At WiLS, we want to bring valuable information to our library partners, including information about the missions and big ideas of the vendors they may already do business with. Each month, WiLS will interview a vendor partner in order to bridge the gap and open the door to valuable collaborations. This month, we are delighted to share insights from Lauri Vance, Account Manager at ProQuest.
These interviews are part of a series of interviews with both WiLS library and vendor partners. Your feedback is appreciated. If you have any to offer on this article, or suggestions for upcoming interviews, contact Andrea Coffin at acoffin@wils.org.
Tell us about your company’s background.
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company’s products are a gateway to the world’s knowledge including dissertations, technologies serve users across the critical points in research, helping them discover, access, share, create and manage information.
The company’s cloud-based technologies offer flexible solutions for librarians, students and researchers through the ProQuest®, Bowker®, Dialog®, ebrary® and EBL™ businesses – and notable research tools such as the Summon® discovery service, the Flow® collaboration platform, the Pivot® research development tool and the Intota™ library services platform. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.
Why do you, personally, choose to work with libraries?
I’ve worked in the information industry for 25 years; the last 6 years in Higher Ed. During that time, I have personally come to know and believe in the value that libraries bring to the campuses that they support. As an information professional, and as a mom to two very active students, I’ve seen first-hand how the library can impact student success, the retention rates of freshmen students and even job placement after graduation. I enjoy playing a role in helping to make students’ lives better.
What do you like to know about the libraries you work with? What helps you better understand their needs?
I like to understand how the library supports the academic programs of the Institutions, and hear success stories. What is the overall mission and what are the goals of the library and what are the challenges to meeting those goals.
What big ideas are being worked on at your company? What problems are being solved?
One big idea that we’re working on is a transformative library automation solution called Intota™ Library Services Platform. As library collections have become predominantly digital, the needs for managing and providing access to those collections have changed. From this perspective of transformation, we are proposing a new type of collection management system, not built on the old ILS model. We have responded with our new offering Intota™, which manages collections for today’s reality – many e-resources and e-collections in addition to print. We look forward to discussing our approach with you.
The vision behind Intota™ is that it is time for a new model in library automation, which is why ProQuest is building the best example of that new model. We are positioned to do that because we are employing these guiding principles:
- Unified, intelligent workflows
- Comprehensive, authoritative knowledgebase
- Full integration of discovery with management
- Assessment capabilities for a total picture of holdings, usage and overlap across all formats
- Everything as multitenant Software as a Service, no local installs
- Modular build; customers do not need to change the entire library system in one go, and modules can interact with other university services through powerful APIs
As part of full integration of discovery with the Intota management functions, ProQuest has entered into an agreement with ExLibris that provides for each party’s discovery and management solutions to be interoperable.
How can librarians become partners in product or training development?
Librarians can become partners in product AND training development by systematically taking advantage of the many ProQuest training opportunities that are available to them – and the overwhelming number of those opportunities are available at no additional cost. All customers have a dedicated team of knowledgeable trainers whose primary purpose is to provide not only product training to librarians, faculty, and students, but also provide consultative services regarding how best to promote, market and integrate ProQuest products into the classroom and curriculum. ProQuest training offers the opportunity to acquire knowledge about products and platform updates and new releases, serve as a great refresher for product functionality and a great way to introduce new library staff and faculty to ProQuest products available at their institution. Training is flexible and offered in a number of ways, both online and under certain circumstances, available on-site as well. We have also created a large number of supplementary training resources such as LibGuides and online video tutorials. Librarians should view their attendance at training events as a way to provide constructive feedback on product content and platform functionality and be comfortable making suggestions for enhancements in both areas. ProQuest trainers routinely collect that feedback and share it with our product management and development teams as well as our platform design and engineering teams. As an Account Manager, I closely interact with my training colleagues and this relationship allows me to understand the needs of my customers and make sure those needs are adequately addressed in a timely manner.