AnotherTest

Where can we go from here?
Library Resource Management Systems: New Challenges, New Opportunities
October 8-9, 2009
Marshall Breeding
Director for Innovative Technology and Research
Vanderbilt University Library
Library Technology Guides
http://www.librarytechnology.org

Forging a path through a maze of options

Trajectory
Changing roles of libraries and the nature of their collections demand corresponding changes in supporting technologies
Enormous challenges to deliver appropriate:
Discovery platforms
Business automation systems
Yet…turnover of library automation products very slow

Library Context

Academic libraries: increased emphasis on enterprise interoperability
All Libraries: Transition to larger proportions of non-print content
Emphasis on full-text delivery: e-journals, e-books, digitized books
Shrinking library budgets: Cuts made in these economic times may never be recovered
Public Libraries: operational efficiency
All libraries: higher levels of resource sharing

Technology context

New Technology Cycle
Cloud computing:
Platform-as-a-service (Amazon EC2)
Storage services (C3)
Software-as-a-service
Delivery to mobile devices
Enterprise level infrastructure
Legacy:
Local/departmental computing
Client/server
Local servers

Business and procurement cycles

General Business Trends
Very complex market
Local national and regional companies & Global competitors
Increasingly consolidated and global
Concentration of library automation into a smaller niche of companies

Predominance of Proprietary ILS products
The vast majority of libraries choose to license proprietary ILS products from established vendors
Some of these companies continue to see growth in new client libraries
Defections to competitors and open source currently happen at relatively low levels
Many unannounced open source projects may alter this trend

Dynamics of library automation changing
Commercial companies developing and supporting proprietary products prevail
Open source ILS procurements
Non-profit OCLC cooperative positioned to play a larger role

Technology and product strategies
Evolved products?
Can the existing slate of major ILS products morph over time to meet the ever widening gaps between design and functionality and changing library requirements
Fresh starts possible?

Evolutionary path
Unicorn -> Symphony
INOVAQ > Innopac -> Millennium/Encore
Urica -> Spydus
VUBIS -> Vubis Smart -> V Smart
ALEPH 100… ALEPH 500/Verde/SFX -> URM

Forging a fresh path
OLE – Ready to launch 2-year build phase
Open Source
URM -- (New or evolved?)
Commercially licensed open platform
Web-scale library automation
OCLC WorldCat Local cooperative library management system

Research and development activities
Do the systems libraries really need exist yet?
Research and Development essential to develop systems to meet the needs of libraries and issues identified in this Forum
Where will this take place?
Companies?
Libraries?
Vendor / Library collaboration

The Business of Open Source ILS
Library procurement of open source ILS
Commercial support companies
Small and fragmented
Many open source implementations taking place independent of commercial support contracts

Open Source ILS Companies
Exists at the lower bounds of sustainability, with some showing significant growth.
Fragmented approach can diffuse already limited resources

Open source alternatives gaining increasing support
Many libraries energized to take on local development projects
Traditional vendors interested in making best use of open source components
The direct adoption of open source products represents only one aspect of open source in the library automation industry.

Support by Grant-making bodies

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Georgia Public Library Systems recognized with Award for Technology Collaboration ($50,000)
OLE (Open Library Environment)
$475,700 Phase I
?? Phase II
eXtensible Catalog
$283,000 Phase I
$749,000 Phase II
IMLS
“Empowered by Open Source”
$998,556
Led by King County + Peninsula Library System in California, the Ann Arbor District Libraryin Michigan and the Orange County Library System in Florida

A conversation about software licensing
Move beyond Open Source / Proprietary software as philosophical arguments.
SaaS largely neutralizes the pragmatic differences
Software choices made on the merits of functionality
Company choices made on the merits of their service delivery

Discovery / Library Business Automation
Now viewed as separate problem
Many interdependencies
Current model of feeding discovery systems from many underlying repositories
ILS / e-journal collections / collections of digital objects
Will models of resource management change to consolidate the repositories?
Realign Discovery and management?

Discovery interface arena
Technology platforms becoming more mature
Major projects and products to bring full text article-level content within the primary purview of the discovery interface.
Next challenge: Full text indexes of books

New options and opportunities springing up
Many opportunities for libraries to contribute
Partnerships with vendors
Development partner / Beta test site
Participation in open source initiatives
Contribute to new and existing projects
VuFind, Blacklight, OLE, Evergreen Koha

Service oriented architecture
Preferred technology for new development projects
Web Services
Can function as the glue that ties legacy systems together
Building blocks of composed applications in an SOA environment
Legacy software will be around for a very long time.

Issues for Standards

Library infrastructure may be positioned for many major shifts
Will new models of automation be served by existing standards and best practices?
What will be the points of interoperability that will require technical agreements, best practices, standards as library automation models morph?
Help NISO and other relevant organizations broker technical agreements in time to drive, not hold back, new initiatives.
Increased library involvement will be extremely helpful

Many paths forward…