The Future of Integrated
Library Systems:
Moving toward new models
and open systems
Massachusetts Library Association
Pre-Conference:
The Future of the ILS
Tuesday, May 6 9:30 – 10:30am
Marshall Breeding
Director for Innovative Technologies and Research
Vanderbilt University
http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding
http://www.librarytechnology.org/
Abstract
• Libraries demand choice. No matter which
ILS (Integrated Library System) a library
uses, the future is changing rapidly and
libraries are facing difficult choices. This
presentation will provide a review of the
business and industry trends affecting
ILSs as well as forecast what emerging
technologies in the next generation ILS
will bring to libraries.
Current Status of the Library
Automation Industry
Technology Landscape
• Most ILS products from commercial
vendors mature
– None less than a decade old
– Approaching end of life cycle?
• Evolved systems
• No success in launching new systems in
the commercial sphere
– Horizon 8.0
– Taos
Current Vintage
• ALEPH 500
• Voyager
• Unicorn
• Polaris
• Virtua
• Koha
• Library.Solution
• Evergreen
• Talis
1996
1995
1982
1997
1995
1999
1997
2004
1992
Business Landscape
• Library Journal Automated System Marketplace:
– Opportunities Emerge in the midst of Turmoil (2008)
– An Industry redefined (2007)
– Reshuffling the Deck (2006)
• An increasingly consolidated industry
• Moving out of a previous phase of fragmentation where many
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companies expend energies producing decreasingly differentiated
systems in a limited marketplace
Private Equity playing a stronger role then ever before; VCs exit
Narrowing of product options
Increasing dissatisfaction with purely commercial, closed source
options
Open Source opportunities rise to challenge the grip of traditional
commercial model
Library Automation History
Industry Health 2008
• Overall industry showing some growth; individual
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companies more profitable then ever.
Mixed company growth according to personnel counts:
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Ex Libris +6%
Innovative + 5%
Library Corporation -10%
SirsiDynix -28%
• ILS sales represent smaller portion of revenue
• Many smaller libraries purchasing automation systems
• Very few large library ILS procurements
Other Business Observations
• Creative tension abounds
• Level of innovation falls below expectations, despite
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deep resources and large development teams.
Companies struggle to keep up with ILS enhancements
and R&D for new innovations.
Pressure from investors/owners to reduce costs, increase
revenue
Pressure from library customers for more innovative
products
Some companies investing in technology; expanding
markets
ILS Migration Trends
• Few voluntary lateral migrations
• Forced Migrations
– Vendor abandonment
– Need to move from legacy systems
– Exit from bad marriages with vendors
– Exit from bad marriages with consortia
Role of the ILS in Library
Automation Strategies
• It’s never been harder for libraries to
justify investments in ILS
• Need for products focused on electronic
content and user experience
– Next-gen interfaces
– Federated search
– Linking
– Electronic Resource Management
A new direction in library
automation
• A successful pitch for new automation
software is one that enables significant
transformation toward a new vision of the
library.
• Can’t keep doing the same thing in
the same way
• Back-end systems make only a
moderate impact on customer service
delivery
An age of less integrated
systems
• Increasingly dis-integrated environment
• Core ILS supplemented by:
– OpenURL Link Resolvers
– Metasearch / Federated Search
– Electronic Resource Management
– Next Generation Library Interfaces
– RFID / AMH
No longer an ILS-centric
industry
• Portion of revenues derived from core ILS
•
products diminishing relative to other library
tech products
Many companies and organizations that don’t
offer an ILS are involved in library automation:
– Cambridge Information Group
• ProQuest
– Serials Solutions
– WebFeat
• Bowker
– Syndetic Solutions
– AquaBrowser
• Muse Global
OCLC in the Automation Industry
• Initial foray into next-gen interface arena: WorldCat
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Local
Technology acquisitions:
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OCLC Pica purchased Sisis on July 1, 2005 for $4,504,700
OCLC Pica purchased FDI on Nov 2, 2005 for $8,913,100
OCLC purchased Openly Informatics for $1,950,000
OCLC purchased DiMeMa on Aug 14, 2006 for $3,916,200
EZproxy acquired in Jan 2008
• Library automation services at the network level
– Not an ILS?
– An “ILS killer”?
Open Source Alternatives
• Explosive interest in Open Source driven by
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disillusionment with current vendors
Beginning to emerge as a practical option
TOC (Total Cost of Ownership) still roughly equal
to proprietary commercial model
Open Source still a risky Alternative
Commercial/Proprietary options also a risk
– “The SirsiDynix announcement changed the
landscape of the ILS marketplace; the traditional ILS
market is no longer a haven for the risk adverse.”
(http://pines.bclibrary.ca/resources/talking-points)
Open Source Initiatives
• Multiple projects to develop Open Source ILS
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Koha Zoom
Evergreen
OPALS-NA (K-12 Schools)
Delft Libraries
• Multiple projects to develop Open Source Nextgen Catalogs
– VU Find (Villanova University)
– C4 prototype (University of Rochester River Campus
Libraries)
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• Soliciting a proposal for the design of an
Open Source ILS for higher education
• Led by Duke University
– Early stages. Proposal in development
• First and Second stage funding for
eXtensible Catalog
Market share / Perspective
• Open Source ILS implementations still a very
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small percentage of the total picture
Initial set of successful implementations will
likely serve as a catalyst to pave the way for
others
Successful implementations in wider range of
libraries:
– State-wide consortium (Evergreen)
– Multi-site public library systems (Koha)
– School district consortia (OPALS-NA)
Open Source Companies
• Index Data
– Founded 1994; No ILS; A variety of other open source products
to support libraries: search engines, federated search, Z39.50
toolkit, etc
• LibLime
– Founded 2005. Provides development and support services for
Koha ILS. Acquired original developers of Koha in Feb 2007.
• Marc Roberson – VP Library Partners
• John Rose – VP Strategic markets
• Debra Denault -- Operations Manager
• Equinox.
– Founded Feb 2007; staff formerly associated with GPLS Pines
development team
• Care Affiliates
– Founded June 2007; headed by industry veteran Carl Grant.
Impact of Open Source
• Formidable competition to commercial
closed-source products
– Alternative to the traditional software
licensing models
• Pressure to increase innovation
• Pressure to decrease costs
• Pressure to make commercial systems
more open
• Disrupts the status quo
Open source ILS Benchmarks
• Most decisions to adopt Open Source ILS based on
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philosophical preferences
Open Source ILS will enter the main stream once its
products begin to win through objective procurement
processes
– Hold open source ILS to the same standards as the commercial
products
– Hold the open source ILS companies to the same standards:
• Adequate customer support ratios, financial stability, service level
agreements, etc.
• Well-documented total cost of ownership statements
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that can be compared to other vendor price quotes
Do the Open Source ILS products offer a new vision?
New Generation of Library
Interfaces
Working toward a new generation
of library interfaces
• Redefinition of the “library catalog”
• Traditional notions of the library catalog
are being questioned
• Better information delivery tools
• More powerful search capabilities
• More elegant presentation
Redefinition of library catalogs
• More comprehensive information discovery environments
• It’s no longer enough to provide a catalog limited to the
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traditional library inventory
Digital resources cannot be an afterthought
Forcing users to use different interfaces depending on
type of content becoming less tenable
Libraries working toward consolidated search
environments that give equal footing to digital and print
resources
Comprehensive Search Service
• More like OAI
– Open Archives Initiative
– Consolidated search services based on
metadata and data gathered in advance
• Problems of scale diminished
• Problems of cooperation persist
• Eg: Royal Library of Denmark
Web 2.0 Flavorings
• A more social and collaborative approach
• Web Tools and technology that foster
collaboration
• Tagging, social bookmarking, user rating,
user reviews, community interaction
The holy grail of New Gen
Library Interfaces
• A single point of entry into all the content
and services offered by the library
• Print + Electronic
• Local + Remote
• Locally created Content
Interface expectations
• Millennial generation library users are well
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acclimated to the Web
Used to relevancy ranking
– 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.
• “Did you mean?” and other features to avoid
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“No results found”
More like this / related content
Interface expectations (cont…)
• Very rapid response. Users have a low tolerance for slow
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systems
Rich visual information: book jacket images, rating
scores, etc.
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
• Navigational Bread crumbs
Deep search
• Increasing opportunities to search the full
contents
– Google Library Print, Google Publisher, Open Content
Alliance, Microsoft Live Book Search, etc.
– High-quality metadata will improve search precision
• Commercial search providers already offer
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“search inside the book”
No comprehensive full text search for books
quite yet
Not currently available through library search
environments
Beyond Discovery
• Fulfillment oriented
• Search -> select -> view
• Delivery/Fulfillment much harder than
discovery
• Back-end complexity should be as
seamless as possible to the user
Library-specific Features
• Appropriate relevance factors
– Objective keyword ranking + Library
weightings
– Circulation frequency, OCLC holdings,
scholarly content
• Results grouping (FRBR)
• Collection focused (vs sales-driven)
Enterprise Integration
• Ability to deliver content and services
through non-library applications
• Campus portal solutions
• Courseware
• Social networking environments
• Search portals / Feed aggregators
Smart and Sophisticated
• Much more difficult than old gen OPACS
• Not a dumbed-down approach
• Wed library specific requirements and
expectations with e-commerce
technologies
Architecture and Standards
• Need to have an standard approach for
connecting new generation interfaces with
ILS and other repositories
• Proprietary and ad hoc methods currently
prevail
• Digital Library Federation
– ILS-Discovery Interface Group
New-Gen Library Interfaces
Current Commercial and Open
Source Products
Endeca Guided Navigation
• North Carolina State University
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/
• McMaster University
http://libcat.mcmaster.ca/
• Phoenix Public Library
http://www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/
• Florida Center for Library Automation
http://catalog.fcla.edu/ux.jsp
AquaBrowser Library
• Queens Borough Public Library
– http://aqua.queenslibrary.org/
• Oklahoma State University
– http://boss.library.okstate.edu/
• University of Chicago
– http://lens.lib.uchicago.edu/
Ex Libris Primo
• Discovery and Delivery platform for
academic libraries
• Vanderbilt University
http://alphasearch.library.vanderbilt.edu
• University of Minnesota
http://prime2.oit.umn.edu:1701/primo_library/li
bweb/action/search.do?vid=TWINCITIES
• University of Iowa
http://smartsearch.uiowa.edu/
Encore from Innovative
Interfaces
• Designed for academic, public and special
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libraries
Nashville Public Library
http://nplencore.library.nashville.org/iii/encore/app
• Scottsdale Public Library
http://encore.scottsdaleaz.gov/iii/encore/app
• Yale University Lillian Goldman Law
Library
http://encore.law.yale.edu/iii/encore/app
OCLC Worldcat Local
• OCLC Worldcat customized for local library
catalog
– Relies on hooks into ILS for local services
– Tied to library holdings set in WorldCat
• University of Washington Libraries
http://uwashington.worldcat.org/
• University of California Melvyl Catalog
SirsiDynix
• Recently announced their next generation
discovery environment named Enterprise
– Relies on Globalbrain technology from Brainware
• Many legacy interfaces
– Enterprise Portal Solution
– Rooms / SchoolRooms
– iLink / iBistro (legacy)
• Product based on FAST announced in March
2006 – withdrawn
VUFind – Villanova
University
Based on Apache Solr search toolkit
http://www.vufind.org/
Library-developed solutions
• eXtensible Catalog
• University of Rochester – River Campus
Libraries
• Financial support from the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation
• http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/
The Next Generation of
Library Automation
Working toward a new ILS Vision
• How libraries work has changed dramatically
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over the last 20 years.
ILS built largely on workflows cast more than 25
years ago
Based on assumptions that have long since
changed
Digital resources represent at least half of most
academic libraries collection budgets
The automation needs of libraries today is
broader than that provided by the legacy ILS
Libraries ready for a new course
• Level of dissatisfaction with the current slate of ILS
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products is very high.
Large monolithic systems are unwieldy—very complex to
install, administer and maintain.
Continue to be large gaps in functionality
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Interlibrary loan
Collection development
Preservation: print / digital
Book binding
Remote storage operations
Less Proprietary / More Open
• Libraries demand more openness
• Open source movement greatest challenge to
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current slate of commercial ILS products
Demand for open access to data
– API’s essential
– Beyond proprietary APIs
– Ideal: Industry-standard set of API’s implemented by
all systems
– Current DLF initiative to define API for an ILS for
decoupled catalogs
Open but Commercial?
• As library values evolve toward open solutions,
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commercial companies will see increasing
advantages in adopting more open strategies
Open Data
– Well documented database schemas
– APIs for access to all system functionality
• More customizability; better integration
• Open Source Software?
• Key differentiation lies in service and support
Comprehensive automation
• Need the ability to automation all aspects of
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library work
Suite of interoperable modules
Single point of management for each category
of information
Not necessarily through a single monolithic
system
More lightweight approach
• More elegant and efficient
• Easier to install and administer
• Automation systems that can be operated with
fewer number of technical staff
Redefining the borders
• Many artificial distinctions prevail in the legacy
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ILS model
Online catalog / library portal / institutional
portal
Circulation / ILL / Direct consortial borrowing /
remote storage
Collection Development / Acquisitions / budget
administration
• Library acquisitions / Institutional ERP
• Cataloging / Metadata document ingestion for
digital collections
Separation of front-end from backend
• ILS OPAC not necessarily best library interface
• Many efforts already underway to offer
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alternatives
Too many of the resources that belong in the
interface are out of the ILS scope
Technology cycles faster for front-end than for
back-end processes.
Service-oriented Architecture
• Work toward a service-oriented business
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application
Suite of light-weight applications
Flexibility to evolve in step with changes in
library services and practices
Enterprise interoperability
• Interoperate with non-library applications
• Course management
• Accounting, finance, ERM applications
• External authentication services
• Other portal implementations
Massively consolidated
implementations
• State/Province-wide ILS implementations
• Increased reliance on consortia
• Increased Software as a Service / ASP
options hosted by vendors
• Radical simplification of library policies
affecting services offered to patrons
Fitting into the Global Enterprise
• Leverage capabilities of search engines:
– Google, Google Scholar, Microsoft Live, Ask,
etc
• OCLC WorldCat
• Sort out the relationships between the
global enterprise and local systems
• Leverage the content in enterprise
discovery systems to drive users toward
library resources
Revise assumptions regarding
Metadata
• Reliance on MARC widely questioned
• XML widely deployed
• The next-gen ILS must natively support many flavors of
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metadata: MARC, Dublin Core, Onix, METS, etc
Library of Congress Subject Headings vs FAST
Approaching a post-metadata where discovery systems
operate on actual digital objects themselves, not
metadata about them
– High-quality metadata will always improve discovery
• Incorporate content from mass digitization efforts
• Increasing proportions of rich media content: audio,
video
Competing in an crowded field of
information providers
• Commercial Web destinations increasingly
overlap with services offered by libraries
• Expectations of users set by their
experiences with commercial destinations
• Web-based library services need to be on
the same level
• Pressure to revamp library interfaces,
discovery, and delivery tools
New models of Software
Development
• Role of commercial partners
– Break out of marketing / consumer model
– Substantial dialog that shapes the direction of
product development
• Increased partnerships
• Accelerated development cycles
• Cost-effective / realistic cost expectations
Evolution vs Revolution
• What we have today is a result of 35 years
of evolution
• Is it possible to break free of the
constraints of these evolved systems
toward a new generation that will offer a
fresh approach?
• Are libraries now willing to let go of the of
ILS legacy of times past and move forward
with library automation cast in a new
A unique opportunity
• Web 2.0 has invigorated libraries toward more
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open and collaborative strategies
Service Oriented Architecture provides a
platform for assembling library systems more in
tune with the needs of today’s libraries
Intense interest by both libraries and vendors to
catch up and move forward in delivering library
interfaces that work better for today’s Websavvy users
Questions / Comments