CORAL

CORAL is an open source, electronic resources management system consisting of interoperable modules designed to facilitate the workflows associated with electronic resources.

Overview

CORAL is an open source electronic resources management system that uses interoperable modules to manage various aspects of electronic resources. It was built at Notre Dame, and NC State Libraries implemented it in 2012 for resource acquisition, cataloging, and processing.

CORAL is a simple and easy-to-use system; and modules can be used individually or in conjunction with each other. It allows staff to create their own workflow steps. Then, as the process unfolds, each staff member receives an email notification as a resource moves through the defined process. These push notifications minimize the amount of time that an individual needs to spend checking on the status of an item. Additionally, CORAL serves as a repository where electronic resource contact information and licenses are stored.

NC State Libraries has taken the basic CORAL modules and added enhancements specific to our electronic resources management workflow. We worked with BibLibre as part of a Good Idea grant to integrate the request process into this workflow. With this addition, selectors from the Collections and Research Strategy department can fill out a request form that goes directly into CORAL. This allows paper processing to be bypassed, reducing duplication and the potential for errors.

How We Did It

CORAL is a PHP/MySQL application. It is an open source project with an active steering committee, community, and listserv. Custom update scripts/directions are included as new versions of CORAL are released by the community through the Github repository. NC State University Libraries runs CORAL from our own servers; it is not a web-hosted application.

The CORAL Steering Committee is open to new ideas from the user community. The typical adoption process involves using Github pull requests to suggest new features or bug fixes. This offers the community and committee an opportunity to discuss changes and prepare them for merging. Major feature additions must be approved by the Steering Committee.

The Libraries have contributed to enhancements such as the ability to tweak workflows on the fly instead of requiring a new workflow to be created and the old one deprecated. NC State University Libraries also won a grant to hire BibLibre to help develop API functionality that enables resource requests to be submitted as forms and then pulled into CORAL for processing and workflow tracking. Biblibre includes a starter API integration with Unirest (creates the forms) and Flight PHP (API routing/processing).