Latest Trends in Library Automation:

Building Creative and Inspiring Discovery Platforms

Marshall BreedingDirector for Innovative Technology and ResearchVanderbilt University LibraryNashville, TN USA

1) Participants will assess the latest library automation innovations and discovery platforms.2) Participants will better understand how libraries can meet patron expectations.

Learning Outcomes:

Marshall Breeding will address next-generation library interfaces and what the future holds for merging currently disparate resources, or silos of information. Some next-generation discovery platforms include AquaBrowser, Encore, Endeca, Primo, WorldCat Local and NELLCO’s Universal Search Solution.  Breeding is a VIP to AALL 2009, sponsored by ALL-SIS, the Library Journal author of “Automation System Marketplace,” and a Computers In Libraries columnist. In addition, Breeding will update the audience on current innovations in library automation technology.

Summary

Georgia Briscoe, Coordinator and Co-moderator, University of Colorado Law Library, William A. Wise Law Library

Filippa Marullo Anzalone, Co-moderator, Boston College Law Library

Marshall Breeding, Vanderbilt University, Jean and Alexander Heard Library

Moderators and speaker

Library Technology Guides / lib-web-cats Annual Perceptions Survey

Library Journal Automation Marketplace Regular contact with principals of library

automation companies and projects Regular publishing commitments:

◦ Library Technology Reports◦ Smart Libraries Newsletter◦ Computers in Libraries

Research and Publishing activities

Track automation trends beyond North America

UK, Australia: comprehensive automation data on public and academic libraries

China, Taiwan: Most academics, working on publics

South America: building database on library automation

Interest in automation in the developing world

International perspective

http://www.librarytechnology.org Repository for library automation data

Expanding to include more international scope

Announcements and developments made by companies and organizations involved in library automation technologies

Library Technology Guides

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

Lib-web-cats

ILS Products in US Law Libraries

Academic law libraries share the ILS of the broader institution◦ Few operate their own systems

Stand-alone law libraries gravitate toward fairly narrow slate of products

Data difficult to gather for libraries in law firms: typically behind corporate firewall

Seeking a comprehensive listing of US law libraries

ILS implementation trends for Law Libraries

Sophisticated clientele – emphasis on experienced researchers

Need for comprehensive and precise information tools Cost of errors or omissions high Complex collections of electronic and print Press the limits of cataloging, serials, and acquisitions

functionality in ILS Serials more prominent than monographs Electronic content concentrated in a small number of

delivery products◦ HeinOnline, Westlaw, Lexis-Nexis

Many boutique products with niche area content General Web content less of a threat to law libraries than to

public and academic libraries

Law Library Automation

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

LJ Automation System Marketplace

ILS Product Satisfaction

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 A small contingent of founder-owned

companies continue to thrive New wave of companies based on open source

service and support

Upheavals in the library automation arena

Breeding, Marshall: Perceptions 2008 an international survey of library automation. http://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2008.pl January 2009.

Demise of the traditional OPAC New genre of discovery interfaces

Conventional ILS less tenable◦Conceived around print inventory, difficult transition to mostly e-content

Increasing pressure for new innovations in automation solutions

Proliferation of products related to e-content management

Product and Technology Trends

Currently implemented ad hoc Many libraries putting up blogs, wikis,

and fostering engagement in social networking sites

Proliferation of silos with no integration or interoperability with larger library Web presence

Next Gen: Build social and collaborative features into core automation components

Web 2.0 / Collaborative Computing

The Mandate for Openness

Open Source Software◦Alternative to traditionally licensed software

Open Systems ◦Software that doesn’t hold data hostage

Increasing need for enterprise integration

Opportunities for Openness

Explosive interest in Open Source driven by disillusionment with current vendors and increasing support of this software licensing model

Beginning to emerge as a practical option both in the ILS and discovery layer arenas

TOC (Total Cost of Ownership) varies relative to proprietary commercial model◦ Many libraries document substantial savings

Both open source and commercial software involve risk

Law libraries less involved in open source ILS than other segments

Open Source Alternatives

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

Open Source ILS enters the mainstream

Integrated Library Systems◦ Koha, Evergreen, OPALS, NewGenLib

Repositories◦ Dspace, Fedora, DuraCloud

Discovery Interfaces◦ Vufind◦ Blacklight◦ SOPAC (Social OPAC)◦ eXtensible Catalog

ILL ◦ Relais (?)

Open Source Library products

Some libraries moving from traditionally licensed products to open source products with commercial support plans

Disruption of library automation industry◦ new pressures on incumbent vendors to deliver

more innovation and to satisfy concerns for openness

Low-cost options may help moderate pricing of commercial products

New competition / More options

Impact of Open Source ILS

Pressure for traditionally licensed products to become more open

APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) let libraries access and manipulate their data outside of delivered software

A comprehensive set of APIs potentially give libraries more flexibility and control in accessing data and services and in extending functionality than having access to the source code.

Customer access to APIs does not involve as much risk to breaking core system functions, avoids issues of version management and code forking associated with open source models.

More Open Systems

A New Generation of Discovery Interfaces for Library Collections

Lots of non-library Web destinations deliver content to library patrons ◦ 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?

Crowded Landscape of Information Providers on the Web

The Competition

Traditional ILS

Better?

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

Demand for compelling library interfaces

Online Catalog modules provided with an ILS subject to broad criticism as failing to meet expectations of growing segments of library patrons.

Not great at delivering electronic content Complex text-based interfaces Relatively weak keyword search engines Lack of good relevancy sorting Narrow scope of content

Inadequacy of ILS OPACs

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 All searched separately

Disjointed approach to information and service delivery

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

Change underway

Online Catalog◦ Interface

conventions from an earlier Web era

◦ Scope: Tied to the ILS and its content domain

Discovery Layer◦ Modern interface

elements◦ Scope: aims to

address broad range of components that constitute library collections

Online Catalog vs Discovery Layer

Most vendors are deemphasizing their traditional catalogs

Separate discovery interface New-gen online catalog with features

borrowed from the discovery interface genre

OPACs – a dying breed

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

More than the “library catalog”

Current distributed query model of federated search model not adequate

Expanded scope of search through harvested content◦ Consolidated search services based on

metadata and data gathered in advance (like OAI-PMH)

Problems of scale diminished Problems of cooperation persist Federated search currently operates as a

plug-in component of next-gen interfaces.

Comprehensive Discovery Service

Strategic infrastructure + Web 2.0 A more social and collaborative approach Web Tools and technology that foster

collaboration Integrated blogs, wiki, tagging, social

bookmarking, user rating, user reviews Avoid Web 2.0 information silos

Web 2.0 Flavorings

Single point of entry◦ Optional advanced search

Relevancy ranked results Facets for narrowing and navigation Query enhancement – spell check, etc Suggested related results /

recommendation service Enriched visual and textual content Single Sign-on

Interface Features / User Experience

Based on advanced search engines specifically designed for relevancy◦ Endeca, Lucene, FAST, BrainWare, etc

Web users expect relevancy ordered results◦ Items with strongest probability of interest should appear

first◦ Users tend not to delve deep into a result list◦ Good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach, including

objective matching criteria supplemented by social and relatedness factors.

Continued need for objective, comprehensive search techniques◦ Ability to select other search methods and sorting options –

browse, linked data, etc.

Relevancy Ranking

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

New Paradigm for search and navigation

“Did you mean?” and other features to avoid “No results found”

Validated spell check / query suggestions Automatic inclusion of authorized and

related terms More like this – recommendation service Make the query and the response to it

better than the query provided

Query / Result Enhancement

Attempt to collapse silos or draw appropriately from each silo

Unified user experience A single point of entry into all the content

and services offered by the library Print + Electronic Local + Remote Locally created Content User contributed content

The Ideal Scope Discovery Layer products

◦ 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

Social discovery

New-generation interface Harvested local content Vendor-supplied indexes of library content

◦ E-journals, databases, e-books◦ Book collections beyond local library collections

Pre-populated discovery services

Indexing the full corpus of information available globally Or at least major portions

Google aims to address all the world’s information Not quite comprehensive – partial harvesting of any given

resource Discovery Layer Products for libraries aim to address all

content collected by libraries: 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

Web scale discovery

Local discovery provides flexibility for libraries to create customized access to collections

Web-scale discovery emphasizes unified access and broad scope

Web-scale vs local discovery

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

See: Systems Librarian, May 2008 “Beyond the current generation of next-generation interfaces: deeper search”

Deep search

Fulfillment oriented Search -> select -> view Delivery/Fulfillment much harder than

discovery Back-end complexity should be as seamless

as possible to the user Offer services for digital and print content

Beyond Discovery to Fulfillment / Delivery

New Generation Library Interfaces

Current Commercial and Open Source Products

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)

Discovery Interface Products

Initial products focused on technology◦ AquaBrowser, Endeca, Primo, Encore, VUfind◦ Mostly locally-installed software

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

Discovery product Trend

New England Law Library Consortium  Consolidated search environment with

specialized content for law libraries  HeinOnline, local catalogs, etc.

http://www.nellco.org/index.cfm?pageId=505&parentID=504

http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/litaevents/litaforum2008/NELLCO.pdf

Partner with Index Data for software development and hosting

http://uss.indexdata.com/◦ Subscribers only -- Authentication required

NELLCO USS project

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

Local catalog data harvested, real-time link to holdings

Other local repositories harvested Others available through metasearch

Summon from Serials Solutions

Agreement with OCLC for WorldCat data EBSCO Host interface and content Content from other publishers and providers

EBSCO Discovery Service

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

Primo Central

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

WorldCat Local discovery service

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

WorldCat Local quick start

Extend WorldCat Local to include◦ Circulation◦ Delivery◦ Acquisitions◦ License Management

Positioned as Web-scale, cloud computing model, cooperative library system

Pilot sites being finalized; general availability in 2010

WorldCat Local automation platform

Traditional Proprietary Commercial ILS◦ Millennium, Symphony, Polaris

Traditional Open Source ILS◦ Evergreen, Koha

Clean slate automation framework (SOA, enterprise-ready)◦ Ex Libris URM, OLE Project

Cloud-based automation system◦ WorldCat Local (+circ, acq, license management)

Competing Models of Library Automation

Beyond selecting one brand from an assortment of similar products

Several conceptually diverse options Companies and projects now competing on

innovation

A new phase of library automation

Questions and discussion