Kennys Bookshop & Art Gallery

1 . Overview

Kenny’s Second Hand Bookstore opened its doors on Friday 19th November 1940 selling a selection of second hand schoolbooks donated to Des and Maureen Kenny by their friends. Since then, Kenny’s has come to be regarded as the worldwide specialists in both published Irish Literature and antiquarian, out-of-print books in a range of subjects.

In 2000, following advice from Enterprise Ireland, the company split into 2 distinct entities – Kenny’s Book Shop and Art Gallery and Kenny’s Book Export Company. Kenny’s Book Export Company moved into new premises from where it now supplies newly published and out-of-print books to clients around the world.

Out-of-print books, the main focus of this case, are generally traded in ‘collections’, a group of books that, for example, contain similar subject matter or are written by the same author. These collections are collated by Kenny’s and then collected together into a catalogue that is disseminated to all those interested parties on the Kenny’s database.

Though these collections are primarily of Irish books, Kenny’s now also deals in collections outside of Irish interest, something which very few second hand book dealers can boast.

In order to build such collections, it is necessary for Kenny’s to hold a large stock of out-of-print books. Through purchase of collections from other dealers and purchase of libraries from individuals Kenny’s now has a stock of around 1,000,000 out-of-print titles – the biggest collection in the British Isles.

The big problem facing Kenny’s was the cataloguing of these out-of-print titles. Only 100,000 titles were catalogued, meaning that Kenny’s had a stock of around 900,000 books which couldn’t be sold because no-one knew they were in the company’s warehouse! Using the old system around 2,500 to 3,000 books per week were being catalogued. In order to sell these books, it was imperative to increase the volume of books being catalogued and introduce a standard for cataloguing, preferably one that was a worldwide standard.

Firstly, Kenny’s had to identify the exact requirements for its new system and turned to BSM, a Galway based Process Management Consultancy to help them do so. Through the adoption of a structured process developed by BSM, Kenny’s was able to identify the exact requirements for the system (all 1300 of them!), define selection criteria for vendors and eventually whittle potential vendors down to two. These two vendors were given test scripts to run on their systems – the vendor who was able to complete the tests successfully implemented the system. Although Kenny’s thought it would be unable to afford consultants like BSM, it transpired that they couldn’t have run the project without them, not having the required process management expertise in-house.

Although, at time of writing, the system had not been implemented, Kenny’s had always known it needed a system of two parts – one Library Management System and one ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system. Kenny’s is concentrating heavily on the back-end of its new system to ensure that the final solution is future-proofed and able to handle the types of service that the organisation wants to offer to its clients in the future.

Once implemented, the new system will allow for rapid cataloguing of books using OCLC codes (worldwide standard for cataloguing books) increasing the cataloguing rate from 2,500 per week to 5,000 per week. Ultimately, the database of books will be more searchable allowing clients to find books more easily (searching by subject, author title or other key words) and allowing Kenny’s to build collections more easily (being able to pull together those collections based on subject matter).

The new system will also allow Kenny’s to open up its book database to other book sellers allowing them to sell Kenny’s titles as though they were their own.

Additionally, when combined with its database of customers, Kenny’s will be able to offer books to clients based on their specific interests. Effectively, this means that the company will be able to run targeted direct mail campaigns that meet the exact requirements of each of their clients.