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The challenge of keeping spreadsheets clean and up to date was raised. People also queried sharing vulnerable crucial data via GoogleSheets as a third party…

A question from the floor asked for NAG support around how to cope with post cancellation access which Anthony was keen to support - watch this space…

Staff knowledge and experience is your most valuable asset. They are what allow us to make best use of the systems available.

Whilst efficiency might be good, resilience is better! Centralisation is not inherently bad but it’s not a replacement for local expertise. It’s not evidence of technical debt, it’s the tools of library independence

Prioritise and protect these idiosyncrasies! There is no single shiny box which will work out of the box for everyone.

We all have local idiosyncrasies! Every set up and collection is different and influenced by a range of factors. So of course we all have bespoke fixes and work arounds which reflect how flexible staff are!

“We consider ourselves anti-fragile. Systems fail. People recover. We were able to find solutions that work.”

Key question “what happens to our reading lists if we turn off these journals?” Created an excel based solution to pull all the citations in and highlight those with OA alternatives and those which were more problematic.

Post cancellation access required digging back into spreadsheets, agreements and even filing cabinets to prove entitlement to long term access. Institutional staff memory proved to be critical.

Staff can give you the why as well as the what. They have detailed and specific granular knowledge and provide institutional memory. Data requires systems, knowledge requires wisdom!

Turns out the “dusty” spreadsheet is very agile! They represent the intellectual product of hours and hours of professional work and were used to calculate the impact of removing specific titles

Immediate challenges: - which titles to keep - post access cancellation rights - impact on reading lists

Drastic, high speed budget cuts were required. Turns out the systems weren’t as good at cancelling things as buying things, and coming out of those systems was challenging.

Systems can be presented as the solution, the replacement for that dusty old spreadsheet but, sometimes the clunky in-house workaround is a feature not a bug!

‘Lo-fi’ collection of recommendations (a board and stickers!) and working with publishers help in finding new and diverse titles to add to stock #NAGcd16

Embedding wellbeing collection curation into librarian job descriptions, gathering feedback and looking into research on wellbeing will help drive development of these collections #NAGcd16

‘Collective collections’, sharing title lists, survey questions and best practice #NAGcd16

It’s lovely to see the range of materials provided, collaborations and promotion of public libraries in wellbeing collections #NAGcd16

NAG’s panel session has just begun, featuring speakers from papers 6 and 7, talking about wellbeing collections #NAGcd16

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