OSS AND LIBRARIES A LITERATURE REVIEW -...

CHAPTER 2

OSS AND LIBRARIES: A LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction

In this chapter the researcher has attempted to review literature, related to the concept

and development of open source software; open source software and libraries;

integrated library systems- concept, growth, implementation and evaluation; OSILS –

concept, growth, case studies and evaluation; and, the evaluation methodologies

available for OSS products in general and OSILS in particular. The available

literature reveals that library automation industry is in the time of major

transformation, and the Open Source Movement (OSM) has found fertile ground

among libraries in this transformation. The OSM has introduced a new way of

thinking about the development and distribution of software, new products, and

services architecture in the library automation industry (Balnaves, 2008). It has

disrupted long established patterns of entering into the clutches of commercial

vendors by libraries, following the traditional software licensing models. As a result

many libraries are moving away from proprietary integrated library systems in favor

of open source software (Breeding, 2008; 2011c).

Many authors have contributed to the literature on OSS focusing on the open source

movement; open source products for digital library and institutional repositories; and

merits and demerits of OSS. It is observed that colossal literature is available

explaining the open source implementation in library housekeeping activities and

service delivery. Further, it was noticed that the work on OSILS are seen mainly from

2003 onwards and these work provides a glance of OSILS products, case studies of

implementation, and the ongoing efforts in this area.

The researcher collected the relevant literature for this study through search engines,

the LISA (Library and Information Science Abstract) database, Emerald database, the

journals subscribed at DRTC (Documentation Research Training Center), Indian

Statistical Institute, Bangalore and at few local libraries in Mysore. The literature

search effort yielded 249 publications as on June 2011.

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Considering the growth of publications, the researcher has made an attempt to know

earlier literature surveys in the area of OSS specific to libraries. It is noted that some

attempts have been made in the past to review the literature published in the area of

OSS in libraries, which have been described under subsection 2.3 Earlier Reviews of

Literature of this Chapter. These studies have listed the available online (web)

resources, but, efforts are not seen towards either analyzing or narrating the growth

and development in this area.

2.2 Preamble to Literature Review

In this review, the researcher has attempted to review literature related to the concept

and development of open source software; open source software and libraries;

integrated library systems- concept, growth, implementation and evaluation; OSILS –

concept, growth, case studies and evaluation; and, the evaluation methodologies

available for OSS products in general and OSILS in particular.

There is significant increase in literature on the topic of Open Source Software and its

implication on libraries from past 10 years as revealed in this literature review.

Considering the enormous results by Google on the search strings – ‘Open source

software and libraries’ (26,100,000 hits as on June 11, 2011); ‘Open source

integrated library systems’ or ‘OSILS’ (4,310,000 hits as on June 11, 2011), it can be

said that Open source software has seen a steady growth.

2.3 Earlier Reviews of Literature

During the literature study the researcher has observed that 3 literature reviews –

Drummond (2000), Moon & Baker (2006) & Riewe (2008) – have already been

published in the past on OSS pertaining to libraries. The researcher studied these

earlier reviews on OSS for libraries and the outcome is shown in Table 2.1. The

general attributes considered for tabulation are: Name of the publication, Author(s),

Year of publication, Publication Source, Focus and Objectives and Number of

publication, were covered.

28

Table 2.1

Summary of Previous Literature Surveys on Open Source Software and Libraries

Attribute Publication 1 Publication 2 Publication 3 1 Title Open Source Software and Documents:

A Literature and Online Resource Review

Adoption and Use of Open Source Software: Preliminary Literature Review

The literature review published in the Master dissertation work “Survey of Open Source Integrated Library Systems”

2 Author(s) John G. Drummond Nathan W. Moon and Paul M.A. Baker Linda M. Riewe 3 Year of

Publication 2000 2006 2008

4 Published in Linux Today http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml.

Redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/ossi-literature-review.pdf

San Jose State University http://users.sfo.com/~lmr/ils-survey/080831-paper-Riewe.pdf

5 Focus and Objectives

The author aimed at providing the literature and online resource reviews as quick reference for anyone interested in the subject. The study lists the core publication which provides the growth and development, concepts and movement of Open source software.

The review has made an attempt to express the outcome of the core research studies in the OSS implementation on following broad areas - • Technology adoption at national level • Public policy issues and adoption within public sector • Private sector adoption and use • Developer roles in adoption and use • Economic issues pertaining to Open Source Software

The review provides an overview on OSS movement and the opinion of advocates of OSS in library and information science arena. It provides the key reference of development and implementation of OSILS Koha and Evergreen.

6 Number of Publications

29 42 117

7 Significance for the current study

This review provides the platform for the researcher to access the other key resource related to the concepts, definition, movement, development, growth and the implementation of Open source software in different fields

The researcher found that the review provides information about the success stories of OSS implementation in different areas. The references helped the researcher to know about the diversified area of OSS. Further, the review acted as the referral tool to know about the key technological features concerned to OSS implementation.

The literature review in this dissertation informed the researcher about the movement of OSS in libraries. The review also provided key reference related to two OSILS – Koha and Evergreen.

29

To make the literature assemblage more comprehensive and to justify this review, the

study has considered the bibliographical compilations by Chawner (2005), Koch

(2006) and Virtual Academic Library Environment (VALE) (2008) also. The

researcher consolidated and tabulated the bibliographic references in these earlier

reviews on OSS for libraries in this study. The general attributes: Name of the

publication, Author(s), Year of publication, Publication Source, Focus and Objectives

and Number of publication, of the identified bibliographical compilations are

presented in Table 2.2 which includes.

30

Table 2.2

Summary of Bibliographic Compilations on Open Source Software and OSILS

Attribute Publication 1 Publication 2 Publication 3

1 Title Open Source Software and Libraries Bibliography Free/Open Source Software Academic Bibliography

Open Source ILS Bibliography

2 Author(s) Brenda Chawner Stefan Koch Virtual Academic Library Environment

3 Year of Publication

2005 2006 2008

4 Published in http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/brenda_chawner/biblio.html Online Resource for Doctoral Students at Institute for Information Business, Austria http://www.ai.wu.ac.at/~koch/forschung/sw-eng/oss_list.html

Vale, New Jersey http://www.valenj.org/newvale/ols/docs/open-source-ils-bibliography.pdf

5 Focus and Objectives

This bibliography compiled by Brenda Chawner, School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, as part of her Ph.D. studies. It includes announcements, journal articles, and web documents that are about open source software development in libraries. It also includes articles that describe specific open source applications used in libraries, in particular DSpace, Koha, Greenstone, and MyLibrary.

The detailed bibliography provides the essential source to understand the development of OSS and OSS movement. Provides the literature related to OSS development in different areas.

The bibliography from the academic research group provides the listing of recent publication in the area of OSILS. The bibliography is limited to the publications of 2006 onwards

6 Number of Publications

385 177 27

7 Significance for the current study

The bibliographic compilation by Brenda Chawner acted as the core source for the current study which provided leads to the various core resources for the current study. The researcher has observed that the bibliography is updated first half of 2006 and the later updates are not noticed

The online bibliographic resources provide various documents related to the OSS development and its significance to different area.

The bibliography acted as the referral source to other various web resource and articles on OSILS.

31

2.4 Classification of Literature

The classification scheme followed the categorization of literature on: the growth of

literature from time to time; coverage on OSS in the area of library automation and

services; detailed studies on ILS and its functional features; specific studies which

concentrate on OSILS; and the evaluation of OSS. The categories which encompass

the different sub-theme are described below:

2.4.1 Category 1: Open Source Software and Libraries

The publications under this category deal with general and conceptual concepts of

OSS, OSM and its implication on libraries and the response or reaction of library

community to OSM, etc. Essentially these publications are for the first time readers.

The origin OSS, the concept and definitions are usually covered to a large extent

particularly when OSS was in infancy state and growth stage. The philosophy of OSS

and librarianship, and the librarians’ response to the OSM were discussed in the

publications listed under this category. It is observed that a good number of literatures

were published when the OSS was coined with a clear definition during 1999. This is

confirmed by the 29 publications, which appeared in the early time period i.e.,

between 2000 and 2002 (see Figure 2.3).

2.4.2 Category 2: ILS: Concept, Growth, Implementation and Evaluation

This category deals mainly the commercial ILS products. It provides the information

about: conceptual papers which describe the growth, features, comparative and

evaluative studies, Request for Proposals (RFPs) and updates on commercial

products, which provides ample information for this study to know the ILS and

evaluation methodologies. The articles published on ILS, where the notes were made

on the OSILS during 2000 to 2011 were also considered in this study. Certain

evaluations and case studies found relevant for the current study were included in this

category.

2.4.3 Category 3: OSILS: Concept, Growth, Case Studies & Evaluation

This category specially deals with the core literature concerned to the present study.

The literature pertaining to introduction, product description, growth, implementation,

32

comparison, evaluation and case studies concerned to the OSILS are considered in

this category.

It is understandable that a very strict demarcation in the categorization is not possible,

since there may be certain overlaps in the publications analyzed. The number of

publications in all the 3 categories described above is illustrated in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1. Number of Publications Considered for 3 Categories

For convenience, all the publications in the categories described earlier have further

been coded, based on the chronological appearance. The code in numerical from 1 to

3, refers to the categories. Category 1 indicates the open source software: the concept,

definition, growth and issues; category 2 indicates the integrated library systems:

concept, growth, implementation and evaluation; and, category 3 indicates the OSILS:

concept, growth, implementation, case studies and evaluation.

Since the concept of OSS (Altenhoner, 2005) emerged during 1998-1999, coding has

been done from the year 2000 (2000 includes four core publications published in the

year 1999) to 2011. The years 2000 to 2011 have been coded with consecutive

alphabetic from ‘a’ to ‘l’. The time based coding pattern used in the classification of

the literature in the current study is shown in Table 2.3.

105

83

61

Category 1 Category 2 Category 3

No. of Publications considered for 3 Categories

Category 1 ‐ Open Source Software and LibrariesCategory 2 ‐ Integrated Library Systems (ILS)Category 3 ‐ Open Source Integrated Library Systems (OSILS)

No. of P

ublications

33

Table 2.3

Time Based Coding Pattern for Classification

Time Frame

Jan 2000

- Dec 2000

Jan 2001

- Dec 2001

Jan 2002

- Dec 2002

Jan 2003

- Dec 2003

Jan 2004

- Dec 2004

Jan 2005

- Dec 2005

Jan 2006

- Dec 2006

Jan 2007

- Dec 2007

Jan 2008

- Dec 2008

Jan 2009

- Dec 2009

Jan 2010

- Dec 2010

Jan 2011

- Dec 2011

Cate-gory* a b c d e f g h i j k l

1 1-a 1-b 1-c 1-d 1-e 1-f 1-g 1-h 1-i 1-j 1-k 1-l

2 2-a 2-b 2-c 2-d 2-e 2-f 2-g 2-h 2-i 2-j 2-k 2-l

3 3-a 3-b 3-c 3-d 3-e 3-f 3-g 3-h 3-i 3-j 3-k 3-l

*Note.

Category 1: (1-a) to (1-l) indicates the number of articles published between 2000

and 2011 on Open Source Software and Libraries.


and 2011 on Integrated Library Systems: Concept, Growth, Implementation

and Evaluation.


and 2011 on OSILS: Concept, Growth, Implementation and Evaluation.

2.4.4 Categorization of Bibliography

The publications are categorized based on the category indicated in Figure 2.1. For

ease of reference the categorization includes the time based code, bibliographic

reference (the surname of the author and the year of publication) and the number of

articles published at that particular time frame.

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Table 2.4

Category 1: Open Source Software and Libraries

Code Bibliography in the Specified Category No. of Articles

1-a (2000)

Drummond (2000), Gourley (2000), Hattery (1999), Kachmar (1999), Schlumpf (1999), Stallman (1999), Tennant (2000),Tennant (2000a)

8

1-b (2001)

Altman (2001), Bretthauer (2001), Creech (2001), Geard (2001), Jones (2001), Marmion (2001), Mickey (2001), Poynder (2001), Raymond (2001), Richardson (2001), Torvalds (2001), Witten (2001)

12

1-c (2002)

Calarco (2002), Lewis (2002), Morgan (2002), Murray (2002), Stallman (2002), Tennant (2002), Witten (2002), Williams (2002), Witten (2002a)

9

1-d (2003)

Apps (2003), Ashling (2003), Brewerton (2003), Cana (2003), Cervone (2003), Cervone (2003a), Durno (2003), James (2003), Jordan (2003), Oberg (2003), Suman (2003), Tennant (2003), Thomson (2003), Witten (2003), Tennant (2003a), Witten (2003a)

16

1-e (2004)

Baker (2004), Brewer (2004), Ferguson (2004), Feria (2004), McColl (2004), McColl (2004a), Tennant (2004)

7

1-f (2005)

Altenhoner (2005), Balas (2005), Crawford (2005), Dion Hoe-Lian (2005), Krishnamurthy (2005), Michael (2005), Muir (2005), Willinsky (2005)

8

1-g (2006)

Apodaca (2006), Cervone (2006), Deb (2006), Fox (2006), Henner (2006), Jain (2006), Koch (2006), Moon (2006), Moreiro (2006)

9

1-h (2007)

Bisson (2007), Bisson (2007a), Bisson (2007b), Bisson (2007c), Bisson (2007d), Caldwell (2007), Caplan (2007), Das (2007), Wan (2007), Wrosch (2007)

10

1-i (2008)

Chawner (2008), Chudnov (2008), DeGroff (2008), DeGroff (2008a), Gordon (2008), Grant (2008), Hoy (2008), Keats (2008), Krishnamurthy (2008), Mittal (2008), Morgan (2008), Schneider (2008), Stranack (2008)

13

1-j (2009)

Clements (2009), Fredricks (2009), Houser (2009), Houser (2009a), Houser (2009b), Houser (2009c), Mould (2009), Rafiq (2009), Rafiq (2009a), Sheehan (2009), Shoeb (2009), West (2009)

12

i-k (2010)

Murray (2010) 1

i-l (2011)

- 0

35

Table 2.5

Category 2: Integrated Library Systems: Concept, Growth, Implementation and

Evaluation

Code Bibliography in the Specified Category No. of Articles

2-a (2000)

State University of New York (1999), State University System of Florida (2000)

2

2-b (2001)

Breeding (2001), Brown-Syed (2001) 2

2-c (2002)

Hutchinson (2002), Maguire (2002), Rayward (2002) 3

2-d (2003)

Kenney (2003), Zahiruddin (2003) 2

2-e (2004)

Azeez (2004), Breeding (2004), Breeding (2004a), Breeding (2004b), Felstead (2004), Groenewegen (2004), Haravu (2004), Pace (2004), Ramana (2004), Rao (2004)

10

2-f (2005)

Amekuedee (2005), Breeding (2005), Fiehn (2005), Fiehn (2005a), Gradmann (2005), Malhan (2005), Pace (2005), Rajashekar (2005), Suku (2005), Swee (2005), Ubel (2005)

11

2-g (2006)

Adanu (2006), Breeding (2006), Breeding (2006a), Chillingworth (2006), Leonhardt (2006), Line (2006), Mandal (2006), Rankin (2006)

8

2-h (2007)

Andrews (2007), Breeding (2007b), Breeding (2007c), Breeding (2007d), Crawford (2007), Falup (2007), Fiehn (2007), Husain (2007), Pace (2007), Library of Congress (2007), Rajendiran (2007)

11

2-i (2008)

Ansari (2008), Bansode (2008), Breeding (2008), Breeding (2008a), Breeding (2009b), Breeding (2009c), Caraway (2008), Cibbarelli (2008), Fox (2008), Hane (2008)

10

2-j (2009)

Breeding (2009), Breeding (2009a), Breeding (2009d), Breeding (2009e)Dougherty (2009), Feathersone (2009), Fiehn (2009), Hopkinson (2009), Kargbo (2009), Kaser (2009), Kinner (2009), Lohar (2009), Pace (2009), Ramzan (2009), Riding (2009), Scale (2009), Taole (2009), Zhonghong (2009)

18

2-k (2010)

Breeding (2010) 1

2-l (2011)

Breeding (2011), Breeding (2011a), Breeding (2011c), Ji (2010), Rai (2011)

5

36

Table 2.6

Category 3: Open Source Integrated Library Systems: Concept, Growth, Implementation and Evaluation Code Bibliography in the Specified Category No. of

Articles 3-a

(2000) Chudnov (1999), Blake (2000), Clarke (2000) 3

3-b (2001)

0 0

3-c (2002)

Arkles (2002), Bell (2002), Breeding (2002), Breeding (2002a), Coyle (2002)

5

3-d (2003)

Calame (2003), Cibbarelli (2003), Eyler (2003), Sonker (2003) 4

3-e (2004)

Balas (2004), Corrado (2004) 2

3-f (2005)

Barbier (2005), Berizzi (2005), Buchanan (2005), Cargile (2005), Corrado (2005), Dorman (2005), Hedges (2005), Kumar (2005), Wilson (2005)

9

3-g (2006)

Chalon (2006), Gailo (2006) 2

3-h (2007)

Breeding (2007), Breeding (2007a), Voe (2007) 3

3-i (2008)

Balnaves (2008), Carlock (2008), Guhlin (2008), Henderson (2008), Hyman (2008), Kudo (2008), Riewe (2008), Ruschoff (2008), VALE (2008)

9

3-j (2009)

Breeding (2009b), Breeding (2009c), Breeding (2009f), Breeding (2010), Hopkinson (2009), Qing (2009), Smet (2009), Trainor (2009), Zico (2009)

9

3-k (2010)

Foote (2010), Kohn (2010), Kumar (2010), Singh (2010), 4

3-l (2011)

Breeding (2011b), Dennison (2011), Dhamdhere (2011), Hansen (2011), Maitraya (2011), Morton-Owens (2011), Muller (2011), OPPapers.com (2011), Rapp (2011), Tajoli (2011), Vasupongayya (2011),

11

37

2.5 Analysis of Subject Growth and Development In this review, 249 publications were covered and analyzed to provide insight into the

growth, development and status of OSS for libraries, in general; and, OSILS in

specific. These publications include journal articles, reports, special columns,

editorials, web publications, product brochures, conference publications and books.

Other sources such as blogs, email discussions, web resource without specific source,

etc. which do not have any authenticity are left out. The publication are categorized

on time based coding pattern and presented in Table 2.4 to 2.6.

Table 2.7 Number of Publications as per the Time Code Pattern

Time Frame

Jan 2000

- Dec 2000

Jan 2001

- Dec 2001

Jan 2002

- Dec 2002

Jan 2003

- Dec 2003

Jan 2004

- Dec 2004

Jan 2005

- Dec 2005

Jan 2006

- Dec 2006

Jan 2007

- Dec 2007

Jan 2008

- Dec 2008

Jan 2009

- Dec 2009

Jan 2010

- Dec 2010

Jan 2011

- Dec 2011 N

o. o

f Pu

blic

atio

n in

a c

ateg

ory

Code a b c d e f g h i j k l

1 8 12 9 16 7 8 9 10 13 12 1 0 106

2 2 2 3 2 10 11 8 11 10 18 1 5 83

3 3 0 5 4 2 9 2 3 9 9 4 11 61

Total 13 14 17 22 19 28 19 24 32 39 6 16 249

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Figure 2.2. Number of Publications Considered from 2000 to 2011

As described in Figure 2.1, 105 publications are covered pertaining to the category 1,

namely ‘Open source software and libraries”; category 2 ‘Integrated Library Systems’

has 83 publications and 61 publications are referred on ‘Open source integrated

library systems’ of Category 3. As shown in Figure 2.1, nearly 40% of the

publications are in Category 1. According to the literature, the term ‘Open source

software’ was accpeted for practice both by the open source developers community

and the users in 1999, when Eric Raymond coined to overcome the misinterpretation

of the words Freeware or Copyleft products. But, for the current study only the open

source products are considered, it has not considered the products from Free Software

Foundation.

13 14

17

22

19

28

19

24

32

39

6

16

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

No. of P

ublications

No. of Publications considered from2000 to 2011

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Publication Year

39

Figure 2.3. Growth of Literature in 3 Categories of Study

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011Category 1 8 12 9 16 7 8 9 10 13 12 1 0Category 2 2 2 3 2 10 11 8 11 10 18 1 5Category 3 3 0 5 4 2 9 2 3 9 9 4 11Average 4.3 4.7 5.7 7.3 6.3 9.3 6.3 8.0 10.7 13.0 2.0 5.3

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

N u m b er o f P u b lic at io n s

No of Pub

lications

40

The categorization of the literature and the analysis has helped the researcher to have

a better understanding of the research area, the growth and the state-of-the-art of the

subject. The analysis of the literature under 3 categories identified is presented as

follows.

2.5.1 Open Source Software and Libraries

The analysis of the category 1, namely ‘Open source software and libraries’ is as

follows:

• The literature in this category provides information about the very concept of open

source, the definition, the philosophy and the history. Majority of the literature

greatly help the beginners to understand the concept of ‘Open source software’.

• With the defining of the term in 2001, the library fraternity have studied and

expressed their views about bringing the concept of OSS into libraries, and

implications of OSS on library activities. This was greatly justified by the 29

literatures published between 2000 and 2002, in this category.

• The 50 literature published during 2003 to 2007 mainly contributed to the

implemenation of open source software for digital libraries and institutional

repositories in libraries.

• The literature between 2008 and 2011 is more on sharing of experience of open

source by the practioners and the researchers in this area. The articles has also

stressed on the level of imporatance gained by the OSS in libraries.

2.5.2 ILS: Concept, Growth, Implementation and Evaluation The major literature covered in this category was pertaining to ILS which provides

ample information in knowing the ILS and evaluation methodologies. Some of the

articles were also considered as they mention about the OSILS products. The

researcher has considered LISA database as the key resource for gathering

information on this subject.

• The resources concerned to the evaluation criteria of ILS were primarily from the

RFPs prepared in the developed countries Library of Congress (2007), Minnesota

Library Information Network (1997), State University of New York (1999) and

41

State University System of Florida (2000) were the key source for listing the key

feature for evaluation. This method demands the listing of user requirements

which is compared with the available features in the products considered for the

study.

• The 30 literature considered between 2000 and 2005 was mostly concerned to the

case studies of implementation and migration from lower end product to an

advanced ILS. Some of the comparative studies framed for the selection of

suitable commercial ILS products were also considered. Later, studies

concentrated on bringing the Web 2.0 feature in ILS products. In these papers,

stress was made mainly on bringing Web 2.0 features in to the OPAC (Online

Public Access Catalogue) module.

• The literature in the beginning of millennium mentions that the available OSILS

products are not even near to the least players of the commercial ILS products.

This conclusion changed by 2006 mentioning about the couple of OSILS products

are in comparison with the middle level players of commercial ILS products. In

2010, 21 works supports the above conclusion.

2.5.3 OSILS: Concept, Growth, Case Studies and Evaluation

The literature listed under this category was the core resource for this study. The web

resources available on open platform and journal articles, acted as the key sources for

this category.

• The 23 articles from 2000 to 2005, discuss the first OSILS product Koha,

AvantiMicroILS and PHPMyLibrary, describing the available features and

suggesting the improvements required in the functional modules.

• Later articles, published after 2005, cited some efforts or projects like

AtheniumLight, Emilda, and OpenBiblio. The studies were mainly about

introducing the concept of OSS, product introduction, available features and

suggesting the areas of improvement.

• Since 2008, literature was seen published in the academic journals, both from

developed and developing countries on OSILS. Several studies on

implementation, comparison of OSILS products and introductory literature on

other OSILS products like NewGenLib, OPALS, Evergreen, etc, were appeared.

42

• The literature after 2008 provides case studies concerned to migration from

commercial ILS to OSILS. The comparative studies of OSILS products were also

seen during this period.

2.6 Observation and Comments

In this review, all 249 publications were analyzed for the purpose of providing

insights into the growth and development of OSILS. The researcher has made an

attempt to present the publications pertaining to OSS and libraries, conceptual

framework of ILS and the methods for selection and evaluation of integrated systems

in general and OSILS in particular. The growth of literature between 2000 and 2011,

considered in this study has been demonstrated in Figure 2.2.

The publications in this review include specific papers in journals and conferences.

Resources relevant and specific to this study in web space with authenticated sources

were covered. This includes the special columns, editorial, subject magazines and

reports from the institutions/organizations/companies. Other resources like

newsletters, newsmagazines, blogs and personal web-pages were left out as the

researcher found that they deal with general information and the tools in a limited

manner. Similarly only those books containing the term ‘Open source’ in their titles

and which discussed about OSILS products were considered.

As indicated in Figure 2.1, nearly 40% (105) of the publications covered are on the

general aspects of open source software and libraries. The publications in category 2

on integrated library systems show the steady growth in the literature. The literature

identified on OSILS for the current study was very minimal in the beginning i.e.,

during 2000 to 2004. Later the literary contribution in this category shows a steady

growth as shown in Figure 2.3. The average of the contributed literature considered in

this study indicated in dotted lines in Figure 2.3 shows that the contribution was high

in 2009. After 2006, the overall contribution shows a moderate increase.

Often it is mentioned in the literature that the term open source software was coined

during 1999, in response to the need of software companies and the community of

‘Free Software Foundation’. At this point, it is worthwhile to note that attempts to use

43

this concept were first made by Raymond in 1999 (Gorman, 2000). In terms of

definition of the concept and framing the policy, efforts were seen in late 2000 as

indicated by Bretthauer (2001). The work of Raymond (2001) The cathedral and the

bazzar was the key resource mentioned in almost all the publications which deal with

the conceptual / introductory literature on OSS.

It is noted that, literature published between 2000 and 2004 focused on explaining the

development of OSM, adapt of OSS by libraries, implications on library service, and

impact of OSS on library functionality. The literature which provide insight under

category 1 are Kachmar (1999), Tennant (2000a), Altman (2001), Bretthauer (2001),

Creeh (2001) Witten, Bainbridge & Boddie (2001), Morgan (2002), Cervone (2003),

Altenhoner (2005) and Murray (2010) explaining the impact of OSS on libraries.

The later publications concentrate on OSS solutions for digital libraries and

institutional repositories. The literature of 2007 onwards, by Bisson & West (2007d),

Wan (2007), Chudnov (2007), Gordon & West (2008), Keats (2008), Morgon (2008),

Housen (2009b) and Rafiq (2009a) highlight the implementation studies and

technological developments of libraries with OSS.

The literature published post 2005 steered the attention of library community towards

the changes and development in the concept of ILS. The contribution by Felsted

(2004), Rao (2004), Breeding (2005) and Rajashekar (2005) can be identified as the

core literature which highlights the future of ILS and the expectations from the then

web technologies. The development in the area of library automation was recorded

and narrated by Groenewegen (2004), Line (2006) and Hopkinson (2009); require

mention. They document the growth and development of Library Management

Systems to Integrated Library Systems. These authors have highlighted the future of

web based integrated systems in their work. The future ILS was very much explained

with the base of the web technology by Breeding (2006, 2010, 2011a, 2011c), Falup

(2007), Husain & Ansari (2007), Ruschoff (2008), Fox (2008), Zhonghorng (2009),

Dougherty (2009), Pace (2009), Singh (2010), Dhamdhere (2011), Morton-Owens

(2011) and Rapp (2011), which gives insight into the service that may be offered,

technology that may be adopted and the level of integration that may be achieved in

44

ILS. The ILS evaluation by Breeding (2005) and Cibbarellie (2008) provide an

overview about the features that we can expect from the ILS. It is observed by the

researcher that the literature published during the emergence of the concept OSS, was

predominant on digital library and institutional repository solutions; and the software

built on OSS module to the library community. The literature between 2000 and 2001

was on this line and indicated the impact of OSS on libraries. The researcher were

able to trace the efforts in the developed countries concerned to development of

OSILS-Koha, AtheniumLight and PhpMyBibli- in the works of Chudnov (1999),

Blake & Hamilton-Williams (2000) and Breeding (2002). Between 2003 and 2011,

the literature discussed case studies & implementation of OSILS in developed

countries. Some of the works which documented the efforts are: Balas (2004),

Dorman (2005), Cargile (2005), Zico (2009), Dhamdhere (2011) and Morton-Ownes

(2011). The articles from Coyle (2002) and Corrado (2005) discuss the implication of

open source standards on service and functionality. The researcher understood the

quality enhancement that can be achieved by applying the recommended standards.

With the availability of countable number of OSILS products by 2005, 6 comparative

studies were cited between 2006 and 2011. The notable efforts are by Kumar (2005),

Chalon, Alexandre-Joaquim, Naget & Becquart (2006), Breeding (2009), Balnavas

(2008), Singh (2010) and Maitraya (2011). During 2007, OSILS saw the major

implementation in public libraries, universities and academic institutions as recorded

by Breeding (2008). In India the adoption of Koha by Delhi Public Library, small and

medium college libraries are cited in the literature. The release of NewGenLib by

Verus Solutions in 2008 was a major milestone in the OSS library movement in India

(Breeding, 2009c). These developments compelled the researchers and practitioners to

think of OSILS as an alternative to the commercial products, which was recorded and

justified in the works of Voe (2007), Breeding (2007), Carlock (2008), Breeding

(2008) and Breeding (2009c, 2010, 2011c).

The voluminous 31 articles in span of just 11 years (2000-2009) by Breeding is

monumental contribution to the area of application of IT in Libraries in general and

Integrated Library Systems in particular. The works published in Library Technology

Reports (LTR), Information Today and Serial Librarian by Breeding greatly helped

the researcher in understanding the concept, structure, functions and updates on

integrated library systems. The works of Breeding on OSILS which includes product

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introduction, implementation studies, comparative analysis and status reports, have

provided good insight to the subject. The growth and development of OSILS between

2002 and 2009 can be better explained by the concluding remarks of Breeding,

published during 2002 as “OSILS are only a distant possibility” and in the work

which compared the major OSILS products in 2009, he (2009c) concluded that

“OSILS are considered as an alternative in the selection process of ILS in

Universities and Research organizations”. This shows the growth and sustainability

achieved by OSILS products last decade (2001-2010).

2.7 Critical View on Review of Literature

A scrutiny of the publications shows that this study has covered several aspects of

OSS pertaining to libraries with many interesting and diversified applications in

sufficient details. These publications can serve great deal towards understanding the

concept of open source software, ILS and OSILS. Thus academicians, practitioners

and researchers have a good number of sources to study, discuss and debate over

many aspects of OSS in libraries. The present review of literature on OSS in libraries,

has identified certain issues which have not been satisfactorily addressed or not been

addressed at all. These issues can be regarded as inadequacies and they offer scope for

further research and exploration. The issues identified are as follows:

• Criteria for Selection of OSILS: The detailed OSILS selection criteria to meet

the requirements of the library housekeeping activities and the user requirements

framed with the developments in web technology has to be addressed. This would

enable the decision-makers and the stake holders of an institution / organization to

draw and decide upon definite set of criteria to meet their requirements. Further

the process of evaluation and selection should be enhanced beyond the ranking of

the candidates. There is a need to draw a methodology which can identify the area

of best performance of the product, amount of deviation against the requirements

in each criteria and the overall performance of the product. The literature has

stressed on the importance of the technology adopted in the software

development, the community of the product, the support from developers and the

presence of industry support for an OSS products. Effort to include these features

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in the evaluation methodology of the OSILS products along with the functional

features needs to be addressed.

• Cost of Implementing OSILS: The overall cost incurred in implementing the

OSILS need to be established, terms of cost models or cost equations. This would

enable the decision-makers to arrive upon the financial commitment before

embarking on adopting OSILS. Further it would allow estimating the return on

investment, which will help the library administrators to convince the top

management. While a precise model is difficult, because of variability of factors

involved, an approximate method would be quite useful.

• Guidelines for Implementation: Suitable guidelines regarding setting up of a

timeframe for implementing, procedure for data conversion, process of

implementation and migrating of manual operation to automated environment

have not been addressed in the literature studied. If a method is described which

can address these issues, it would prove very helpful in setting targets and

deadlines in the ILS implementation projects or process.

• Integration of Applications with OSILS: The literature reveals several OSS

products for digital library, institutional repository and e-learning systems. With

the Web 2.0 technology which supports the integration of different services and

databases for community participation, the researchers can draw suitable

guidelines and solutions to make OSILS to be integrated with other solutions

concerned to information services. This will widen the library participation and

service to the clients it intends to cater.

2.8 Conclusion

This chapter aimed at collecting, analyzing and presenting the history, growth,

implications, issues and status of OSILS as seen from the literature. The study made

the researcher to understand the concept of OSS and its effect on libraries in general

and library automation system in specific. This exercise acted as source in identifying

the OSILS products, the evaluation modules, the results of the earlier studies and the

developments in ILS arena. With this knowledge the researcher has introduced the

OSILS products in Chapter 3.

OSS AND LIBRARIES A LITERATURE REVIEW -...

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