Reflection on ERM Systems

Electronic Resource Management Systems are being touted as the wave of the future for libraries, particularly in their capacity to draw all administrative aspects of library operations into a single application. This can have many benefits for addressing the issue of knowledge management. Knowledge management is how an organization retains information about daily operational practices and procedures to maintain continuity when individual staff members leave, taking their knowledge with them.

It was interesting in our class discussion that none of the libraries that any of us worked in employed such a system. The general consensus seems to be that our class simply represented libraries that are too small to need such a system for effective operations. That said, we did identify some of the methods that our employee libraries use for knowledge management. My example comes from the State Law Library, where we rely on a staff-created wiki that has pages covering daily procedures for LTE positions, instructions for using accounting software, directions for making library cards, emergency procedures, staff phonelists, inventories of compact storage holdings, and pre-written answers for frequently asked reference questions, among other topics. My own experiences with this system have convinced me that it has many benefits, especially for consolidating information into a single space and making it easier to access. However, it also has flaws. Tagging for the pages does not always make them as easy to find as you might like, and the pages are only as informative as the individual staff members decide to make them.

Would it be better to get all the information into a single place? Probably. The major advantage we identified with ERM systems is their ability to make information readily accessible and more intuitive. This seems to be of especial value in transitional periods, such as when new staff members are trying to familiarize themselves with procedures or rules. Storing information in e-mails and shared drives is not necessarily sustainable if the knowledge of how to access that information departs with the employees who created the files or wrote the messages. Yet moving to a fully integrated model with software like CORAL (free and open source), or a subscription program may not be necessary for many smaller libraries. Furthermore, making the transition could create many problems in itself. However, as we become more engaged with and dependent upon ERM systems, the shift will become increasingly desirable and, possibly, inevitable.