Ministry of Defence - Adding Value Case Study: The Electronic Library

To serve this wide range of customers the MOD has a network of over 50 libraries based primarily in the UK, but also in Germany, and Cyprus.

The Electronic Library is a key part of the shift from a print based to an increasingly electronic based delivery of library services to MOD staff. It sits on the MOD wide “Defence Intranet” and contains a wide variety of different information resources. These range from the expected (The Army List, Who’s Who and a wide range of e journals, for example) to the unexpected (careers information and the Dictionary of Modern Design, for example).

The Electronic Library was started by Information Services Group in MOD Whitehall; in 2007 our colleagues in the Army Library and Information Service approached us to see if it would be possible for them to join us as partners in this project. This would represent a major expansion as it could potentially double the amount of material on the site but we all felt that it would be well worth the effort involved.

The first task was to agree any changes to the structure that were needed. Generally this proved to be relatively straightforward as the original design was flexible enough to accommodate the changes that we wanted to make. Some areas though needed to be altered quite considerably to accommodate new material. Throughout this entire process we also had to constantly ask ourselves how the customer would use this information in order to ensure that the new Electronic Library was still as user friendly as possible.

Once the structure had been agreed we then proceeded to migrate data into the new structure. This was an enormous task for both partners. On the one hand the Army had to look critically at their data to see how it needed to be amended to fit into the templates that they had to use. On the other hand the project manager had to review the data provided and make sure that it conformed to publishing guidelines. This process took several months to complete.

The end result though has been worth the effort. The Electronic Library has increased in size and relevance and is a genuine partnership between two large and complex library services. We are now actively seeking new partners to join us from other parts of MOD. For example, we have recently started working with colleagues in the Defence Medical Library Service in order to bring their material on board. Over time the Electronic Library will increasingly become the one place that all MOD staff will visit in order to access a wide range of electronic resources that are provided to them by a world wide network of different MOD libraries. In turn this will help us to deliver an increasingly digital future where information will be available on our customer’s desktops wherever in the world they may be.