Date: July 16, 2020
Title: SILS Phase 4 Principles and Shared Assumptions
Dear colleagues,
This week the Council of University Librarians (CoUL) approved SILS phase 4 principles and shared assumptions, which are downloadable as a PDF document on the SILS website. Working Group members revised the phase 3 principles, with several updates acknowledging the challenges of executing this project during a global pandemic.
In addition, the SILS phase 3 mission statement and slogan have been combined and streamlined for phase 4.
Mission statement: The SILS mission is to transform library services and operations through innovation and collaboration. The future is shared!
Phase 4 Principles and shared assumptions:
1. We reaffirm the value of one UC Library Collection. The UC Library Collection is an integrated, shareable, user-centric collection that supports and enhances the mission of the University of California. Our strength derives from the diverse nature of the individual campus library collections.
2. We desire a transformative level of integration between library business processes and workflows, at both the local and systemwide levels, in core functional areas: the circulation, management, and sharing of print, media, and electronic collections.
3. We are dedicated to improving the patron user experience by keeping user-centered design in the forefront. We will consider all of our users in their disciplinary and geographic diversity, and we commit to continuously improve interface design in ways that support user tasks and goals.
4. We affirm our systemwide ILS (SILS) is fundamental to future collaborations around the development and management of UC library collections and collections-based operations and services.
5. We see the critical dimensions of the SILS project as not just technical and financial, but also policy harmonization and building and supporting a staff work culture that supports systemwide efforts.
6. We affirm that the significance of systemwide collaboration, efficiencies of scale and demonstrable impact of library investments has increased in the context of COVID-19.
7. We acknowledge the challenge inherent in the work itself as well as the challenge of change. These challenges have been further exacerbated by the ongoing stress and uncertainty created by COVID-19.
8. We celebrate UC Libraries staff rising to the challenge of working on a multi-year systemwide project in the midst of a pandemic.
9. We acknowledge that these challenges ask us to be disciplined. Our focus is the essential work required for go-live on July 27 2021. We understand that the launch date is not the end, but the beginning of our transformative-impact journey.
10. We emphasize shared practices and policies that are appropriate and effective for the system. Rather than be bound by long-standing individual practices, we seek to collaborate to find new solutions that create success at a system level, as expressed in the SILS Harmonization Principles. We recognize that this project calls on us to be empathetic and flexible in finding common ground. All project participants will strive to balance local interests with systemwide goals.
11. We commit to an equitable decision-making process engaging all 11 UC libraries, as expressed in the SILS Shared Governance structure.
12. We commit to communications that are transparent and open across the system as we move forward with the project.
Best,
Ben Alkaly & Adrian Petrisor
SILS Communication Operation Leads