Transcript Working toward a new model of library automation:
The Future of Integrated Library Systems:
Moving toward new models and open systems
Massachusetts Library Association Pre-Conference: The Future of the ILS Tuesday, May 6 9:30 – 10:30am Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technologies and Research Vanderbilt University http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding http://www.librarytechnology.org/
Abstract
• Libraries demand choice. No matter which ILS (Integrated Library System) a library uses, the future is changing rapidly and libraries are facing difficult choices. This presentation will provide a review of the business and industry trends affecting ILSs as well as forecast what emerging technologies in the next generation ILS will bring to libraries.
Current Status of the Library Automation Industry
Technology Landscape
• • • Most ILS products from commercial vendors mature – None less than a decade old – Approaching end of life cycle?
Evolved systems No success in launching new systems in the commercial sphere – Horizon 8.0
– Taos
Current Vintage
• • • • • • • • • ALEPH 500 Voyager Unicorn Polaris Virtua Koha Library.Solution
Evergreen Talis 1996 1995 1982 1997 1995 1999 1997 2004 1992
• • • • • • •
Business Landscape
Library Journal Automated System Marketplace: – Opportunities Emerge in the midst of Turmoil (2008) – An Industry redefined (2007) – Reshuffling the Deck (2006) An increasingly consolidated industry Moving out of a previous phase of fragmentation where many companies expend energies producing decreasingly differentiated systems in a limited marketplace Private Equity playing a stronger role then ever before; VCs exit Narrowing of product options Increasing dissatisfaction with purely commercial, closed source options Open Source opportunities rise to challenge the grip of traditional commercial model
Library Automation History
Industry Health 2008
• • • • • Overall industry showing some growth; individual companies more profitable then ever.
Mixed company growth according to personnel counts: – Ex Libris +6% – Innovative + 5% – Library Corporation -10% – SirsiDynix -28% ILS sales represent smaller portion of revenue Many smaller libraries purchasing automation systems Very few large library ILS procurements
Other Business Observations
• • • • • • Creative tension abounds Level of innovation falls below expectations, despite deep resources and large development teams.
Companies struggle to keep up with ILS enhancements and R&D for new innovations.
Pressure from investors/owners to reduce costs, increase revenue Pressure from library customers for more innovative products Some companies investing in technology; expanding markets
ILS Migration Trends
• • Few voluntary lateral migrations Forced Migrations – Vendor abandonment – Need to move from legacy systems – Exit from bad marriages with vendors – Exit from bad marriages with consortia
Role of the ILS in Library Automation Strategies
• • It’s never been harder for libraries to justify investments in ILS Need for products focused on electronic content and user experience – Next-gen interfaces – Federated search – Linking – Electronic Resource Management
A new direction in library automation
• • Can’t keep doing the same thing in the same way • A successful pitch for new automation software is one that enables significant transformation toward a new vision of the library.
Back-end systems make only a moderate impact on customer service delivery
An age of less integrated systems
• • Increasingly dis-integrated environment Core ILS supplemented by: – OpenURL Link Resolvers – Metasearch / Federated Search – Electronic Resource Management – Next Generation Library Interfaces – RFID / AMH
No longer an ILS-centric industry
• • • Portion of revenues derived from core ILS products diminishing relative to other library tech products Many companies and organizations that don’t offer an ILS are involved in library automation : – Cambridge Information Group • ProQuest – Serials Solutions – WebFeat • Bowker – Syndetic Solutions – AquaBrowser Muse Global
OCLC in the Automation Industry
• • • Initial foray into next-gen interface arena: WorldCat Local Technology acquisitions: – OCLC Pica purchased Sisis on July 1, 2005 for $4,504,700 – OCLC Pica purchased FDI on Nov 2, 2005 for $8,913,100 – OCLC purchased Openly Informatics for $1,950,000 – OCLC purchased DiMeMa on Aug 14, 2006 for $3,916,200 – EZproxy acquired in Jan 2008 Library automation services at the network level – Not an ILS?
– An “ILS killer”?
Open Source Alternatives
• • • • • Explosive interest in Open Source driven by disillusionment with current vendors Beginning to emerge as a practical option TOC (Total Cost of Ownership) still roughly equal to proprietary commercial model Open Source still a risky Alternative Commercial/Proprietary options also a risk – “The SirsiDynix announcement changed the landscape of the ILS marketplace; the traditional ILS market is no longer a haven for the risk adverse.” (http://pines.bclibrary.ca/resources/talking-points)
Open Source Initiatives
• • Multiple projects to develop Open Source ILS – Koha Zoom – Evergreen – OPALS-NA (K-12 Schools) – Delft Libraries Multiple projects to develop Open Source Next gen Catalogs – VU Find (Villanova University) – C4 prototype (University of Rochester River Campus Libraries)
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• • • Soliciting a proposal for the design of an Open Source ILS for higher education Led by Duke University – Early stages. Proposal in development First and Second stage funding for eXtensible Catalog
Market share / Perspective
• • • Open Source ILS implementations still a very small percentage of the total picture Initial set of successful implementations will likely serve as a catalyst to pave the way for others Successful implementations in wider range of libraries: – State-wide consortium (Evergreen) – Multi-site public library systems (Koha) – School district consortia (OPALS-NA)
Open Source Companies
• • • • Index Data – Founded 1994; No ILS; A variety of other open source products to support libraries: search engines, federated search, Z39.50 toolkit, etc LibLime – Founded 2005. Provides development and support services for Koha ILS. Acquired original developers of Koha in Feb 2007.
• Marc Roberson – VP Library Partners • • John Rose – VP Strategic markets Debra Denault -- Operations Manager Equinox. – Founded Feb 2007; staff formerly associated with GPLS Pines development team Care Affiliates – Founded June 2007; headed by industry veteran Carl Grant.
Impact of Open Source
• • • • • Formidable competition to commercial closed-source products – Alternative to the traditional software licensing models Pressure to increase innovation Pressure to decrease costs Pressure to make commercial systems more open Disrupts the status quo
Open source ILS Benchmarks
• • • • Most decisions to adopt Open Source ILS based on philosophical preferences Open Source ILS will enter the main stream once its products begin to win through objective procurement processes – Hold open source ILS to the same standards as the commercial products – Hold the open source ILS companies to the same standards: • Adequate customer support ratios, financial stability, service level agreements, etc.
Well-documented total cost of ownership statements that can be compared to other vendor price quotes Do the Open Source ILS products offer a new vision?
New Generation of Library Interfaces
Working toward a new generation of library interfaces
• • • • • Redefinition of the “library catalog” Traditional notions of the library catalog are being questioned Better information delivery tools More powerful search capabilities More elegant presentation
Redefinition of library catalogs
• • • • • More comprehensive information discovery environments It’s no longer enough to provide a catalog limited to the traditional library inventory Digital resources cannot be an afterthought Forcing users to use different interfaces depending on type of content becoming less tenable Libraries working toward consolidated search environments that give equal footing to digital and print resources
Comprehensive Search Service
• • • • More like OAI – Open Archives Initiative – Consolidated search services based on metadata and data gathered in advance Problems of scale diminished Problems of cooperation persist Eg: Royal Library of Denmark
Web 2.0 Flavorings
• • • A more social and collaborative approach Web Tools and technology that foster collaboration Tagging, social bookmarking, user rating, user reviews, community interaction
The holy grail of New Gen Library Interfaces
• • • • A single point of entry into all the content and services offered by the library Print + Electronic Local + Remote Locally created Content
Interface expectations
• • • • Millennial generation library users are well acclimated to the Web Used to relevancy ranking – The “good stuff” should be listed first – Users tend not to delve deep into a result list – Good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach, including objective matching criteria supplemented by popularity and relatedness factors.
“Did you mean?” and other features to avoid “No results found” More like this / related content
Interface expectations (cont…)
• • • • • Very rapid response. Users have a low tolerance for slow systems Rich visual information: book jacket images, rating scores, etc.
Let users drill down through the result set incrementally narrowing the field Faceted Browsing – Drill-down vs up-front Boolean or “Advanced Search” – gives the users clues about the number of hits in each sub topic – Ability to explore collections without a priori knowledge Navigational Bread crumbs
Deep search
• • • • Increasing opportunities to search the full contents – Google Library Print, Google Publisher, Open Content Alliance, Microsoft Live Book Search, etc.
– High-quality metadata will improve search precision Commercial search providers already offer “search inside the book” No comprehensive full text search for books quite yet Not currently available through library search environments
Beyond Discovery
• • • • Fulfillment oriented Search -> select -> view Delivery/Fulfillment much harder than discovery Back-end complexity should be as seamless as possible to the user
Library-specific Features
• • • Appropriate relevance factors – Objective keyword ranking + Library weightings – Circulation frequency, OCLC holdings, scholarly content Results grouping (FRBR) Collection focused (vs sales-driven)
Enterprise Integration
• • • • • Ability to deliver content and services through non-library applications Campus portal solutions Courseware Social networking environments Search portals / Feed aggregators
Smart and Sophisticated
• • • Much more difficult than old gen OPACS Not a dumbed-down approach Wed library specific requirements and expectations with e-commerce technologies
Architecture and Standards
• • • Need to have an standard approach for connecting new generation interfaces with ILS and other repositories Proprietary and prevail ad hoc methods currently Digital Library Federation – ILS-Discovery Interface Group
New-Gen Library Interfaces
Current Commercial and Open Source Products
Endeca Guided Navigation
• • • • North Carolina State University http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/ McMaster University http://libcat.mcmaster.ca/ Phoenix Public Library http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/ Florida Center for Library Automation http://catalog.fcla.edu/ux.jsp
AquaBrowser Library
• • • Queens Borough Public Library – http://aqua.queenslibrary.org/ Oklahoma State University – http://boss.library.okstate.edu/ University of Chicago – http://lens.lib.uchicago.edu/
Ex Libris Primo
• • • • Discovery and Delivery platform for academic libraries Vanderbilt University http://alphasearch.library.vanderbilt.edu
University of Minnesota http://prime2.oit.umn.edu:1701/primo_library/li bweb/action/search.do?vid=TWINCITIES University of Iowa http://smartsearch.uiowa.edu/
Encore from Innovative Interfaces
• • • • Designed for academic, public and special libraries Nashville Public Library http://nplencore.library.nashville.org/iii/encore/app Scottsdale Public Library
http://encore.scottsdaleaz.gov/iii/encore/app Yale University Lillian Goldman Law Library http://encore.law.yale.edu/iii/encore/app
OCLC Worldcat Local
• • •
OCLC Worldcat customized for local library catalog
– Relies on hooks into ILS for local services – Tied to library holdings set in WorldCat
University of Washington Libraries http://uwashington.worldcat.org/ University of California Melvyl Catalog
SirsiDynix
• • • Recently announced their next generation discovery environment named Enterprise – Relies on Globalbrain technology from Brainware Many legacy interfaces – Enterprise Portal Solution – Rooms / SchoolRooms – iLink / iBistro (legacy) Product based on FAST announced in March 2006 – withdrawn
VUFind – Villanova University
Based on Apache Solr search toolkit http://www.vufind.org/
Library-developed solutions
• • • • eXtensible Catalog University of Rochester – River Campus Libraries Financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/
The Next Generation of Library Automation
Working toward a new ILS Vision
• • • • • How libraries work has changed dramatically over the last 20 years.
ILS built largely on workflows cast more than 25 years ago Based on assumptions that have long since changed Digital resources represent at least half of most academic libraries collection budgets The automation needs of libraries today is broader than that provided by the legacy ILS
Libraries ready for a new course
• • • Level of dissatisfaction with the current slate of ILS products is very high.
Large monolithic systems are unwieldy—very complex to install, administer and maintain.
Continue to be large gaps in functionality – Interlibrary loan – Collection development – Preservation: print / digital – Book binding – Remote storage operations
Less Proprietary / More Open
• • • Libraries demand more openness Open source movement greatest challenge to current slate of commercial ILS products Demand for open access to data – API’s essential – Beyond proprietary APIs – Ideal: Industry-standard set of API’s implemented by all systems – Current DLF initiative to define API for an ILS for decoupled catalogs
Open but Commercial?
• • • • • As library values evolve toward open solutions, commercial companies will see increasing advantages in adopting more open strategies Open Data – Well documented database schemas – APIs for access to all system functionality More customizability; better integration Open Source Software?
Key differentiation lies in service and support
Comprehensive automation
• • • • Need the ability to automation all aspects of library work Suite of interoperable modules Single point of management for each category of information Not necessarily through a single monolithic system
More lightweight approach
• • • More elegant and efficient Easier to install and administer Automation systems that can be operated with fewer number of technical staff
Redefining the borders
• • • • • • • Many artificial distinctions prevail in the legacy ILS model Online catalog / library portal / institutional portal Circulation / ILL / Direct consortial borrowing / remote storage Collection Development / Acquisitions / budget administration Library acquisitions / Institutional ERP Cataloging / Metadata document ingestion for digital collections Digital / Print workflows
Separation of front-end from back end
• • • • ILS OPAC not necessarily best library interface Many efforts already underway to offer alternatives Too many of the resources that belong in the interface are out of the ILS scope Technology cycles faster for front-end than for back-end processes.
Service-oriented Architecture
• • • Work toward a service-oriented business application Suite of light-weight applications Flexibility to evolve in step with changes in library services and practices
Enterprise interoperability
• • • • • Interoperate with non-library applications Course management Accounting, finance, ERM applications External authentication services Other portal implementations
Massively consolidated implementations
• • • • State/Province-wide ILS implementations Increased reliance on consortia Increased Software as a Service / ASP options hosted by vendors Radical simplification of library policies affecting services offered to patrons
Fitting into the Global Enterprise
• • • • Leverage capabilities of search engines: – Google, Google Scholar, Microsoft Live, Ask, etc OCLC WorldCat Sort out the relationships between the global enterprise and local systems Leverage the content in enterprise discovery systems to drive users toward library resources
Revise assumptions regarding Metadata
• • • • • • • Reliance on MARC widely questioned XML widely deployed The next-gen ILS must natively support many flavors of metadata: MARC, Dublin Core, Onix, METS, etc Library of Congress Subject Headings vs FAST Approaching a post-metadata where discovery systems operate on actual digital objects themselves, not metadata about them – High-quality metadata will always improve discovery Incorporate content from mass digitization efforts Increasing proportions of rich media content: audio, video
Competing in an crowded field of information providers
• • • • Commercial Web destinations increasingly overlap with services offered by libraries Expectations of users set by their experiences with commercial destinations Web-based library services need to be on the same level Pressure to revamp library interfaces, discovery, and delivery tools
New models of Software Development
• • • • Role of commercial partners – Break out of marketing / consumer model – Substantial dialog that shapes the direction of product development Increased partnerships Accelerated development cycles Cost-effective / realistic cost expectations
Evolution vs Revolution
• • • What we have today is a result of 35 years of evolution Is it possible to break free of the constraints of these evolved systems toward a new generation that will offer a fresh approach?
Are libraries now willing to let go of the of ILS legacy of times past and move forward with library automation cast in a new mould.
A unique opportunity
• • • Web 2.0 has invigorated libraries toward more open and collaborative strategies Service Oriented Architecture provides a platform for assembling library systems more in tune with the needs of today’s libraries Intense interest by both libraries and vendors to catch up and move forward in delivering library interfaces that work better for today’s Web savvy users