Latest Trends in Library Automation: Building Creative and
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Transcript Latest Trends in Library Automation: Building Creative and
85th Annual Meeting
October 15, 2009
Open source for library automation
and resource discovery
Marshall Breeding
Director for Innovative Technology and Research
Vanderbilt University Library
Nashville, TN USA
http://www.librarytechnology.org/
http://www.librarytechnology.org
Repository for library automation data
Expanding to include more international
scope
Announcements and developments made by
companies and organizations involved in
library automation technologies
Started building database in 1995
Most comprehensive resource for tracking
ILS and other library automation products
Serves as a directory for general public
Specialized tool for tracking ILS and other
automation products
40,825 Total libraries listed
377 Law Libraries listed
Annual Industry report published in Library
Journal:
2009: Investing in the future
2008: Opportunity out of turmoil
2007: An industry redefined
2006: Reshuffling the deck
2005: Gradual evolution
2004: Migration down, innovation up
2003: The competition heats up
2002: Capturing the migrating customer
Industry Consolidation
Abrupt transitions for major library automation products
Increased industry control by external financial investors
Uncomfortable level of product narrowing
Open Source products and service companies enter the
competition
A small contingent of founder-owned companies
continue to thrive
New wave of companies based on open source service and
support
Breeding, Marshall: Perceptions 2008 an international survey of library automation.
http://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2008.pl January 2009.
Very complex market
Local national and regional companies & Global
competitors
Increasingly consolidated and global
Concentration of library automation into a
smaller niche of companies
The vast majority of libraries choose to
license proprietary ILS products from
established vendors
Some of these companies continue to see
growth in new client libraries
Defections to competitors and open source
currently happen at relatively low levels
Many unannounced open source projects
may alter this trend
Commercial companies developing and
supporting proprietary products prevail
Open source ILS procurements
Non-profit OCLC cooperative positioned to
play a larger role
Move beyond Open Source / Proprietary
software as philosophical arguments.
SaaS largely neutralizes the pragmatic
differences
Software choices made on the merits of
functionality
Company choices made on the merits of their
service delivery
Library procurement of open source ILS
Commercial support companies
▪ Small and fragmented
Many open source implementations taking
place independent of commercial support
contracts
Earlier era of pioneering efforts to ILS
shifting into one where open source
alternatives fall in the mainstream
Off-the-shelf, commercially supported
product available
Sectors: Public, Academic, Schools
Still a minority player, but gaining some
ground
Open Source Software
Alternative to traditionally licensed
software
Open Systems
Software that doesn’t hold data hostage
Increasing need for enterprise
integration
Many libraries energized to take on local
development projects
Traditional vendors interested in making best
use of open source components
The direct adoption of open source products
represents only one aspect of open source in
the library automation industry.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Georgia Public Library Systems recognized with Award for
Technology Collaboration ($50,000)
OLE (Open Library Environment)
▪ $475,700 Phase I
▪ ?? Phase II
eXtensible Catalog
▪ $283,000 Phase I
▪ $749,000 Phase II
IMLS
“Empowered by Open Source”
$998,556
▪ Led by King County + Peninsula Library System in California, the Ann
Arbor District Library in Michigan and the Orange County Library
System in Florida
Index Data
YAZ toolkit
▪ Z39.50
▪ SRU/W
Zebra XML Search Engine
Metaproxy
▪ “metasearching proxy front end server for integrating
access to multiple back-end Z39.50-compliant
databases”
MasterKey federated search engine
Integrated Library Systems
Koha, Evergreen, OPALS, NewGenLib
Repositories
Dspace, Fedora, DuraCloud
Discovery Interfaces
Vufind
Blacklight
SOPAC (Social OPAC)
eXtensible Catalog
ILL
Relais (?)
Traditional ILS functionality offered under
open source license
Commercial / Proprietary
Ex Libris URM
Community Source
Open Library Environment: OLE
Originally developed in New Zealand in 1999
Perl / MySQL / Linux
Implementations worldwide
Adopted by public / academic / special
Many international sectors
Emerged out of the Nelsonville Public Library
tech staff
WALDO large customer providing major
development funds
LibLime Enterprise Koha
Rift in the development community
Long-standing library automation services
firm
Developed ArchivalWare
Previous Distributor of Ex Libris products
Core customers in federal government
Now provides services surrounding Koha
Small Firm
Services primarily for Koha, also supports
evergreen
Not directly part of PTFS
European distributor for ArchivalWare
Provides support services for Koha and
Evergreen
French company established for Koha
services
Founders involved with Koha development
prior to founding company
LibLime Enterprise Koha
Hosted on Amazon infrastructure (EC2)
Enhanced version of Koha
Biblios.net cataloging environment
GetIt Acquisitions
Source code for LLEK not yet released
Originally developed by the Georgia Public
Library System
Very large consortium of small public libraries
Replaced a Unicorn System
British Colombia SITKA
Evergreen Indiana
Michigan Indiana Consortium
King County Public Library
Other major projects brewing, not formally
announced
Primary commercial support firm
Spin-off from GPLS
Migration, hosting, support, development
services
Oriented toward consortia
Open source automation system for K-12
School libraries
Developed by Media-Flex
Previous experience with Mandarin library
automation
Adopted by many BOCES in New York state
Church and synagogue libraries
Funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
New automation framework based on new
assumptions
Service-oriented architecture
Business process modeling
Enterprise focus
More than an ILS
Less than an ILS
Expands functionality beyond that offered by
existing ILS products
Format agnostic – focus on resource
management
Support for public and technical services
Looks anew at library workflows: how would
libraries function outside if not forced to
follow the patterns demanded by legacy
software
Example: ILS for print / ERM for electronic
Do not duplicate functionality found
elsewhere on the enterprise
Authentication services
Financial and accounting modules
Make use of shared enterprise service bus
Workflow management
Event management
SOA infrastructure
Phase I Planning complete
Create basic blueprint and design
Engage a broad community
Conceptual model
Phase II – Build Project
2-year project
Consortium of libraries developed proposal to
Mellon
~$5 Million investment shared by partner libraries
and Mellon
AKA: Next Generation Catalogs
Lots of non-library Web destinations deliver content
to library patrons
Google Scholar
Amazon.com
Wikipedia
Ask.com
Do Library Web sites and catalogs meet the
information needs of our users?
Do they attract their interest?
Urgent need for libraries to offer interfaces
their users will like to use
Powerful search capabilities in tune with how
the Web works today
Meet user expectations set by other Web
destination
Maintain quality of searching in precision,
predictability, and scope
Silos Prevail
Books: Library OPAC (ILS module)
Articles: Aggregated content products, e-journal
collections
OpenURL linking services
E-journal finding aids (Often managed by link resolver)
Local digital collections
▪ ETDs, photos, rich media collections
Metasearch engines
All searched separately
Widespread dissatisfaction with legacy OPACs.
Many efforts toward next-generation discovery
layer products.
Movement among libraries to break out of the
current mold of library catalogs and offer new
interfaces better suited to the expectations of
library users.
Decoupling of the front-end interface from the
back-end library automation system.
Eventual redesign of the ILS to be better suited for
current library collections of digital and print
content
More comprehensive information discovery
environments
Primary search tool that extends beyond print
resources
Digital resources cannot be an afterthought
Systems designed for e-content only are also
problematic
Forcing users to use different interfaces depending
on type of content becoming less tenable
Libraries working toward consolidated user
environments that give equal footing to digital and
print resources
AquaBrowser
Ex Libris Primo
Innovative Interfaces: Encore
Serials Solutions: Summon (under development)
Medialab Solutions: AquaBrowser
SirsiDynix Enterprise
The Library Corporation: LS2 PAC
VUFind (open source)
BiblioCommons
eXtensible Catalog (under development)
Tags, user-supplied ratings and reviews
Leverage social networking interactions to assist
readers in identifying interesting materials:
BiblioCommons
Leverage use data for a recommendation service
of scholarly content based on link resolver data:
Ex Libris bX service
Based on Apache Solr search toolkit
Lead developer: Andrew Nagey (now with
Serials Solutions)
http://www.vufind.org/
Libraries using VuFind:
National Library of Australia; Villanova
University; CARLI, University of Georgia
libraries, South Dakota Library Network, etc
Initially developed by John Blyberg
Build on Drupal
Developed at the University of Virginia
Apache SOLR
Ruby on Rails interface
Libraries working with Blacklight include:
Stanford University, University of Virginia
University of Rochester – River Campus
Libraries
Financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation
http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/
Two rounds of funding from Mellon
▪ $283,000 (April 2006)
▪ $749,000 (October 2007)
Wider institutional participation
Pre-populated indexes
Web-scale
Increased full-text indexing
New-generation interface
Harvested local content
Vendor-supplied indexes of library content
E-journals, databases, e-books
Book collections beyond local library collections
Indexing the full corpus of information available globally
Google aims to address all the world’s information
Not quite comprehensive – partial harvesting of any given resource
Discovery Layer Products for libraries aim to address all
content collected by libraries:
Or at least major portions
Print
Remotely access electronic content: e-journals, e-books, databases,
licensed and open access.
Local special collections: digital and print.
Addresses the comprehensive body of content
held within library collections
Comprehensive, unified
Entering post-metadata search era
Increasing opportunities to search the full contents
Google Library Print, Google Publisher, Open
Content Alliance, government publications, etc.
High-quality metadata will improve search
precision
Commercial search providers already offer “search
inside the book” and searching across the full text of
large book collections
Not currently available through library search
environments
Deep search highly improved by high-quality
metadata
See: Systems Librarian, May 2008 “Beyond the current generation of next-generation
interfaces: deeper search”
Initial products focused on technology
AquaBrowser, Endeca, Primo, Encore, VUfind
Mostly locally-installed software
Current phase focused on pre-populated indexes
that aim to deliver Web-scale discovery
Summon (Serials Solutions)
WorldCat Local (OCLC)
EBSCO Discovery Service (EBSCO)
Primo Central
New Discovery Service – initial libraries now in
production
Consolidated index harvested from many
sources
ProQuest, Gale, Thompson Reuters (Web of Science),
LexisNexis, etc
500,000,000 articles represented
Full-text search + Citations
Local catalog data harvested, real-time link to
holdings
Other local repositories harvested
Others available through metasearch
Repository of article-level indexes maintained
and hosted by Ex Libris
Available to Primo sites without additional
cost
Move more content from metasearch to local
index
Agreement with OCLC for WorldCat data
EBSCO Host interface and content
Content from other publishers and providers
Existing service in pilot stage for new
discovery service
WorldCat.org data + ArticleFirst (30 million
articles)
Agreement with EBSCO to load EBSCOhost
citation data into WorldCat
Pursuing agreements with additional content
providers
No-cost option to FirstSearch subscribers
No reclamation to reconcile local ILS with
WorldCat
One ILS supported; must be among
supported products
Program to expose thousands of libraries to
WorldCat Local as a discovery option
Traditional Proprietary Commercial ILS
Millennium, Symphony, Polaris
Traditional Open Source ILS
Evergreen, Koha
Clean slate automation framework (SOA,
enterprise-ready)
Ex Libris URM, OLE Project
Cloud-based automation system
WorldCat Local (+circ, acq, license management)
Beyond selecting one brand from an
assortment of similar products
Several conceptually diverse options
Companies and projects now competing on
innovation