The Future of Integrated Library Systems -...
Transcript of The Future of Integrated Library Systems -...
The Future of Integrated
Library Systems
Yunus Abdul Halim
Areas of Interest
Business and Industry Trends
Technology Trends
Industry Trends
The business is becoming more brutal…
It’s important to understand the underlying business
environment that steers the direction of the industry
From Fragmentation to Consolidation
Sirsi + Dynix + DocuTek + DRA + NOTIS + MultiLIS + INLEX =
SirsiDynix + ?
Library clients captured through acquisition
Greater disparity between the smallest and the largest companies
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 venture capital
SirsiDynix -> Seaport Capital + Hicks Muse
Ex Libris -> Walden Israel + Tamar Technology
Geac -> Golden Gate
Polaris -> Croydon Company
Growth Strategies
Assembly & Acquisition:
SirsiDynix
BiblioMondo
Some companies continue to prosper and grow organically
through steady sales of products to new libraries
Innovative Interfaces
The Library Corporation
Keystone
Libraries demand choice.
Room for niche players
Domination by a large monopoly unlikely to be accepted by library
community
A New Role for OCLC?
Library-owned cooperative on a buying binge of automation
companies:
Openly Informatics
Fretwell-Downing Informatics
Sisis Informationssysteme
PICA
Acquired a broad range of technology components
Open WorldCat will grow into a much broader set of services
Stands to effect great change in the position of libraries on the
Web
Key Issue
It’s essential for libraries to partner with a company that will be
one of the survivors of the industry.
Very disruptive to a library’s automation strategy if its vendor is
acquired.
Given the relative parity of library automation systems, choosing
the right automation partner is more important than splitting hairs
over functionality.
Understanding of library issues
Vision and forward-looking development
The Future Business Environment?
A fewer number of larger companies
Additional Mergers and Acquisitions among ILS competitors still
possible.
More cross-industry ownership
Courseware + ILS?
ERP/CRM + ILS?
Publisher + ILS?
Technology Trends
The ILS is not dead
Rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated
A well-functioning automation system is essential to the operation
of the library
Libraries have never needed automation more than today
Comprehensive Automation
The goal of the Integrated Library Systems involves the
automation of all aspects of the library’s internal operations and to
provide key services to library users.
We need to fill in some gaps and achieve better integration.
Single point of management for each area of content
Resource Sharing
Limited budgets with ever increasing demands for broader
services require efficient sharing of collections
Opportunities to make ILL more like circulation
Fast delivery of physical items from non-local collections: remote
storage, consortium partners, ILL
Libraries need to offer resources far beyond their own local
collections.
Large-scale automation
Trend toward automation through consortia and other
consolidated library organizations
Current hardware and software platforms support ever larger
pools of libraries and resources. The number of libraries and the
size of collections that can share a single system is extremely
large.
Economies of scale: makes better use of computing components
and technical personnel.
ASP / Vendor-hosted automation
Fewer libraries choose to maintain their own independent
automation system.
Modern security challenges further increase the cost and risk of
single-library implementations.
The ILS Crisis
The ILS, which had been steadily evolving for over 2 decades
reached a crisis in about 2000. While libraries had evolved into
new roles involving increasing electronic content, the ILS
remained overly fixated on print and traditional materials.
We now in catch-up mode.
Response to the Crisis
Urgent need to better manage and
deliver access to electronic content.
A bevy of add-ons:
OpenURL Link Resolvers
Metasearch environments
Electronic Resource Management modules
Journal content holdings data services
High Cost of Low Integration
Libraries forced into the role of systems integrator
Each of the add-on requires a well-planned implementation project and ongoing system and data maintenance.
Multiple implementation projects
Academic libraries often limited to one major product implementation per year
It can be a three-year process to build a complete system: Link Server, MetaSearch, ERM
Path to Recovery
More systematic approach toward hybrid
print/electronic collections
OpenURL-based linking widely deployed
Metasearch stands as the current kludge
for unifying the OPAC and ever-growing
collections of electronic content
Library portal options still limited and
immature
Portals
Current development efforts focus on the front-
end of the ILS
Expand the Web-based OPAC into something
more like a portal
RSS—race to integrate RSS into the OPAC
Enhanced content.
Customization
Begins to replace some components of the
library Web site
Opening Up the System
ILS Vendors offering APIs to the internal functions of their systems
Allows programmatic access to library data and system functions
Facilitates the integration of the ILS with other applications
Allows the library to extend functionality independently of the vendor
Application Programming Interface: works in conjunction with a scripting or programming language.