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Welcome to Knowledge Base+

Over the course of 2011-2012 HEFCE has invested £600,000 in the creation of a shared service knowledge base for UK academic libraries to support the management of e-resources by the UK academic community.

JISC Collections has led this work on behalf of HEFCE and JISC, drawing on its own knowledge and experience in the field of licensing, negotiation and electronic resource management as well as the work initiated by SCONUL to identify the e-resource management requirements of UK academic institutions.

Phase 1 ran from August 2011 to August 2012 and the phase 1 release of KB+ is available at www.kbplus.ac.uk.

A second phase of development has now commenced running through until the end of July 2013.

Phase One Deliverables

  1. A centrally maintained and managed knowledge base where JISC Collections us collating, verifying and updating knowledge base data.
  2. Verified, accurate and up-to-date publication information for NESLi2, SHEDL and WHEEL agreements made available the KBART format under an open licence.
  3. Subscription information – issue entitlements, coverage, renewal dates, cancelation information.
  4. Licence information covering key values such as walk-in users, concurrent access, PCA and more.
  5. The ability to add notes and alerts throughout the system and share them with the community.

Project Governance

With such a strict timetable and ambitious deliverables, it is important that KB+ has strong governance.

JISC has appointed a project board chaired by Dr Richard Parsons, from the University of Dundee and including representatives from EDINA, JISC, JISC Collections, MIMAS and SCONUL, to oversee the project and ensure that it meets its objectives.

The project board is supported by two advisory groups:

Community Advisory Group, chaired by Nicholas Lewis of UEA, providing input from the library community on priorities, communications and business models.

Technical Advisory Group, chaired by Mark Toole of the University of Stirling, providing input on the technical development plan, standards adoption etc.

Project Team

The KB+ Project is being taken forward by the following:

JISC Collections

  • Liam Earney, Project Director and lead for the project overall.
  • Magaly Bascones, Project Manager with responsibility for publication information

Sero Consulting

  • David Kay, Technical Lead Team Manager and Data Architect
  • Owen Stephens, Technical Authority and User Functionality Lead
  • Peter Rowe, Development and Release Coordination

EDINA

MIMAS

Knowledge Base+ Blog

An informal blog relating to the project at http://knowledgebaseplus.wordpress.com/ where members of the project team and advisory boards will post on matters of interest.