85th Annual Meeting
October 15, 2009
Open source for library automation
and resource discovery
Marshall Breeding
Director for Innovative Technology and Research
Vanderbilt University Library
Nashville, TN USA
http://www.librarytechnology.org/
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http://www.librarytechnology.org
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Repository for library automation data
Expanding to include more international
scope
Announcements and developments made by
companies and organizations involved in
library automation technologies
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Started building database in 1995
Most comprehensive resource for tracking
ILS and other library automation products
Serves as a directory for general public
Specialized tool for tracking ILS and other
automation products
40,825 Total libraries listed
377 Law Libraries listed
Annual Industry report published in Library
Journal:
 2009: Investing in the future
 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
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Industry Consolidation
Abrupt transitions for major library automation products
Increased industry control by external financial investors
Uncomfortable level of product narrowing
Open Source products and service companies enter the
competition
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A small contingent of founder-owned companies
continue to thrive
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New wave of companies based on open source service and
support
Breeding, Marshall: Perceptions 2008 an international survey of library automation.
http://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2008.pl January 2009.
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Very complex market
 Local national and regional companies & Global
competitors
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Increasingly consolidated and global
 Concentration of library automation into a
smaller niche of companies
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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
Commercial companies developing and
supporting proprietary products prevail
 Open source ILS procurements
 Non-profit OCLC cooperative positioned to
play a larger role
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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
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Library procurement of open source ILS
Commercial support companies
▪ Small and fragmented
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Many open source implementations taking
place independent of commercial support
contracts
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
 Sectors: Public, Academic, Schools
 Still a minority player, but gaining some
ground
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Open Source Software
 Alternative to traditionally licensed
software
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Open Systems
 Software that doesn’t hold data hostage
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Increasing need for enterprise
integration
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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.
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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
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IMLS
 “Empowered by Open Source”
 $998,556
▪ Led by King County + Peninsula Library System in California, the Ann
Arbor District Library in Michigan and the Orange County Library
System in Florida
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Index Data
 YAZ toolkit
▪ Z39.50
▪ SRU/W
 Zebra XML Search Engine
 Metaproxy
▪ “metasearching proxy front end server for integrating
access to multiple back-end Z39.50-compliant
databases”
 MasterKey federated search engine
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Integrated Library Systems
 Koha, Evergreen, OPALS, NewGenLib
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Repositories
 Dspace, Fedora, DuraCloud
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Discovery Interfaces
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Vufind
Blacklight
SOPAC (Social OPAC)
eXtensible Catalog
ILL
 Relais (?)
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Traditional ILS functionality offered under
open source license
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Commercial / Proprietary
 Ex Libris URM
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Community Source
 Open Library Environment: OLE
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Originally developed in New Zealand in 1999
Perl / MySQL / Linux
Implementations worldwide
Adopted by public / academic / special
Many international sectors
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Emerged out of the Nelsonville Public Library
tech staff
WALDO large customer providing major
development funds
LibLime Enterprise Koha
Rift in the development community
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Long-standing library automation services
firm
Developed ArchivalWare
Previous Distributor of Ex Libris products
Core customers in federal government
Now provides services surrounding Koha
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Small Firm
Services primarily for Koha, also supports
evergreen
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Not directly part of PTFS
 European distributor for ArchivalWare
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Provides support services for Koha and
Evergreen
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French company established for Koha
services
Founders involved with Koha development
prior to founding company
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LibLime Enterprise Koha
Hosted on Amazon infrastructure (EC2)
Enhanced version of Koha
Biblios.net cataloging environment
GetIt Acquisitions
Source code for LLEK not yet released
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Originally developed by the Georgia Public
Library System
 Very large consortium of small public libraries
 Replaced a Unicorn System
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British Colombia SITKA
Evergreen Indiana
Michigan Indiana Consortium
King County Public Library
Other major projects brewing, not formally
announced
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Primary commercial support firm
Spin-off from GPLS
Migration, hosting, support, development
services
Oriented toward consortia
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Open source automation system for K-12
School libraries
Developed by Media-Flex
 Previous experience with Mandarin library
automation
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Adopted by many BOCES in New York state
Church and synagogue libraries
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Funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
New automation framework based on new
assumptions
Service-oriented architecture
Business process modeling
Enterprise focus
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More than an ILS
Less than an ILS
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Expands functionality beyond that offered by
existing ILS products
Format agnostic – focus on resource
management
Support for public and technical services
Looks anew at library workflows: how would
libraries function outside if not forced to
follow the patterns demanded by legacy
software
 Example: ILS for print / ERM for electronic
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Do not duplicate functionality found
elsewhere on the enterprise
Authentication services
Financial and accounting modules
Make use of shared enterprise service bus
 Workflow management
 Event management
 SOA infrastructure
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Phase I Planning complete
 Create basic blueprint and design
 Engage a broad community
 Conceptual model
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Phase II – Build Project
 2-year project
 Consortium of libraries developed proposal to
Mellon
 ~$5 Million investment shared by partner libraries
and Mellon
AKA: Next Generation Catalogs
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Lots of non-library Web destinations deliver content
to library patrons
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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?
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Urgent need for libraries to offer interfaces
their users will like to use
Powerful search capabilities in tune with how
the Web works today
Meet user expectations set by other Web
destination
Maintain quality of searching in precision,
predictability, and scope
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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
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All searched separately
Widespread dissatisfaction with legacy OPACs.
Many efforts toward next-generation discovery
layer products.
 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
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More comprehensive information discovery
environments
Primary search tool that extends beyond 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
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AquaBrowser
Ex Libris Primo
Innovative Interfaces: Encore
Serials Solutions: Summon (under development)
Medialab Solutions: AquaBrowser
SirsiDynix Enterprise
The Library Corporation: LS2 PAC
VUFind (open source)
BiblioCommons
eXtensible Catalog (under development)
 Tags, user-supplied ratings and reviews
 Leverage social networking interactions to assist
readers in identifying interesting materials:
BiblioCommons
 Leverage use data for a recommendation service
of scholarly content based on link resolver data:
Ex Libris bX service
Based on Apache Solr search toolkit
Lead developer: Andrew Nagey (now with
Serials Solutions)
http://www.vufind.org/
Libraries using VuFind:
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National Library of Australia; Villanova
University; CARLI, University of Georgia
libraries, South Dakota Library Network, etc
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Initially developed by John Blyberg
Build on Drupal
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Developed at the University of Virginia
Apache SOLR
Ruby on Rails interface
Libraries working with Blacklight include:
 Stanford University, University of Virginia
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University of Rochester – River Campus
Libraries
Financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation
http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/
 Two rounds of funding from Mellon
▪ $283,000 (April 2006)
▪ $749,000 (October 2007)
 Wider institutional participation
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Pre-populated indexes
Web-scale
Increased full-text indexing
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New-generation interface
Harvested local content
Vendor-supplied indexes of library content
 E-journals, databases, e-books
 Book collections beyond local library collections
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Indexing the full corpus of information available globally
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Google aims to address all the world’s information
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Not quite comprehensive – partial harvesting of any given resource
Discovery Layer Products for libraries aim to address all
content collected by libraries:
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Or at least major portions
Print
Remotely access electronic content: e-journals, e-books, databases,
licensed and open access.
Local special collections: digital and print.
Addresses the comprehensive body of content
held within library collections
Comprehensive, unified
Entering post-metadata search era
Increasing opportunities to search the full contents
 Google Library Print, Google Publisher, Open
Content Alliance, government publications, 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
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See: Systems Librarian, May 2008 “Beyond the current generation of next-generation
interfaces: deeper search”
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Initial products focused on technology
 AquaBrowser, Endeca, Primo, Encore, VUfind
 Mostly locally-installed software
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Current phase focused on pre-populated indexes
that aim to deliver Web-scale discovery
 Summon (Serials Solutions)
 WorldCat Local (OCLC)
 EBSCO Discovery Service (EBSCO)
 Primo Central
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New Discovery Service – initial libraries now in
production
Consolidated index harvested from many
sources
 ProQuest, Gale, Thompson Reuters (Web of Science),
LexisNexis, etc
 500,000,000 articles represented
 Full-text search + Citations
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Local catalog data harvested, real-time link to
holdings
Other local repositories harvested
Others available through metasearch
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Repository of article-level indexes maintained
and hosted by Ex Libris
Available to Primo sites without additional
cost
Move more content from metasearch to local
index
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Agreement with OCLC for WorldCat data
EBSCO Host interface and content
Content from other publishers and providers
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Existing service in pilot stage for new
discovery service
WorldCat.org data + ArticleFirst (30 million
articles)
Agreement with EBSCO to load EBSCOhost
citation data into WorldCat
Pursuing agreements with additional content
providers
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No-cost option to FirstSearch subscribers
No reclamation to reconcile local ILS with
WorldCat
One ILS supported; must be among
supported products
Program to expose thousands of libraries to
WorldCat Local as a discovery option
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Traditional Proprietary Commercial ILS
 Millennium, Symphony, Polaris
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Traditional Open Source ILS
 Evergreen, Koha
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Clean slate automation framework (SOA,
enterprise-ready)
 Ex Libris URM, OLE Project
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Cloud-based automation system
 WorldCat Local (+circ, acq, license management)
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Beyond selecting one brand from an
assortment of similar products
Several conceptually diverse options
Companies and projects now competing on
innovation