Transcript The Future of Integrated Library Systems

Library Automation
Landscape:
Status Quo or Transformation?
Marshall Breeding
Director for Innovative Technologies and Research
Vanderbilt University
http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding
http://www.librarytechnology.org/
October 19, 2007
Business Trends
A look at the companies involved in library
automation and related technologies
Business Landscape
 Library Journal Automated System Marketplace:
 An Industry redefined (April 1, 2007)
 An increasingly consolidated industry
 VC and Private Equity playing a stronger role then ever
before
 Moving out of a previous phase of fragmentation where
many companies expend energies producing
decreasingly differentiated systems in a limited
marketplace
 Narrowing of product options
 Open Source opportunities rise to challenge
stranglehold of traditional commercial model
Other Business Factors
 Level of innovation falls below
expectations
 Companies struggle to keep up with ILS
enhancements and R&D for new
innovations.
 Pressure within companies to reduce
costs, increase revenue
 Pressure from libraries for more
innovative products
Library Automation M&A
History
Why worry about who owns the
Industry?
 Some of the most important decisions that
affect the options available to libraries are
made in the corporate board room.
 Increased control by financial interests of
private equity and venture capital firms
 Recent industry events driven by external
corporate decisions;
 Market success and technological advantages
don’t necessarily drive business decisions
Investor owned companies
 SirsiDynix -> Vista Equity Partners (Recently
bought out Seaport Capital + Hicks Muse/HM
Capital)
 Ex Libris -> Francisco Partners (recently
bought out VC’s)
 Endeavor -> Francisco Partners (recently
bought out Elsevier)
 Infor (was Extensity, was Geac) -> Golden
Gate
 Polaris -> Croydon Company
 formerly part of Gaylord Bros (acquired by Demco)
Public companies:
 Auto-Graphics
 De-listed from SEC reporting requirements
 Was OTC:AUGR now Pink Sheets:AUGR
Founder / Family owned
companies
 Innovative Interfaces
 100% ownership by Jerry Kline following
2001 buy-out of partner Steve Silberstien
 The Library Corporation
 Owned by Annette Murphy family
 VTLS – tech spin-off from Virginia Tech,
wholly owned by Vinod Chachra
 These companies not under the control
of external financial interests
Impact of Ownership
 Long term vs short tem interests
 Decision makers in tune with the needs of the
customer base?
 Ability to understand libraries as business
customers
 Serving non-profit organizations quite different
 It’s possible to operate a profitable company
and stay true to the interest of library as
customer
Revenue sources
 New ILS sales
 Maintenance support
 15% purchase cost annually with inflation
adjustments
 Non-ILS software
 Library Services
Diverse Business
Activities
 Many ways to expand business in ways that
leverage library automation expertise:
 Non-ILS software: link resolvers, federated search,
ERM, portal/alternative Web interfaces
 Retrospective conversion services
 RFID or AMH
 Network Consulting Services
 Content products
 Imaging services
Business Development
Strategy
 Essential to understand the strategic business
plans of the company
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Long term growth?
Short term profits?
Growth through M&A
Organic growth by attracting new customer libraries
Positioning for sale?
 Get past press releases and spin and look
closely at the corporate behavior.
Libraries Demand choice
 Current market narrowing options
 Consolidation working toward monopoly?
 Many companies currently prosper in the
library automation industry
 Room for niche players
 Domination by a large monopoly unlikely to be
accepted by library community
 Monopoly would be subverted by Open Source
or other cooperative movement
The Chopping Block
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Horizon 8.0 (Mar 2007)
Horizon 7.x (Mar 2007)
ENCompass (Jan 2006)
LinkFinderPlus (Jan 2006)
Taos (Dec 2001)
NOTIS Horizon (Jun 1994)
Legacy Phase out
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DRA Classic
Dynix Classic
MultiLIS
INLEX/3000
Advance
PLUS
VTLS Classic
NOTIS
PC Systems: Winnebago Spectrum, Follett Circ
Plus, Athena, Concourse
Status of current ILS
Products
 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
 Horizon 8.0
 Taos
Current Vintage
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ALEPH 500
Voyager
Millennium
Carl
Unicorn
Polaris
Virtua
Koha
Library.Solution
Evergreen
1996
1995
1982
1982
1982
1997
1995
1999
1997
2004
ILS Migration Trends
 Few voluntary lateral migrations
 Forced Migrations
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Vendor abandonment
Need to move from legacy systems
Exit from bad marriages with vendors
Exit from bad marriages with consortia
 It’s never been harder to justify
investments in ILS
Products surrounding the
ILS
 Need for products focused on electronic
content and user experience
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Next-gen interfaces
Federated search
Linking
Electronic Resource Management
An age of less integrated
systems
 Core ILS supplemented by:
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OpenURL Link Resolvers
Metasearch / Federated Search
Electronic Resource Management
Next Generation Library Interfaces
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:
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OCLC
Cambridge / Bowker
WebFeat
Muse Global
Library Automation
Companies
SirsiDynix
 Highly consolidated company
 Sirsi Corp, Dynix, DRA, MultiLIS, INLEX/300, Docutec, OCLC
Local Systems, DataPhase, Electric Memory, NOTIS Systems
 Largest in the industry
 Owned by Vista Equity Partners
 Previously supported by VC: Seaport Capital, Hicks Muse)
 Consolidated company working toward consolidating
and integrating products and business units.
 Recent announcement for single Unicorn-based ILS
Ex Libris
 Global provider of software to Academic
Libraries
 Largest in the academic market
 Owned by Francisco Partners
 Acquired Endeavor in Nov 2006
 Strong focus on non-ILS products:
 SFX – MetaLib – Verde – DigiTool – Primo
 Continues to support and develop ALEPH and
Voyager
Innovative Interfaces
 Privately owned by one of this founders
 No involvement with VC or Private equity
 No recent involvement in M&A
 Acquired SLS in 1997
 Evolutionary Product strategy
 Innopac -> Millennium beginning in 1995
 Millennium as core technology
 Encore, RightResults, ResearchPro
Follett Software Company
 Consolidated company focused on K-12 school library
automation
 FSC, Sagebrush Corporation, Winnebago Software, Nichols
Advancd Technologies, Card Catalog Company, Scribe
 Privately owned; division of Follett Corporation
 Destiny as flagship system for centralized automation
of districts
 Legacy: Winnebago Spectrum, Athena, Circ Plus,
Infocentre
 Accent – OEM of Unicorn offered by Sagebrush
withdrawn
The Library Corporation
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Family owned and managed
Focused on public libraries
Acquired Carl in 2000
Acquired Tech Logic in April 2005
No involvement by VC or Private Equity
Auto-Graphics
 Founded 1950
 Evolved from traditional publishing
services company to focus on library
automation
 Publicly owned company (Pink Sheets)
Polaris
 Privately owned and funded by Croyden, a
small holding company
 Martin Blackman
 Morris Bergreen (deceased Jul 9, 2001)
 Formerly part of Gaylord Bros
 Gaylord Information Systems, GIS Information
Systems (May 2003) > Polaris Library Systems
 Focus on U.S. Public Libraries
 Products based on Windows-based
technologies
OCLC in the ILS arena?
 Increasingly overlapped with library automation
activities
 WorldCat Local recently announced
 Penetrating deeper into local libraries
 Library-owned cooperative on a buying binge of
automation companies:
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Openly Informatics
Fretwell-Downing Informatics
Sisis Informationssysteme
PICA (now 100%)
DiMeMa (CONTENTdm)
 ILS companies concerned about competing with a nonprofit with enormous resources and the ability to shift
costs.
Cambridge Information
Group / Bowker
 Serials Solutions
 Syndetic Solutions
 Electronic Resource Management
 Federated Search
 E-Journals data
 AquaBrowser
 Next-gen Interface
Open Source ILS
Arena
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
 Still a risky strategy for libraries
 Commercial systems also a risk
Koha: first Open Source
ILS
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Koha + Index Data Zebra = Koha ZOOM
~300 (mostly small) libraries
Horowhenua Library Trust
Nelsonville Public Library
 Athens County, OH
 Crawford County Federated Library System
 10 Libraries in PA
 Howard County, MD
 Central Kansas Library System
Koha
Evergreen
 Developed by the Georgia Public Library
Service
 Small development team
 June 2004 – development begins
 Sept 5, 2006 – live production
 Streamlined environment: single shared
implementation, all libraries follow the
same policies, one library card
Libraries using Evergreen
 Georgia PINES
 http://gapines.org
 260 libraries in Georgia
 Does not include municipal systems: Atlanta-Fulton
County, Cobb County
 Province of British Columbia in Canada –
Northern PINES
 Experimental evaluation
 King County Library System in WA state.
 Under consideration by academic libraries in
Canada
Evergreen
Learning Access ILS
 Learning Access Institute
 Turnkey Open Source ILS
 Designed for underserved rural public
libraries
 http://www.learningaccess.org
LearningAccess ILS
SCOOLS
 South Central Organization of (School)
Libraries
 consortium of K-12 school libraries in NY
 Koha derivative
 Supported by Media Flex
SCOOLS
LibLime
 Small private company formed in early 2005
 Devoted to support of Koha and other open
source software
 Launched by individuals involved with the Koha
implementation at the Nelsonville Public
Library
 Recently acquired the Koha activities of Katipo
Communications (Feb 2007)
 Total of 9-10 FTE
Equinox Software
 Small company
 Devoted to facilitating libraries implement
Evergreen the open source ILS developed for
PINES
 Launched by individuals related to the
development and implementation of Evergreen
at the Georgia Public Library System
 Currently formed by mostly part-time
employees
Care Affiliates
 Recently formed company to provide
support for Open Source library
automation products.
 Carl Grant – Former COO of VTLS,
President of Ex Libris (USA), Innovative
Interfaces, DRA, etc.
Product and Technology
Trends
Current state of library
automation functionality
 The core ILS focused mostly on print resources
and traditional library workflow processes.
 Add-ons available for dealing with electronic
content:
 Link resolvers
 Metasearch environments
 Electronic Resource Management
 A loosely integrated environment
 Labor-intensive implementation and maintenance
 Most are “must have” products for academic
libraries with significant collections of e-content
Problems with current
slate of automation
components
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Development cycle behind current needs
Very loosely coupled
Diverse interfaces
Not seamless to library users
Multiple points of management for library
staff
 Long and complex cycles of
implementation and integration
Why such fragmented
automation?
 Maintenance alone not adequate to fund
development of new products
 Libraries not willing to accept higher
maintenance and support payments
 Business requirement to spin off new
products
 Can be counter to the need for more
seamless, integrated, and
comprehensive automation
Common tools for access
to local collections
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Library OPAC (ILS module)
Links to aggregators, publishers
Cross linking via OpenURL
Journal finding aids (Often managed by
link resolver)
 Metasearch engines
 All loosely coupled
Library OPAC
 Evolved from card catalogs and continues to
be bound by the constraints of that legacy.
 Complex and rich in features
 Interfaces often do not compare favorably with
alternatives available on the Web
 Print materials becoming a smaller component
of the library’s overall collections.
Redefinition of library
catalogs and interfaces
 Traditional notions of the library catalog are
being questioned
 It’s no longer enough to provide a catalog
limited to print resources
 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
The best Library OPAC?
Troubling statistic
Where do you typically begin your
search for information on a
particular topic?
College Students Response:
 89% Search engines (Google 62%)
 2% Library Web Site (total respondents -> 1%)
 2% Online Database
 1% E-mail
 1% Online News
 1% Online bookstores
 0% Instant Messaging / Online Chat
OCLC. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources
(2005) p. 1-17.
Change underway
 Widespread dissatisfaction with most of the
current OPACs. Many efforts toward nextgeneration catalogs and interfaces.
 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.
Toward compelling library
interfaces
 Urgent need for libraries to offer
interfaces their users will like to use
 Move out of the 1990’s
 Powerful search capabilities in tune with
how the Web works today
 User expectations set by other Web
destination
The holy grail
 A single point of entry into all the content
and services offered by the library
 Print + Electronic
 Local + Remote
 Locally metadata created Content
Comprehensive Search
Service
 More like OAI
 Open Archives Initiative
 Consolidated search services based on and
data gathered in advance
 Problems of scale diminished
 Problems of cooperation persist
Web 2.0 influence
 A more social and collaborative approach
 Web Tools and technology that foster
collaboration
 Blogs, wiki, blogs, tagging, social
bookmarking, user rating, user reviews
 Web services – important infrastructure
 XML APIs
 AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and
XML)
Interface expectations
 Millennial gen library users are well acclimated
to the Web and like it.
 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.
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.
 Navigational Bread crumbs
 Ratings and rankings
Appropriate organizational
structures
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LCSH vs FAST
Full MARC vs Dublin Core or MODS
Discipline-specific thesauri or ontologies
“tags”
Current Next-Gen
catalog products
Common characteristics
 Decoupled interface
Mass export of catalog data
Alternative search engine
Alternative interface
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/
Ex Libris Primo
 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
 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
VUFind – Villanova
University
Based on Apache Solr search toolkit
http://www.vufind.org/
OCLC Worldcat Local
 OCLC Worldcat customized for local
library catalog
 Relies on hooks into ILS for local
services
 University of Washington Libraries
http://uwashington.worldcat.org/
 University of California Melvyl Catalog
Library-developed
solutions
 eXtensible Catalog
 University of Rochester – River Campus
Libraries
 Financial support from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation
 http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/
Questions and
Discussion