Trends in Library Automation: Meeting the challenges of a new generation of library users

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Trends in Library AutomationMeeting the
challenges of a new generation of library users

• Marshall BreedingDirector for Innovative
  Technologies and Research
• Vanderbilt University
• http//staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding
• http//www.librarytechnology.org/

November 29, 2006 OCLC Office of
Research Distinguished Seminar Series
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Abstract

• Till now, the library automation business and
  technology trends have evolved at a leisurely
  pace. Today libraries face incredible challenges
  as non-library entities encroach into traditional
  library territory. Library users are more Web
  savvy than ever and have high expectations for
  information providers. We are in a time of
  urgent need to make rapid advances in library
  automation.

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Working toward a New Phase of Innovation

• Business trends
• Technology and Product trends

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Business Trends

• A look at the companies involved in library
  automation and related technologies

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Business Landscape

• Becoming less fragmented as companies consolidate
• Still, a large number of companies compete in a
  very limited economy with undifferentiated and
  overlapping products
• Many companies expend energies producing
  decreasingly differentiated systems.
• Level of innovation falls below expectations
• Companies struggle to keep up with ILS
  enhancements and RD for new innovations.
• Pressure to reduce costs, increase revenue

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Library Automation MA History
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Library automation consolidation

• More libraries banding together to share
  automation environment
• Reduce overhead for maintaining systems that have
  decreasing strategic importance
• Need to focus technical talent on activities that
  have more of an impact on the mission of the
  library
• Pooled resources for technical processing
• Single library ILS implementations becoming less
  defensible

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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
  private equity and venture capital firms

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Business Cycle

• Founder start-up
• Venture capital support -gt board level
  representation
• Private equity ownership -gt strategic control
• IPO mature company

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Investor owned companies

• SirsiDynix -gt Seaport Capital Hicks Muse
• Ex Libris -gt Francisco Partners (recently bought
  out VCs)
• Endeavor -gt Francisco Partners (recently bought
  out Elsevier)
• Infor (was Extensity, was Geac) -gt Golden Gate
• Polaris -gt Croydon Company
• formerly part of Gaylord Bros (acquired by Demco)

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Founder / Family owned companies

• VTLS tech spin-off from Virginia Tech, wholly
  owned by Vinod Chachra
• Innovative Interfaces
• 100 ownership by Jerry Kline following 2001
  buy-out of partner Steve Silberstien
• The Library Corporation
• Owned by Annette Murphy family

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Public companies

• Auto-Graphics
• De-listed from SEC reporting requirements
• Was OTCAUGR now Pink SheetsAUGR
• OpenText
• Spin-off form Battelle
• Information Dimensions
• Acquired by OCLC, run as for-profit business unit
• Sold to Gores Technology Group
• Acquired by OpenText
• Move involved in enterprise information
  management than ILS

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Diverse Business Activities

• Many ways to expand business in ways that
  leverage library automation expertise
• Non-ILS software
• Retrospective conversion services
• RFID or AMH
• Network Consulting Services
• Content products
• Imaging services

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Libraries Demand choice.

• Consolidation working toward monopoly?
• Many companies currently prosper in the library
  automation industry
• Room for niche players
• Domination by a large monopoly unlikely to be
  accepted by library community
• Monopoly would be subverted by Open Source or
  other cooperative movement

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Partnership strategies

• ILS companies partner with other companies for
  technologies.
• Development resource are not abundant, even in
  the companies with massive capital support
• No library automation company can take on all
  aspects of development
• Tough decisions on what to build vs buy

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Partnerships

• Increasing number of partnerships with specialist
  companies
• Serials Solutions
• TDNet
• MuseGlobal
• WebFeat
• Openly Informatics
• Medialab Solutions

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Partnerships

• What is different now is that ILS companies have
  outsourced strategic products to outside firms
• Endeavor Dropped ENCompass and LinkFinderPlus
  for TDNet
• SirsiDynix Dropped local development of ERM and
  other partnerships for linking and federated
  search for partnership with Serials Solution
• SirsiDynix outsourced relationship with StarSoft
  Development Labs in Russia for development of
  Horizon 8.0
• Outsourcing strategic development raises concern
  for long-term prospects of the companies.
  Short-term advantage.

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Companies more self-reliant

• Innovative
• Ex Libris

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Move from Commercial ILS to Open Source

• Beginning to emerge as a practical option
• Koha, supported by LibLime
• Evergreen, developed for Georgia PINES
• Still a risky strategy for libraries

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OCLC in the ILS arena?

• Library community taking notice
• Library-owned cooperative on a buying binge of
  automation companies
• Openly Informatics
• Fretwell-Downing Informatics
• Sisis Informationssysteme
• PICA
• DiMeMa (CONTENTdm)
• Acquired a broad range of technology components
• ILS companies concerned about competing with a
  non-profit with enormous resources and the
  ability to shift costs.

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Key Business Perspective

• 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
• Its important to choose a company that will
  survive

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Product and Technology Trends
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Current state of the Integrated Library System

• The core ILS focused mostly on print resources
  and traditional library workflow processes.
• Add-ons available for dealing with electronic
  content
• Link resolvers
• Metasearch environments
• Electronic Resource Management
• A loosely integrated environment
• Labor-intensive implementation and maintenance
• Most are must have products for academic
  libraries with significant collections of
  e-content

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Library OPAC

• Evolved from card catalogs and continues to be
  bound by the constraints of that legacy.
• Complex and rich in features
• Interfaces often do not compare favorably with
  alternatives available on the Web
• Print materials becoming a smaller component of
  the librarys overall collections.

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State of the Library OPAC?
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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

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Comprehensive Automation

• The goal of the Integrated Library Systems
  involves the automation of all aspects of the
  librarys internal operations and to provide key
  services to library users.

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Traditional Library Search Model

• Provide a full featured OPAC
• Give the user a screen full of search options
• Assume that researchers will begin with library
  resources
• Reliance on Bibliographic Instruction

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Troubling statistic

• Where do you typically begin your search for
  information on a particular topic?
• College Students Response
• 89 Search engines (Google 62)
• 2 Library Web Site (total respondents -gt 1)
• 2 Online Database
• 1 E-mail
• 1 Online News
• 1 Online bookstores
• 0 Instant Messaging / Online Chat

OCLC. Perceptions of Libraries and Information
Resources (2005) p. 1-17.
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New Library Search Model

• Dont count on users beginning their research
  with library catalogs or Web site
• Consider the librarys Web site as a destination
• Make it a compelling and attractive destination
  that uses will want to explore more.
• Web users have a low tolerance for ineffective
  and clunky interfaces

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Library Discovery Model A
Web
Library Web Site / Catalog
Library as search Destination
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Library Discovery Model B

• Do not give up on library search technologies!
• Libraries must also build their own discovery,
  search, and access services
• Effective, elegant, powerful
• Once users discover your library, give them
  outstanding services
• Catalog search, federated search,
  context-sensitive linking, etc.

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Library Discovery Model C

• Expose library content and services through
  non-library interfaces
• Campus portals, courseware systems, e-learning
  environments
• County and municipal portals and e-government
• Other external content aggregators RSS, etc
• Web services is the essential enabling technology
  for the delivery of library content and services
  to external applications.
• Library community lags years behind other IT
  industries in adoption of SOA and Web services.

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Working toward next generation library interfaces

• Redefinition of the library catalog
• More comprehensive information discovery
  environments
• Better information delivery tools
• More powerful search capabilities
• More elegant presentation

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Comprehensive Search Service

• More like OAI
• Wide-ranging set of local and remote information
  sources
• Local print component will decrease over time
• Problems of scale diminished
• Problems of cooperation persist

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Web 2.0 a good start

• A more social and collaborative approach
• Web Tools and technology that foster
  collaboration
• Blogs, wiki, blogs, tagging, social bookmarking,
  user rating, user reviews
• Web 2.0 technologies at the Peak of Inflated
  Expectations phase of the hype cycle.

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Web 2.0 supporting technologies

• Web services
• XML APIs
• AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
• Microformats
• OpenSearch vs SRU/SRW

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Replacement Search Interfaces

• Endeca Guided Search
• AquaBrowser Library

Are library users satisfied with native ILS
interfaces?
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Replacement OPACs

• Endeca Guided Navigation
• AquaBrowser Library
• Common thread
• Decoupled interface
• Mass export of catalog data
• Alternative search engine
• Alternative interface

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Expanded discovery and delivery tools

• Ex Libris Primo (in development)
• Encore from Innovative Interfaces (in
  development)
• Common threads
• Decoupled interface
• Comprehensive indexes that span multiple and
  diverse information resources
• Alternative interface

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Library-developed solutions

• eXtensible Catalog
• University of Rochester River Campus Libraries
• Financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon
  Foundation
• http//www.extensiblecatalog.info/

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Redefinition of library catalogs and interfaces

• Traditional notions of the library catalog are
  being questioned
• Its no longer enough to provide a catalog
  limited to print resources
• 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

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Interface expectations

• Millennial gen library users are well acclimated
  to the Web and like it.
• 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.

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Interface expectations (cont)

• Very rapid response. Users have a low tolerance
  for slow 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.
• Navigational Bread crumbs
• Ratings and rankings

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Appropriate organizational structures

• LCSH vs FAST
• FRBR
• Full MARC vs Dublin Core or MODS
• Discipline-specific thesauri or ontologies
• tags

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Global vs Local

• How do library collections relate to the global
  realm
• Will mass digitization replace local library
  collections?
• The global arena excels at discovery
• The local arena focuses on content delivery
• All the global content discovery tools point to
  locally managed content.

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Connecting Local Content with Global Discovery

• Inbound / Outbound
• Move or expose metadata as needed
• Provide mechanisms to link or deliver resources
  to users
• OAI-PMH
• SRU/SRW
• Z39.50
• Microformats
• XML SiteMap Protocol
• Web Services
• UDDI, WDSL, SOAP,
• OpenUR and other deep-linking protocols

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Multi-layered information discovery

• Global Google
• Institutional / Regional Primo
• Granular Individual catalogs and repositories
• Broad -gt Precise
• Offer both the ability to find a few good
  things and to find exactly the right things
  (and all of them)
• Appropriate avenues for both the undergraduate
  learner and the serious scholar.

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Content beyond the Catalog

• Local Digital Collections
• Library as Publisher
• No longer just the role of a University Press
• Many e-journals published by libraries
• ETDs
• Institutional Repositories
• Non-MARC metadata Dublin Core, MODS, METS,
  MPEG21
• Transportable Metadata OAI-PMH

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Problems with current slate of automation
components

• Very loosely coupled
• Diverse interfaces
• Not seamless to library users
• Multiple points of management for library staff
• Long and complex cycles of implementation and
  integration

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Path to improvement

• Next generation systems competing visions and
  models for what will best serve libraries in the
  next decade.
• More systematic approach toward hybrid
  print/electronic collections
• More tightly coupled systems
• Appropriate use of Open Source software
• Greater adoption of Web Services
• More collaboration in development
• Vendor-to-vendor
• Library / Vendor
• Shared vision of the library information
  environment

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Google vs libraries?

• Perceived as a future competitor to libraries
• Some areas that overlap with libraries
• Google bases its business on discovery tools
• Most of its revenues come from adds
• Libraries specialize in delivery
• Libraries can leverage global discovery tools to
  enhance local delivery of content and services

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Threats and challenges

• Library users expect more than they currently
  receive.
• Google and other modern Web destinations set high
  user expectations
• Urgent need to develop library interfaces that
  will be compelling to a new generation of Web
  savvy users
• Failure to innovate will result in a diminished
  role for libraries as the next phase of digital
  information evolves.

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Questions and Discussion