Slide 1: Trends in Library Automation: Meeting the challenges of a new generation of library users Marshall Breeding Director 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
Slide 2: Abstract Till now, the library automation business and technology trends have evolved at a leisurely pace. Today libraries face incredible challenges as nonlibrary 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.
Slide 3: Working toward a New Phase of Innovation Business trends Technology and Product trends
Slide 4: Business Trends A look at the companies involved in library automation and related technologies
Slide 5: 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 R&D for new innovations. Pressure to reduce costs, increase revenue
Slide 6: Library Automation M&A History
Slide 7: 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
Slide 8: 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 
Slide 9: Business Cycle Founder start-up  Venture capital support -> board level representation  Private equity ownership -> strategic control  IPO == mature company 
Slide 10: Investor owned companies      SirsiDynix -> Seaport Capital + Hicks Muse Ex Libris -> Francisco Partners (recently bought out VC’s) Endeavor -> Francisco Partners (recently bought out Elsevier) Infor (was Extensity, was Geac) -> Golden Gate Polaris -> Croydon Company  formerly part of Gaylord Bros (acquired by Demco)
Slide 11: 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 Owned by Annette Murphy family  The Library Corporation 
Slide 12: Public companies:  Auto-Graphics   De-listed from SEC reporting requirements Was OTC:AUGR now Pink Sheets:AUGR Spin-off form Battelle Information Dimensions Acquired by OCLC, run as for-profit business unit Sold to Gores Technology Group Acquired by OpenText   OpenText      Move involved in enterprise information management than ILS
Slide 13: 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 
Slide 14: 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 
Slide 15: 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 
Slide 16: Partnerships  Increasing number of partnerships with specialist companies: Serials Solutions  TDNet  MuseGlobal  WebFeat  Openly Informatics  Medialab Solutions 
Slide 17: 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.
Slide 18: Companies more self-reliant Innovative  Ex Libris 
Slide 19: 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
Slide 20: 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 nonprofit with enormous resources and the ability to shift costs.
Slide 21: 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  It’s important to choose a company that will survive
Slide 22: Product and Technology Trends
Slide 23: 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
Slide 24: 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 library’s overall collections.
Slide 25: State of the Library OPAC?
Slide 26: 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
Slide 27: Comprehensive Automation The goal of the Integrated Library Systems involves the automation of all aspects of the library’s internal operations and to provide key services to library users.
Slide 28: 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
Slide 29: 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 -> 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.
Slide 30: New Library Search Model     Don’t count on users beginning their research with library catalogs or Web site Consider the library’s 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
Slide 31: Library Discovery Model A Library Web Site / Catalog Web Library as search Destination
Slide 32: 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, contextsensitive linking, etc.
Slide 33: 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.
Slide 34: 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 
Slide 35: 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 
Slide 36: 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. 
Slide 37: Web 2.0 supporting technologies Web services  XML APIs  AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML)  Microformats  OpenSearch vs SRU/SRW 
Slide 38: Replacement Search Interfaces: Endeca Guided Search  AquaBrowser Library  Are library users satisfied with native ILS interfaces?
Slide 39: Replacement OPACs Endeca Guided Navigation  AquaBrowser Library  Common thread:  Decoupled interface  Mass export of catalog data  Alternative search engine  Alternative interface 
Slide 40: 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
Slide 41: Library-developed solutions eXtensible Catalog  University of Rochester – River Campus Libraries  Financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation  http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/ 
Slide 42: Redefinition of library catalogs and interfaces      Traditional notions of the library catalog are being questioned It’s 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
Slide 43: 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.
Slide 44: 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
Slide 45: Appropriate organizational structures LCSH vs FAST  FRBR  Full MARC vs Dublin Core or MODS  Discipline-specific thesauri or ontologies  “tags” 
Slide 46: 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.
Slide 47: 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
Slide 48: Multi-layered information discovery       Global : Google Institutional / Regional : Primo Granular: Individual catalogs and repositories Broad -> 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.
Slide 49: 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
Slide 50: 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 
Slide 51: 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
Slide 52: 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 
Slide 53: 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.
Slide 54: Questions and Discussion