KU Libraries work towards improved service platform continues ahead of June launch

KU Libraries is preparing to go live this summer with a new library services platform (LSP), FOLIO, and a suite of integrated products to empower essential backend capabilities and user-facing upgrades. The new open‑source system will enhance functionality for instructors and students, increase efficiencies in essential libraries services, unify systems across the Lawrence campus, Wheat Law Library, and KU Medical Center, and better support library user needs. 

“KU Libraries has been actively exploring new options for several years in anticipation of this migration and the possibilities FOLIO provides are tremendous,” said Scott Hanrath, KU Libraries Associate Dean of Research Engagement. 

Hanrath said the system KU Libraries currently uses lacks some desired functionality, yet over the years librarians and staff have created many clever workarounds to provide library services at a high level. However, the old software will soon reach the end of support from the vendor, and continuing its use is not an option. 

Mary Roach, Associate Dean of KU Libraries, has worked with the software, an Ex Libris Voyager system, for over two decades. Roach said she is both grateful for the old system and excited to move forward with the new. 

“As we transition from the Voyager integrated library system, I am struck by how much this system has done for us over the past 26 years,” Roach said. “Although it now runs on technology from another era, it has served us exceptionally well and carried us a very long way. In its place, the FOLIO library services platform offers an exciting opportunity to move into the future with a more robust, scalable, and open‑source solution.”  

The shift to FOLIO, slated to launch in June, includes many modern features that make it significantly simpler to manage. The libraries will employ FOLIO hosted by EBSCO to streamline essential libraries tasks such as cataloging, circulation, acquisitions and electronic resources, providing new opportunities to improve access to resources for research, teaching, and learning.  

While the behind-the-scenes benefits of the FOLIO transition are crucial, the user benefits are also significant and, in many instances, flow directly from the back-end improvements. The modernized platform enables new connectivity, allowing various software applications to communicate with each other to exchange data, features and functionality. One example of this is the addition of E Reserve Plus through EBSCO, a reading list tool designed to integrate with KU’s learning management system, Canvas, to allow instructors to more easily and seamlessly incorporate KU Libraries materials into course sites. Instructors can work within the learning management system to create direct link reading lists for students, the online equivalent to traditional physical course reserves. 

Improved workflows at the libraries benefit researchers, instructors, and students across the university who rely on the libraries' collections for their work. The acquisition and licensing of a vast array of materials, from hundreds of different publishers and vendors, is central to making those materials available. Cataloging and describing each item makes the item discoverable to the user, allowing researchers to find what they need within KU Libraries millions of resources. The FOLIO system will empower these and other aspects of the libraries’ continuous work at new levels of functionality and efficiency. 

“Our users will also notice an entirely new front end for searching for materials and managing their library accounts,” Hanrath said. “The new interface will be clean and modern. We hope it will simplify research tasks for faculty, staff, and students just as the FOLIO back-end simplifies tasks for our librarians and staff.” 

Though changes for users are not planned to begin until June, Roach said that within KU Libraries, the move to FOLIO is well underway. 

“Behind the scenes, staff involved in the implementation are working incredibly hard evaluating options, preparing data, conducting testing, training, and collaborating with vendor consultants, to ensure a smooth transition to this modern system,” Roach said. “Their work is paving the way for a more agile, innovative, and future‑ready library environment.”