DAYS OF KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATIONThe Future of the Library Catalog and the ILS

Marshall BreedingDirector for Innovative Technology and ResearchVanderbilt University LibraryNashville, TN USA

2 February 2008

Oslo University College

Issues and Questions addressed Audience: The main target group is librarians wanting an up-date

on their field of work This year we plan to explore the (possible) future of the

catalogue/ILS. What sort of library systems do we foresee? How can we make the front end systems work better for the end

users? Will/should the local OPACs disappear? Should we rather put our efforts into developing good centralized

services with access to all library resources? What needs to be done in terms of developing workable backend

systems?

• In Norway there are national plans to develop a centralized search and lending service which will give end user access to a majority of the local library catalogues. We hope our seminar will provide a good starting point for discussing the future landscape.

Library Technology Guides

http://www.librarytechnology.org Repository for library automation data Lib-web-cats tracks 38,000 libraries and

the automation systems used. Expanding to include more international

scope Announcements and developments

made by companies and organizations involved in library automation technologies

Current ILS Products and Business Environment

LJ Automation System MarketplaceAnnual Industry report published in Library

Journal: 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

Upheavals in the library automation arena

Industry Consolidation Abrupt transitions for major library

automation products Increased industry control by

external financial investors Demise of the traditional OPAC Frustration with ILS products and

vendors Open Source alternatives hit the

mainstreamBreeding, Marshall: Perceptions 2008 an international survey of library automation. http://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2008.pl January 2009.

ILS Industry in Transition

Consolidation through mergers and acquisitions have resulted in a fewer number of players; larger companies

Uncomfortable level of product narrowing

Increased ownership by external interests

Yet: Some companies and products continue on solid ground

Breeding, Marshall “Automation system marketplace 2008: Opportunity Out of Turmoil” Library Journal. April 1, 2008.

Product and Technology Trends Innovation below expectationsConventional ILS less tenableProliferation of products related to e-content management

New genre of discovery-layer interfaces

Web 2.0 / Collaborative Computing

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

The Mandate for Openness

Opportunities for Openness

Open Source Software Alternative to traditionally licensed

software Open Systems

Software that doesn’t hold data hostage

Open Access to Data and Content OpenLibrary VS WorldCat?

Open Source Alternatives

Explosive interest in Open Source driven by disillusionment with current vendors and near-evangelical promotion of this software licensing model

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 – traditional licensing also risky

Open Source ILS enters the mainstream

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

Still a minority player, but gaining ground

Open Source Interest by Region North America: strong

More purchasing by preference Latin America: growing

Searching for low-cost options Asia: weak Europe: Weak to moderate

More structured procurement processes

Open Source ILS options

Koha Commercial support:

LibLime – North America BibLibre -- France

Evergreen Commercial support from Equinox Software

OPALS Commercial support from Media Flex

Business case for Open Source ILS

Comparative total cost of ownership

Evaluate features and functionality Evaluate technology platform and

conceptual models Are they next-generation systems

or open source version of legacy models?“Making a Business Case for Open Source ILS.” Marshall Breeding,

Computers in Libraries March 2008http://www.librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=13134

Observations on Open Source ILS Current Open Source ILS products similar in modular

organization and functionality to existing systems. Evolving to achieve the same level of features and capacity present in established commercial systems.

Initial wave of Open Source ILS commitments happened mostly in the public library arena. Recent activity among academic libraries: WALDO Consortium (Voyager > Koha) University of Prince Edward Island (Unicorn > Evergreen)

Open Source ILS does not result in higher satisfaction Perceptions 2008: An international survey of library

automationhttp://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2008.pl

Do the current open source ILS products provide a new model of automation, or an open source version of what we already have?

Impact of Open Source ILS

Some libraries moving from traditionally licensed products to open source products with commercial support plans

Disruption of ILS industry new pressures on incumbent vendors to

deliver more innovation and to satisfy concerns for openness

New competition / More options

More Open Systems

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.

A Continuum of Openness

Closed Systems

CirculationAcquisitionsCataloging

Staff Interfaces:

End User Interfaces:

Data Stores:

Functionalmodules:

No programmable Access to the system.

Captive to the userInterfaces supplied by the developer

Programmer access:

Standard RDBM Systems

CirculationAcquisitionsCataloging

Staff Interfaces:

End User Interfaces:

Data Stores:

Functionalmodules:

Database administrators can access data stores involved with the system:

Read-only?Read/write?

Developer shares database schema

Programmer access:

Open Source Model

CirculationAcquisitionsCataloging

Staff Interfaces:

End User Interfaces:

Data Stores:

Functionalmodules:

All aspects of the system available to inspection and modification.

Programmer access:

Open API Model

CirculationAcquisitionsCataloging

Staff Interfaces:

End User Interfaces:

Data Stores:

Functionalmodules:

Core application closed.

Third party developers code against the published APIs or RDBMS tables.

Programmer access:

Published APIs

Open Source / Open API Model

CirculationAcquisitionsCataloging

Staff Interfaces:

End User Interfaces:

Data Stores:

Functionalmodules:

Core application closed.

Third party developers code against the published APIs or RDBMS tables.

Programmer access:

Published APIs

Depth of Openness

Evaluate level of access to a products data stores and functional elements: Open source vs Traditional licenses

Some traditional vendors have well established API implementations SirsiDynix Unicorn (API available to authorized customer

sites that take training program) Ex Libris: consistent deployment of APIs in major

products, recent strategic initiative: “Open Platform Program”

Innovative Interfaces: Patron API; Encore Web services

Next-generation Library Interfaces

Crowded Landscape of Information Providers on the Web

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?

The Competition

The best Library OPAC?

Better?

Demand for compelling library interfaces

Urgent need for libraries to offer interfaces their users will like to use

Move into the current millennium Powerful search capabilities in tune with

how the Web works today Meet user expectations set by other Web

destination

Inadequacy of ILS OPACs

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

Disjointed approach to information and service delivery

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

Change underway

Widespread dissatisfaction with most of the current OPACs. Many efforts toward next-generation 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.

Eventual redesign of the ILS to be better suited for current library collections of digital and print content

Scope and Concepts

New Generation Discovery Interfaces:

More than the “library catalog” More comprehensive information

discovery environments It’s no longer enough to provide a catalog

limited to 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

Comprehensive Discovery Service 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.

Web 2.0 Flavorings

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

The Ideal Scope for Next Gen Library Interfaces

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?

Interface Features / User Experience Simple 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

Relevancy Ranking

Based on advanced search engines specifically designed for relevancy Endeca, Lucene, FAST, BrainWare, etc

Web users expect relevancy ordered results 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.

New Paradigm for search and navigation

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 Visual search tools Navigational Bread crumbs

Select / deselect facets

Query / Result Enhancement “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

Deep search Entering post-metadata search era Increasing opportunities to search the full contents

Google Library Print, Google Publisher, Open Content Alliance, 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”

Beyond Discovery to Fulfillment / Delivery

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

New Generation Library Interfaces

Discovery Interface Products Ex Libris Primo Innovative Interfaces: Encore Serials Solutions: Summon (under

development) Medialab Solutions: AquaBrowser VUFind (open source) BiblioCommons eXtensible Catalog (under development)

Next generation ILS

Rethinking the ILS

Fundamental assumption: Print + Digital = Hybrid libraries

Traditional ILS model not adequate for hybrid libraries

Libraries currently moving toward surrounding core ILS with additional modules to handle electronic content

New discovery layer interfaces replacing or supplementing ILS OPACS

Working toward a new model of library automation Monolithic legacy architectures replaced by fabric of SOA

applications Comprehensive Resource Management

“It's Time to Break the Mold of the Original ILS” Computers in Libraries Nov/Dec 2007

ILS: a legacy concept?

ILS = Integrated Library System (Cataloging + Circulation + OPAC + Serials +

Acquisitions) Focused on print and physical inventory Electronic content at the Journal Title or

collection level Emerged in the 1960’s – 1970’s Functionality has evolved and expanded,

but basic concepts and modules remain intact

Note: Some companies work toward evolving the ILS to competently handle both print and digital content (e.g. Innovative Interfaces)

ILS: ever diminishing role

Many libraries putting much less emphasis on ILS

Just an inventory system for physical materials

Investments in electronic content increasing

Management of e-content handled outside of the ILS

Yet: libraries need comprehensive business automation more than ever. Mandate for more efficient operations. Do more with less.

Dis-integration of Library Automation Functionality

ILS -- Print and Physical inventory OpenURL Link resolver Federated Search Electronic Resource Management Module Discovery layer interface

Is non-integrated automation sustainable?

Major burden on library personnel Serial procurement / installation / configuration /

maintenance cycles take many years to result in a comprehensive environment

Inefficient data models Disjointed interfaces for library users Very long cycle to gain comprehensive

automation

Moving toward a new Generation of Library Automation

Are Legacy ILS concepts sustainable? New automation environment based on

current library realities and modern technology platforms

Equal footing for digital and print Service oriented architecture

Breaking down the modules

Traditional ILS Cataloging Circulation Online Catalog Acquisitions Serials control Reporting

Modern approach: SOA

Service Oriented Architecture

http://www.sun.com/products/soa/benefits.jsp

Legacy ILS + e-content modules

FederatedSearch

Circulation Acquisitions

Cataloging Serials

OpenURLLinking

Electronic Resource

MgmtSystem

Staff Interfaces:

End User Interfaces:

Data Stores:

Functionalmodules:

SOA model for business automation

Underlying data repositories Local or Global

Reusable business servicesComposite business applications

SOA for library workflow processes

Data Stores:

ReusableBusiness Services

CompositeApplications

Granulartasks:

Comprehensive Resource Management

Broad conceptual approach that proposes a library automation environment that spans all types of content that comprise library collections.

Traditional ILS vendors: Under development but no public announcements

Open Source projects in early phases Projection: 2-3 years until we begin see

library automation systems that follow this approach. 5-7 years for wider adoption.

ILS Reinvention projects

OLE Project Funded by the Research in Information Technology program of

the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 1-year project to produce the requirements for a new approach

to library automation Will embrace the service-oriented architecture Business process modeling based on library workflows

unconstrained from existing legacy software Possible follow-on project to build and open source reference

implementation Ex Libris URM

Mentioned publically but not formally announced Working toward new platform that better integrates print and

electronic content Probably will be based on some existing products

Large-scale resource sharing

Observations

Trend toward ever larger implementations of library systems

Problems with scale-ability less of a concern than ever before

Many possible approaches Distributed Centralized

Distributed systems

Interconnected ILS systems Union catalogs

Virtual – Z39.50, NCIP, ISO ILL Physical: harvested and synched

NCIP or Z39.50 for real-time holdings Resource sharing or consortial borrowing

component

Large-scale centralized environments

Large-scale resource databases that provide discovery, local library automation, and cross-institutional borrowing

COBISS – Slovenia and other Balkan countries Serves national, university, and public

libraries Increasing interest in state-wide systems

in the US Based on Open source and proprietary

software WorldCat: Global discovery system (and

more)

Conclusion: many opportunities Open source vs proprietary software New models of library automation that

better integrate physical and electronic content

New discovery interfaces to improve end-user experiences

Large-scale systems that enable broad based resource sharing

Questions and Discussion