Open Source in Your Library Friday, May 9 3:15p - 4:30p
Stephen Spohn: Consultant for Information Access and Service Assessmentspohn@nelinet.net508-597-1937 (Direct Dial)508-597-1987 (Direct Fax)
Stephen’s interes is More learning technologies and productivity. He is formerly from U MD and Harrisburg Univeristy
Copy left
http://gnu.org
http://Freebsd.org
http://Opensource.org
http://Creativecommons.org : a way for people to selfpublish and allow certain rights and restrictions.
TYPICAL OPEN SOURCE ENVIRONMENT linux operating system, apache web server, PHP, MySql
REASONS TO USE OPEN SOURCE (He uses Moodle, Wikis and Blogs)
Active user/developer communities
LOOK FOR:
Decent Documentation
Bug fixing and troubleshooting
Customizing/modifying
Lower pricetag
He integrated Moodle LMS (learning management system) with Active directory for single signon so there’s no extra username and password.. Moodle will be used at NELINET for classes.
OPEN SOURCE FOR EVERYONE
Apache powers around half all web servers
Linux grows in importance
Even the new Mac OS was built on top of BSD
GETTING OPEN SOURCE
http://sourceforge.net/
http://www.vmware.com/
http://bitnami.org/
System Configuration and open source: Commercial stuff just looks flashier and more user friendly
Remember, most of our first ILSs were started as non-commercial projects at large institutions. Commercial ILSs have become stagnant.
It’s now time to take them back
Eprints – http://www.eprints.org/ simple design, widely used Britain. For Digital Repositories
DSpace – http://www.dspace.org/ an open-source platform for accessing, managing, and preserving scholarly works. Developed by MIT Libraries and HP Labs, used in MBL/WHOI digitization projects
Fedora - http://fedoraproject.org/ Red Hat Most flexible
Koha – MassCat, Vermont and CT
Open office http://openoffice.org
HTML-kit http://www.chami.com/html-kit/ instead of Dreamweaver (a full-featured free editor for HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and other text files. Over 400 plugins are available for it, including HTML Tidy for creating standards -compliant web pages. HTML-Kit has been downloaded by millions of developers)
Thin client public workstations based on GNU/Linux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client
http://www.edubuntu.org/ Edubuntu (a thin client) is aimed at classroom use, and future versions of Edubuntu will expand to other educational usage, such as university use.
IT staffing and expertise needed to:
· Install and update software
· Modify software, installing modifications created by users
· Integrating the software with existing systems.
But the user community can contribute to the development
Hosting options
NELINET’S TECHNOLOGY SANDBOX
http://forums.nelinet.net/sandbox/
DSpace Evergreen Harvester2 Koha Zoom Moodle MediaWiki TDNet WordPress
GO GET ‘EM
Reject the status quo
Make real contributions to the profession and society
Today’s open source will shape tomorrow’s commercial products
Brenda
Showing posts with label open source. Show all posts
Showing posts with label open source. Show all posts
Friday, May 9, 2008
Open Source in Your Library
Speaker: Stephen Spohn, Consultant for Information Access and Service Assessment Nelinet
Stephen began by asking the question "What is Open Source". He defined open source as defining a software where code is freely available with a freedom to distribute software and modify source code. Open source uses the concept of "copyleft", which is essentially an inversion of typical copyright ideals. Copyleft dictates that open source software can be freely changed as long as it remains perpetually open source.
Steve mentioned some of the open source licensing organizations:
GNU.org
FreeBSD.org
CreativeCommons.org
He mentioned the fact that Creative Commons licensing is convenient in that it spells out all of the terms of the license in "human-accessible" terms, versus the typical legalese of commercial software licensing.
Open source software is usually free of cost, but, as Steve pointed out, one must factor in the cost of time spent to install and maintain the software (which is usually more time consuming than commercial software).
Some of the advantages of open source can make it very beneficial to library enviornments. Steve stressed the fact that open source software should be used only if it meets a specific need in your library, rather than using it because it is merely "cool". There is a certain amount of technical know-how required to fully run the software. A lot of open source applications do have online "playgrounds", where one can try them out before taking the plunge into downloading them.
Most open source programs do have thriving user communities which function in the place of the typical user manuals that come packaged with commercial software. These are most often comprised of wikis and forums. One must make sure that the support community is active before choosing to rely on an open source program, as some programs do fail with the user market, thus rendering them effectively dead (without active support).
Steve showed us Moodle, an open source course management system for online education. Moodle is a fine example of an open source program that functions as an alternative to more common, commerical programs such as Blackboard and WebCt which effectively serve the same purpose. He suggested a few open source alternatives to common programs used in libraries:
Firefox for web browsing
HTML-Kit for web design
Linux systems for thin-client workstations
Open source modifying means that programs are constantly being tweaked and refined by an active community of users. These users create patches, fixes, and add-ons which help the program to continuously grow.
Steve ended by asking us to view open source software as an opportunity. By using open source we can reject the status quo of outdated software given to us by vendors. This in turn allows us to make a real contribution to our profession and society as a whole.
Stephen began by asking the question "What is Open Source". He defined open source as defining a software where code is freely available with a freedom to distribute software and modify source code. Open source uses the concept of "copyleft", which is essentially an inversion of typical copyright ideals. Copyleft dictates that open source software can be freely changed as long as it remains perpetually open source.
Steve mentioned some of the open source licensing organizations:
GNU.org
FreeBSD.org
CreativeCommons.org
He mentioned the fact that Creative Commons licensing is convenient in that it spells out all of the terms of the license in "human-accessible" terms, versus the typical legalese of commercial software licensing.
Open source software is usually free of cost, but, as Steve pointed out, one must factor in the cost of time spent to install and maintain the software (which is usually more time consuming than commercial software).
Some of the advantages of open source can make it very beneficial to library enviornments. Steve stressed the fact that open source software should be used only if it meets a specific need in your library, rather than using it because it is merely "cool". There is a certain amount of technical know-how required to fully run the software. A lot of open source applications do have online "playgrounds", where one can try them out before taking the plunge into downloading them.
Most open source programs do have thriving user communities which function in the place of the typical user manuals that come packaged with commercial software. These are most often comprised of wikis and forums. One must make sure that the support community is active before choosing to rely on an open source program, as some programs do fail with the user market, thus rendering them effectively dead (without active support).
Steve showed us Moodle, an open source course management system for online education. Moodle is a fine example of an open source program that functions as an alternative to more common, commerical programs such as Blackboard and WebCt which effectively serve the same purpose. He suggested a few open source alternatives to common programs used in libraries:
Firefox for web browsing
HTML-Kit for web design
Linux systems for thin-client workstations
Open source modifying means that programs are constantly being tweaked and refined by an active community of users. These users create patches, fixes, and add-ons which help the program to continuously grow.
Steve ended by asking us to view open source software as an opportunity. By using open source we can reject the status quo of outdated software given to us by vendors. This in turn allows us to make a real contribution to our profession and society as a whole.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Next Generation Data Format - Eric Lease Morgan - University of Nortre Dame - May 7, 2008
Eric Lease Morgan started with "its not about 'what we do', it is about 'how we do it'."
How we got to where we are
Morgan reminded us that we have been using services (LC cards, OCLC, etc.) to help us build catalogs for generations and using the MARC record since 1965. It is a sequential specific data structure. Then, the invasion of Dialogue, CD-ROMS, network connections, and jump ahead to today, where Information structures, such as Google, are based on different indexing principles.
Redefine the definition of librarianship
Exploit technology
Morgan advocates using relational databases, indexing systems (Googlebox, Keynote Search, etc.), XML.
How we got to where we are
Morgan reminded us that we have been using services (LC cards, OCLC, etc.) to help us build catalogs for generations and using the MARC record since 1965. It is a sequential specific data structure. Then, the invasion of Dialogue, CD-ROMS, network connections, and jump ahead to today, where Information structures, such as Google, are based on different indexing principles.
Redefine the definition of librarianship
Traditional core mission of librarianship is to collect, organize, archive, and disseminate data, information, and knowledge for our respective communities.
Here's what Morgan suggests:
Reduce dependence
Exploit technology
Morgan advocates using relational databases, indexing systems (Googlebox, Keynote Search, etc.), XML.
If we want to communicate to other places, in other words beyond the library community, we must speak other languages, and XML is the language being used.
As a "step in the right direction", conversion programs can help change MARC to MARC XML. The idea of describing a work is valid, but the method does not work in the broader world. The "Secret Codebook", better known as MARC, is limited because you need the code to interpret the fields.
A word from the audience (Dodie Gaudet) mentioned that the tags in XML are now in English, but MARC using numbers is more universal.
Commercial products use indexers to create interface. For example: Koha uses Zebra; Aqua developed a proprietary Indexer.
Work collaboratively
Work with peers and stakeholders in the inside and outside the library world.
"Next generation" library catalogs
Provide service not just catalog systems. As a part of the community, use this base to create services at the local level. Add, annotate, cite, compare and contrast, plot a map, find similar, trace authors, etc.
In response to a question, Morgan suggested see the applications (Scriblio, WordPress, VuFind, etc.) demonstrated during the pre-conference (MLA May 6th).
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Blazing a Trail in the Commonwealth
Here are some pictures from Tuesday evening's Open Conversation about Open Source at MLA.
First, Scot Colford gave a brief overview on Open Source, and facilitated the conversation.
Among the attendees who offered their thoughts were Nora Blake, Manager of MassCat:
Diane Hillman, Research Librarian from Cornell University Library:
Eric Lease Morgan, Head of Digital Access and Information Architecture, University Libraries of Notre Dame:
Rob Maier, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners:
First, Scot Colford gave a brief overview on Open Source, and facilitated the conversation.
Among the attendees who offered their thoughts were Nora Blake, Manager of MassCat:
Diane Hillman, Research Librarian from Cornell University Library:
Eric Lease Morgan, Head of Digital Access and Information Architecture, University Libraries of Notre Dame:
Rob Maier, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners:
BUST OUT OF THE BOX ......KOHA
A slow paced speaker, but Koha enthusiast, Ms. Johnson talked about her decision to go with an Open Source system. When she originally had the need to automate, nothing else was available to her. She worked in a rural library with no system.
Unfortunately, compounded by the unenviable speaking spot, just before lunch, Ms. Johnson was not able to keep the talk focused on what I believe most people came to hear: Why would one
go with an Open Source System? And, for those libraries about to join the Koha System as MassCat members: Is this going to work for my library?
I was also a bit influenced by what happened earlier in the meetings.....Ms. Johnson was the only person who raised her hand when Marshall Breeding asked who wrote code. Instead of being
a reassuring source for the average librarian going with a new product, I didn't get a strong sense of mentoring for those about to take the plunge.
"Ms. Johnson said she started with an easy system, which became more complicated." Her catalog with approximately 10,000 records was able to adapt and change, as she redesigned her Koha OPAC. She showed several different examples, which other libraries could deploy, depending on where the library is wants to go. There are examples on the Internet.
Ms. Johnson gave some direction, saying that it is important not to confuse Koha with LibLime. LibLime is the small US based company offering support (More about LibLime was presented by their representative at the luncheon). Developers of Koha began in New Zealand, and now are all over the world. Anyone who has the skill can contribute to the development.
The most positive aspect of Open Source Software as seen by Ms. Johnson is ownership. The difference from using proprietary software is the ability to manipulate your own data. You don't need anyone's data. She presented her experience as director of a very small library, who was able to develop her own code for her small library.
Unfortunately, compounded by the unenviable speaking spot, just before lunch, Ms. Johnson was not able to keep the talk focused on what I believe most people came to hear: Why would one
go with an Open Source System? And, for those libraries about to join the Koha System as MassCat members: Is this going to work for my library?
I was also a bit influenced by what happened earlier in the meetings.....Ms. Johnson was the only person who raised her hand when Marshall Breeding asked who wrote code. Instead of being
a reassuring source for the average librarian going with a new product, I didn't get a strong sense of mentoring for those about to take the plunge.
"Ms. Johnson said she started with an easy system, which became more complicated." Her catalog with approximately 10,000 records was able to adapt and change, as she redesigned her Koha OPAC. She showed several different examples, which other libraries could deploy, depending on where the library is wants to go. There are examples on the Internet.
Ms. Johnson gave some direction, saying that it is important not to confuse Koha with LibLime. LibLime is the small US based company offering support (More about LibLime was presented by their representative at the luncheon). Developers of Koha began in New Zealand, and now are all over the world. Anyone who has the skill can contribute to the development.
The most positive aspect of Open Source Software as seen by Ms. Johnson is ownership. The difference from using proprietary software is the ability to manipulate your own data. You don't need anyone's data. She presented her experience as director of a very small library, who was able to develop her own code for her small library.
Georgia Pines: Adventures in Statewide ILS Development
Georgia Pines: Adventures in Statewide ILS Development Tuesday 10:40
Speaker: Tim Daniels, PINES Project Manager.
PINES formed by 49 public libraries with Grant money. Instead of the State Library officials making policies from on high, a library board of directors, the “divine 9” representing all sorts of libraries.
Libraries established shared standards: loan policies, loan request and duration standards, fine structures. Pines libraries agreed to go forward to offer service for State budget pays for overdue notices, interlibrary loan delivery, courier services, etc. allowing the libraries to user their own $ for collections, IF the library agrees to be part of the cooperative and share resources according to the collaborative ILS. Overdues are processed centrally for client libraries. Georgia uses a statewide library card. There is a centralized helpdesk and software support, training is provided.
RPF initially identified a vendor, but because of the size of the system (1.9 million active users, 8.8 million bib records). The system wasn’t scalable. Too large for the system, Crashes ensued. Pines hired software developers who offered to develop open source. Georgia Board of Regents supported the open source effort, as Georgia Tech already had They essentially brought in already developed open source components and then used a community centered approach. Meetings to discern expectations of public libraries. Software developers pulled together the ranked wish list, and began developing and integrating.
September 2006, PINES started with 199 libraries live on the same day. Big mistake. PINES experienced 500% more traffic than ever before – a lot from out of state, interested in what Georgia did. Statewide Interlibrary loan has been very popular. Under discussion: statewide AV loan.
Developers look at other open source projects and adapt for Evergreen. Example, they’re looking at VUfind. Alberta coming up . Development opportunities have arrived as other states evaluate PINES feasibility. Indiana looking at Evergreen – developed a MAC interface and potential for credit card charge feature. Whether or not Indiana adopts, the applications have been developed.
Future options. Equinox (entity developing Evergreen) now has a 5 year contract, but migration is easy and possible. Other states are looking at the PINES model. now has Michigan Consortium support
Current projects: developing Acquisitions and Serials modules, discovery features, improved staff client, reports, an offline mode for bookmobile.
Future projects:
Protocols to share information with other automation systems; develop a Web based children’s catalog; developing DTDs to support foreign languages, building the Evergreen Foundation, Evergreen user’s group, and Evergreen International Conference. They envision a social tagging component as well.
Evergreen. http://open-lis.org/ is where developers are parking their open source.
See http://www.georgialibraries.org/ and Facebook for Evergreen Open ILS.
Pines Program Manager is Tim Daniels tdaniels@georgialibraries.org
Brenda
Speaker: Tim Daniels, PINES Project Manager.
PINES formed by 49 public libraries with Grant money. Instead of the State Library officials making policies from on high, a library board of directors, the “divine 9” representing all sorts of libraries.
Libraries established shared standards: loan policies, loan request and duration standards, fine structures. Pines libraries agreed to go forward to offer service for State budget pays for overdue notices, interlibrary loan delivery, courier services, etc. allowing the libraries to user their own $ for collections, IF the library agrees to be part of the cooperative and share resources according to the collaborative ILS. Overdues are processed centrally for client libraries. Georgia uses a statewide library card. There is a centralized helpdesk and software support, training is provided.
RPF initially identified a vendor, but because of the size of the system (1.9 million active users, 8.8 million bib records). The system wasn’t scalable. Too large for the system, Crashes ensued. Pines hired software developers who offered to develop open source. Georgia Board of Regents supported the open source effort, as Georgia Tech already had They essentially brought in already developed open source components and then used a community centered approach. Meetings to discern expectations of public libraries. Software developers pulled together the ranked wish list, and began developing and integrating.
September 2006, PINES started with 199 libraries live on the same day. Big mistake. PINES experienced 500% more traffic than ever before – a lot from out of state, interested in what Georgia did. Statewide Interlibrary loan has been very popular. Under discussion: statewide AV loan.
Developers look at other open source projects and adapt for Evergreen. Example, they’re looking at VUfind. Alberta coming up . Development opportunities have arrived as other states evaluate PINES feasibility. Indiana looking at Evergreen – developed a MAC interface and potential for credit card charge feature. Whether or not Indiana adopts, the applications have been developed.
Future options. Equinox (entity developing Evergreen) now has a 5 year contract, but migration is easy and possible. Other states are looking at the PINES model. now has Michigan Consortium support
Current projects: developing Acquisitions and Serials modules, discovery features, improved staff client, reports, an offline mode for bookmobile.
Future projects:
Protocols to share information with other automation systems; develop a Web based children’s catalog; developing DTDs to support foreign languages, building the Evergreen Foundation, Evergreen user’s group, and Evergreen International Conference. They envision a social tagging component as well.
Evergreen. http://open-lis.org/ is where developers are parking their open source.
See http://www.georgialibraries.org/ and Facebook for Evergreen Open ILS.
Pines Program Manager is Tim Daniels tdaniels@georgialibraries.org
Brenda
Future of Integrated Library Systems: Moving Toward New Models and Open Systems
The first session of a the Spring Conference, feels like a new pad of paper on the first day of school. The crowd is bustling, everyone chatting... If you've spent anytime in the cataloging world in Massachusetts, you would be recognizing the the faces of the heads of Cataloging Departments, those representing regional systems, and staff members from all over the state and then before you emerges one of the gurus in the field of library automation:
Marshall Breeding of Vanderbilt University. Aside from many other contributions to librarianship, he writes a monthly column in Computers in Libraries. For seven years, his column has collected information about library automation from vendors.
Breeding's experience makes him an ideal speaker to reflect on integrated library systems, open source systems, and where the two are going. He sped through way too much material, but in a very professional and insightful talk.
Breeding said: "Not much luck in 2nd generation systems" "We need to get beyond discovery" of just a title. We need to: ."Search -> Select -> View". That is our goal! It is not easy, but it is the ambition that we should have. Libraries can add a set of values... a search engine that retrieves "best and most interesting".. "not thesites that are going to sell best." Search engines that reflect our values. Good grouping is a good thing. Building collections that are not "the whole world", butsearching limited to a good collection.
Presently, he sees a dis-integrated environment, where we all need to work together. Core ILS's are generally supplemented by OpenURL Link Resolver, Metasearch, ERM, Next Generation Library Interfaces, RFID/ AMH.
Breeding sited how many people start their with the Library Catalog:
2% - go to a library catalog first to start their research in an academic setting
1% - go to a library catalog first to start their research in the general setting.
Breeding quipped: "University libraries are doing twice as well as the general libraries!"
Met with the big laugh, he continued:
"Help people discover!" he encouraged and asked how can we get a more rapid response and results that are visually rich "We live in a new environment where there are millions of books scanned. You have to be able to search all of those books all at once!We are moving beyond ....book chapters, and in the text...(Google Search). [As an old reference librarian, I thinking that has always been the challenge of librarianship.]
He continued saying: " the library world doesn't have search-inside-the-book option (Google and Amazon do!)". He wondered: How do you get good results searching through millions of things?
Breeding laments the trend of integrated library systems not being truly integrated. Seems to be getting worse as more vendors are added to provide the services needed. Fragmented industries with overlapping products developed during print days, now the industry is emerging into a highly consolidated market with less choices in the a hybrid environment. Breeding advocates more comprehensive systems, easier to install, more elegant, more efficient, and ones that save staff time.
Breeding advocates getting rid of modules for different types of materials....that's not how the library staff work! Change the model to reflect how libraries really work. Incorporate the global environment (Worldcat, Google, Amazon, etc.)
He envisions a system of smaller web systems to reflect the way library workflow evolves. We need to work with our vendors through partnerships to develp what libraries need. He feels that vendors need to succeed if libraries are to succeed.
According to Breeding there are amazing automation gaps in all automation systems:
Interlibrary loan
Collection development
Preservation: print and digital
Book Binding
Remote Storage
Unfortunately, Breeding rattled through the the slides on innovation on what ILS, but his handout provided links to major vendors: Ex Libris, Endeca, Innovative, AquaBrowser,OCLC WorldCat, SIRSIDynix, VUFind... but he covered a great deal of material in a short time.
"What we need is more openness, not necessarily Open Source"
He suggested demanding open acess to data and more customization.
1 person raised her hand in response to his question of who could actually write source code. So at least among the audience there were few that would be actually contributing to the expansion of OpenSource Software.
Yet, the audience responded with a large knowing laugh when he asked if they considered their vendors creative.
Breeding advocates librarians help building the architecture and standards that promote better systems. He got a big chuckle from the audience when he mentioned that it has taken"20 years not to complete Z39.50 standards!"
Yet, he sees that libraries are spending as much money as ever on integrated library systems and that companies are showing growth. Judges growth by whether they are adding staff. He gave some stats, which included that SIRSI Dynix and Library Corp decreased staff.
Many smaller libraries still have no automation (20 to 30% nationally) mainly due to price and where no regional systems exit.
Large libraries in a "wait and see" mode
He sees some problems. Some of these can be changed by librarians, others may not be in our hands. Examples: RFP are lists of 1980s technologies! can be changed. Tough economic times are upon us and cannot easily be changed.
Librarians change their ILS when only when they absolutely have to, when forced by vendor abandonment, need to move towards consortia system, or when they have a bad relationship with vendor or consortia
Breeding mentioned these new direction in integrated library systems:
Electronic content
Better User experience
Linking
Federated searching
Future - What to think about
REINTEGRATE THINGS!
Breeding mentioned some innovative companies. An example was Cambridge Information Group including Proquest and Bowker, which he felt may move toward an ILS
OCLC starting with technology acquisitions seem to be bringing them closer to an ILS
Risky alternatives, Breeding still considers Open Source a "risky" alternative.
He mentioned Andrew W. Mellon Foundation soliciting proposals for new systems.
Open Source is supplemented by those willing to assist.
Yet, Breeding did consider Open Source's positive effect on the library market:
It has created competition for the the ILS market as a whole
May create innovation
May decrease costs
May make the market more open
Breeding encouraged: Let's play by the same rules - Important to ask the right questions
Open source has to "be good" not just "feel good" philosophically
Do we offer more slack to Open Source companies?
Can open source survive the RFP checklist?
Total cost of ownership over a long period needs to be compared to established vendor fees.
Is this truly different software or is this just the same old software with a different business model?
Breeding hopes to see better interfaces:
Redefine "library catalog"
Question what's in the "library catalog"
Comprehensive environment, set pretty high by the Internet environment
Electronic resources can't be an afterthought in the library catalog
How can we harvest all the articles, all resources.
He mentioned that one can judge a system by how do it responds to a bad inquiry.
He feels that political and economic reasons exist for not consolidating resources, but the technology is there.
He is looking for web tools and technology that foster collaboration, tagging, social bookmarking, user rating, user reviews, community interaction.And all that with a single point entry.
Great talk! So much to do, so little time....
Marshall Breeding of Vanderbilt University. Aside from many other contributions to librarianship, he writes a monthly column in Computers in Libraries. For seven years, his column has collected information about library automation from vendors.
Breeding's experience makes him an ideal speaker to reflect on integrated library systems, open source systems, and where the two are going. He sped through way too much material, but in a very professional and insightful talk.
Breeding said: "Not much luck in 2nd generation systems" "We need to get beyond discovery" of just a title. We need to: ."Search -> Select -> View". That is our goal! It is not easy, but it is the ambition that we should have. Libraries can add a set of values... a search engine that retrieves "best and most interesting".. "not thesites that are going to sell best." Search engines that reflect our values. Good grouping is a good thing. Building collections that are not "the whole world", butsearching limited to a good collection.
Presently, he sees a dis-integrated environment, where we all need to work together. Core ILS's are generally supplemented by OpenURL Link Resolver, Metasearch, ERM, Next Generation Library Interfaces, RFID/ AMH.
Breeding sited how many people start their with the Library Catalog:
2% - go to a library catalog first to start their research in an academic setting
1% - go to a library catalog first to start their research in the general setting.
Breeding quipped: "University libraries are doing twice as well as the general libraries!"
Met with the big laugh, he continued:
"Help people discover!" he encouraged and asked how can we get a more rapid response and results that are visually rich "We live in a new environment where there are millions of books scanned. You have to be able to search all of those books all at once!We are moving beyond ....book chapters, and in the text...(Google Search). [As an old reference librarian, I thinking that has always been the challenge of librarianship.]
He continued saying: " the library world doesn't have search-inside-the-book option (Google and Amazon do!)". He wondered: How do you get good results searching through millions of things?
Breeding laments the trend of integrated library systems not being truly integrated. Seems to be getting worse as more vendors are added to provide the services needed. Fragmented industries with overlapping products developed during print days, now the industry is emerging into a highly consolidated market with less choices in the a hybrid environment. Breeding advocates more comprehensive systems, easier to install, more elegant, more efficient, and ones that save staff time.
Breeding advocates getting rid of modules for different types of materials....that's not how the library staff work! Change the model to reflect how libraries really work. Incorporate the global environment (Worldcat, Google, Amazon, etc.)
He envisions a system of smaller web systems to reflect the way library workflow evolves. We need to work with our vendors through partnerships to develp what libraries need. He feels that vendors need to succeed if libraries are to succeed.
According to Breeding there are amazing automation gaps in all automation systems:
Interlibrary loan
Collection development
Preservation: print and digital
Book Binding
Remote Storage
Unfortunately, Breeding rattled through the the slides on innovation on what ILS, but his handout provided links to major vendors: Ex Libris, Endeca, Innovative, AquaBrowser,OCLC WorldCat, SIRSIDynix, VUFind... but he covered a great deal of material in a short time.
"What we need is more openness, not necessarily Open Source"
He suggested demanding open acess to data and more customization.
1 person raised her hand in response to his question of who could actually write source code. So at least among the audience there were few that would be actually contributing to the expansion of OpenSource Software.
Yet, the audience responded with a large knowing laugh when he asked if they considered their vendors creative.
Breeding advocates librarians help building the architecture and standards that promote better systems. He got a big chuckle from the audience when he mentioned that it has taken"20 years not to complete Z39.50 standards!"
Yet, he sees that libraries are spending as much money as ever on integrated library systems and that companies are showing growth. Judges growth by whether they are adding staff. He gave some stats, which included that SIRSI Dynix and Library Corp decreased staff.
Many smaller libraries still have no automation (20 to 30% nationally) mainly due to price and where no regional systems exit.
Large libraries in a "wait and see" mode
He sees some problems. Some of these can be changed by librarians, others may not be in our hands. Examples: RFP are lists of 1980s technologies! can be changed. Tough economic times are upon us and cannot easily be changed.
Librarians change their ILS when only when they absolutely have to, when forced by vendor abandonment, need to move towards consortia system, or when they have a bad relationship with vendor or consortia
Breeding mentioned these new direction in integrated library systems:
Electronic content
Better User experience
Linking
Federated searching
Future - What to think about
REINTEGRATE THINGS!
Breeding mentioned some innovative companies. An example was Cambridge Information Group including Proquest and Bowker, which he felt may move toward an ILS
OCLC starting with technology acquisitions seem to be bringing them closer to an ILS
Risky alternatives, Breeding still considers Open Source a "risky" alternative.
He mentioned Andrew W. Mellon Foundation soliciting proposals for new systems.
Open Source is supplemented by those willing to assist.
Yet, Breeding did consider Open Source's positive effect on the library market:
It has created competition for the the ILS market as a whole
May create innovation
May decrease costs
May make the market more open
Breeding encouraged: Let's play by the same rules - Important to ask the right questions
Open source has to "be good" not just "feel good" philosophically
Do we offer more slack to Open Source companies?
Can open source survive the RFP checklist?
Total cost of ownership over a long period needs to be compared to established vendor fees.
Is this truly different software or is this just the same old software with a different business model?
Breeding hopes to see better interfaces:
Redefine "library catalog"
Question what's in the "library catalog"
Comprehensive environment, set pretty high by the Internet environment
Electronic resources can't be an afterthought in the library catalog
How can we harvest all the articles, all resources.
He mentioned that one can judge a system by how do it responds to a bad inquiry.
He feels that political and economic reasons exist for not consolidating resources, but the technology is there.
He is looking for web tools and technology that foster collaboration, tagging, social bookmarking, user rating, user reviews, community interaction.And all that with a single point entry.
Great talk! So much to do, so little time....
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