Building Creative and Inspiring Discovery Platforms Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Nashville, TN USA

 1) Participants will assess the latest library automation innovations and discovery platforms.

2) Participants will better understand how libraries can meet patron expectations.

 Marshall Breeding will address next-generation library interfaces and what the future holds for merging currently disparate resources, or silos of information. Some next-generation discovery platforms include AquaBrowser, Encore, Endeca, Primo, WorldCat Local and NELLCO’s Universal Search Solution. Breeding is a VIP to AALL 2009, sponsored by ALL-SIS, the Library Journal author of “Automation System Marketplace,” and a Computers In Libraries columnist. In addition, Breeding will update the audience on current innovations in library automation technology.

   Georgia Briscoe, Coordinator and Co-moderator, University of Colorado Law Library, William A. Wise Law Library Filippa Marullo Anzalone, Co moderator, Boston College Law Library Marshall Breeding, Vanderbilt University, Jean and Alexander Heard Library

     Library Technology Guides / lib-web-cats Annual Perceptions Survey ◦ ◦ ◦ Library Journal Automation Marketplace Regular contact with principals of library automation companies and projects Regular publishing commitments: Library Technology Reports Smart Libraries Newsletter Computers in Libraries

     Track automation trends beyond North America UK, Australia: comprehensive automation data on public and academic libraries China, Taiwan: Most academics, working on publics South America: building database on library automation Interest in automation in the developing world

    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

    ◦ Academic law libraries share the ILS of the broader institution Few operate their own systems Stand-alone law libraries gravitate toward fairly narrow slate of products Data difficult to gather for libraries in law firms: typically behind corporate firewall Seeking a comprehensive listing of US law libraries

         Sophisticated clientele – emphasis on experienced researchers Need for comprehensive and precise information tools Cost of errors or omissions high Complex collections of electronic and print Press the limits of cataloging, serials, and acquisitions functionality in ILS Serials more prominent than monographs Electronic content concentrated in a small number of delivery products ◦ HeinOnline, Westlaw, Lexis-Nexis Many boutique products with niche area content General Web content less of a threat to law libraries than to public and academic libraries

        Journal: Library 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 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.

     Demise of the traditional OPAC ◦ New genre of discovery interfaces

Conventional ILS less tenable

Conceived around print inventory, difficult transition to mostly e-content Increasing pressure for new innovations in automation solutions

Proliferation of products related to e-content management

    Currently implemented

ad hoc

Many libraries putting up blogs, wikis, and fostering engagement in social networking sites Proliferation of silos with no integration or interoperability with larger library Web presence Next Gen: Build social and collaborative features into core automation components

   ◦

Open Source Software

Alternative to traditionally licensed software

Open Systems

◦ Software that doesn’t hold data hostage

Increasing need for enterprise integration

     ◦ Explosive interest in Open Source driven by disillusionment with current vendors and increasing support of this software licensing model Beginning to emerge as a practical option both in the ILS and discovery layer arenas TOC (Total Cost of Ownership) varies relative to proprietary commercial model Many libraries document substantial savings Both open source and commercial software involve risk Law libraries less involved in open source ILS than other segments

    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

    ◦ Integrated Library Systems Koha, Evergreen, OPALS, NewGenLib Repositories ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Dspace, Fedora, DuraCloud Discovery Interfaces Vufind Blacklight SOPAC (Social OPAC) eXtensible Catalog ◦ ILL Relais (?)

    Some libraries moving from traditionally licensed products to open source products with commercial support plans Disruption of library automation industry ◦ new pressures on incumbent vendors to deliver more innovation and to satisfy concerns for openness Low-cost options may help moderate pricing of commercial products New competition / More options

    Pressure for traditionally licensed products to become more open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) let libraries access and manipulate their data outside of delivered software A comprehensive set of APIs potentially give libraries more flexibility and control in accessing data and services and in extending functionality than having access to the source code.

Customer access to APIs does not involve as much risk to breaking core system functions, avoids issues of version management and code forking associated with open source models.

   ◦ ◦ ◦ 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

      Online Catalog modules provided with an ILS subject to broad criticism as failing to meet expectations of growing segments of library patrons.

Not great at delivering electronic content Complex text-based interfaces Relatively weak keyword search engines Lack of good relevancy sorting Narrow scope of content

  ◦ ◦ 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

  Online Catalog ◦ Interface conventions from an earlier Web era ◦ Scope: Tied to the ILS and its content domain  Discovery Layer ◦ Modern interface elements ◦ Scope: aims to address broad range of components that constitute library collections

   Most vendors are deemphasizing their traditional catalogs Separate discovery interface New-gen online catalog with features borrowed from the discovery interface genre

      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

     Current distributed query model of federated search model not adequate Expanded scope of search through harvested content ◦ Consolidated search services based on metadata and data gathered in advance (like OAI-PMH) Problems of scale diminished Problems of cooperation persist Federated search currently operates as a plug-in component of next-gen interfaces.

     Strategic infrastructure + Web 2.0

A more social and collaborative approach Web Tools and technology that foster collaboration Integrated blogs, wiki, tagging, social bookmarking, user rating, user reviews Avoid Web 2.0 information silos

       Single point of entry ◦ Optional advanced search Relevancy ranked results Facets for narrowing and navigation Query enhancement – spell check, etc Suggested related results / recommendation service Enriched visual and textual content Single Sign-on

   ◦ ◦ Based on advanced search engines specifically designed for relevancy ◦ Endeca, Lucene, FAST, BrainWare, etc Web users expect relevancy ordered results ◦ Items with strongest probability of interest should appear first Users tend not to delve deep into a result list Good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach, including objective matching criteria supplemented by social and relatedness factors.

Continued need for objective, comprehensive search techniques ◦ Ability to select other search methods and sorting options – browse, linked data, 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 knowledge a priori

     “Did you mean?” and other features to avoid “No results found” Validated spell check / query suggestions Automatic inclusion of authorized and related terms More like this – recommendation service Make the query and the response to it better than the query provided

       Attempt to collapse silos or draw appropriately from each silo Unified user experience A single point of entry into all the content and services offered by the library Print + Electronic Local + Remote Locally created Content User contributed content

◦ ◦ ◦ 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

   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 Or at least major portions 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: 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

  Local discovery provides flexibility for libraries to create customized access to collections Web-scale discovery emphasizes unified access and broad scope

   ◦   Deep search highly improved by high-quality See: Systems Librarian, May 2008 “Beyond the current generation of next-generation interfaces: deeper search”

     Fulfillment oriented Search -> select -> view Delivery/Fulfillment much harder than discovery Back-end complexity should be as seamless as possible to the user Offer services for digital and print content

Current Commercial and Open Source Products

          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)

  ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ 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 England Law Library Consortium Consolidated search environment with specialized content for law libraries  HeinOnline, local catalogs, etc.

http://www.nellco.org/index.cfm?pageId=505&p arentID=504 http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/litaevent s/litaforum2008/NELLCO.pdf

Partner with Index Data for software development and hosting ◦ http://uss.indexdata.com/ Subscribers only -- Authentication required

     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

   Agreement with OCLC for WorldCat data EBSCO Host interface and content Content from other publishers and providers

   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

    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

   Extend WorldCat Local to include ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Circulation Delivery Acquisitions License Management Positioned as Web-scale, cloud computing model, cooperative library system Pilot sites being finalized; general availability in 2010

    ◦ 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