j’s scratchpad

I attended the Massachusetts Library Association ILS Pre Conference on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 Marshall Breeding gave the keynote speech called The Future of the Integrated Library Systems: Moving toward new models and open systems.

My notes and handout info: (Need to take better notes or tape talk)

None of the current ILS products are less than a decade old and are approaching end of their life cycle:

ALEPH 500 1996
Voyager 1995
Unicorn 1982
Polaris 1997
Virtua 1995
Koha 1999
Library Solution 1997
Everygreen 2004
Talis 1992

No success in launching new systems
An increasingly consolidated industry
Fewer choices
Narrowing of product options

Industry health:

Overall industry showing some growth; individual companies more profitable than ever
Mixed company growth according to hiring statistics:

Ex Libris +6%
Innovative +5%
Library Corporation -10%
SirsiDynix -28%

One company has 60-70% of the market

20-30% of rural libraries have no automated systems.

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

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 generation interfaces
Federated search
Linking
Electronic resource management
Help deliver content in a better way
Offer a better user experience

New direction in library automation:

A successful pitch for new automation software is one that enables significant transformation toward a new vision of the library
Can’t keep doing the same thing in the same way
Back-end systems make only a moderate impact on customer service delivery
Need to do short term vs. long term planning
Need to deliver electronic resources to the Interent

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
The above items are not working so well together
Need user point of view

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

OCLC in the automation industry:

Next generation interface arena: WorldCat Local
Technology acquisitions:
OCLC Pica purchased Sisis
OCLC Pica purchased FDI
OCLC purchased Informatics
OCLC purchased DiMeMa
EZproxy acquired

Open source alternatives:

Explosive interest in open source driven by disillusionment with current vendors
Beginning to emerge as a practical option
More solid choices
Total Cost of Ownership still roughly equal to proprietary commercial model
Commercial/Proprietary options also a risk:
–”The SirisDynix 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-generation Catalogs:

–VuFind (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
First and Second stage funding for eXensible Catalog

Market share/perspective:

Open Source ILS implementations still a very small percentage of the total picture

Open Source Companies:

Index Data
LibLime
Equinox
Care Affiliates

Impact of Open Source:

Formidable competition to commercial closed-source products
Disrupts the status quo Shake out the competition a good thing

Open Source ILS benchmarks:

Hold open source ILS to the same standars as the commercial products
Well documented total cost of ownership statements that can be compared to other vendor price quotes

Next generation library interfaces:

Better interfaces
Better delivery tools
More powerful search capabilities
Web 2.0 flavorings: tagging, social bookmarking , user reviews, community interaction
Relevancy ranking good stuff should be listed first
Rich visual information: book jacket images, etc.
Faceted browsing
Increasing opportunities to search the full contents
Not a dumbed-down approach
Search portals/Feed aggregators
API’s essential
One stop shopping
Reliance on MARC widely questioned
Next-gen ILS must natively support many flavors of metadata: MARC, Dublin Core, Onix, MEYS, etc.
Incorporate content from mass digitization efforts
New models of software development should be in months, not years over years.

Marshall has a website called Library Technology Guides: Key resources in the field of Library Automation which covers the latest news in the library automation world:

http://librarytechnology.org/

More postings on the preconference and Wed conference on the way!

Posted by Rich

MASSLIB08

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 12:23 am and is filed under Professional Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.