the services that libraries use will improve the quality of service that libraries provide to their end users
Ensuring the value of vendor knowledge bases that drive library systems, by improving the supply and quality of data that goes into vendor knowledge bases, libraries will benefit from an improved return on the investment they make in those systems
Putting institutions in control of their data across systems and services – providing one central source of institutional data that is shared across all stakeholders as required.

KB+ website