Trends in Library Automation

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Trends in Library Automation

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

Alaska Library Association Annual Conference
February 24, 2006
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Industry Trends

• The business is becoming more brutal

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Fragmentation vs Consolidation

• Library industry fragmented
• Industry entering phase of consolidation
• Library industry still fragmented
• Many companies competing for a limited market
  with overlapping products with marginal
  differentiation
• Sirsi Dynix DocuTek DRA NOTIS MultiLIS
  INLEX SirsiDynix ?
• Library clients captured through acquisition
• Greater disparity between the smallest and the
  largest companies

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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
  venture capital
• SirsiDynix -gt Seaport Capital Hicks Muse
• Ex Libris -gt Walden Israel Tamar Technology
• Geac -gt Golden Gate
• Polaris -gt Croydon Company
• Privately owned by Founders
• Innovative Interfaces
• The Library Corporation
• Keystone Systems
• Division of Larger corporation
• Endeavor
• Open Text

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Growth Strategies

• Assembly Acquisition
• SirsiDynix
• BiblioMondo
• Some companies continue to prosper and grow
  organically through steady sales of products to
  new libraries
• Innovative
• The Library Corporation
• Keystone

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Libraries demand choice.

• Room for niche players
• Domination by a large monopoly unlikely to be
  accepted by library community

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A New Role for OCLC?

• Library-owned cooperative on a buying binge of
  automation companies
• Openly Informatics
• Fretwell-Downing Informatics
• Sisis Informationssysteme
• PICA
• Acquired a broad range of technology components
• Open WorldCat will grow into a much broader set
  of services

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Key Issue

• Its essential for libraries to partner with a
  company that will be one of the survivors of the
  industry.
• Very disruptive to a librarys automation
  strategy if its vendor is acquired.
• 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

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The Future?

• A fewer number of larger companies
• Some weaker companies may allow themselves to
  become acquired
• Consolidated companies will consolidate product
  offerings
• ILS Sales will decline
• Fewer opportunities for sales in US and Canada
• Focus on Non-ILS offerings
• Define a new ILS
• More International marketing
• More cross-industry ownership
• Courseware ILS?
• ERP/CRM ILS?

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Technology Trends
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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
• The ILS does need to be redefined
• Give primacy to electronic content
• Maintain solid support for print materials
• Designed to integrate with external systems
• Evolve into Service Oriented Business Application
• Compartmentalize and contain resources invested
  in traditional ILS functionality to catch up with
  deficits in supporting electronic content

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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.
• As the scope of libraries evolve, so must the
  scope and capabilities of the ILS

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Resource Sharing

• Limited budgets demand sharing collections
• Opportunities to make ILL more like circulation
• Fast delivery of physical items from non-local
  collections remote storage, consortium partners,
  ILL

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Large-scale automation

• Trend toward automation through consortia
• The days of single-library ILS implementations
  are waning
• An increasing portion of ILS sales involve
  independent libraries joining a consortium to
  gain access to a shared automation environment
• Small and mid-sized consortia are merging into
  larger ones
• ASP / Vendor-hosted automation
• Take advantage of industrial strength hosting
  facilities
• Realization that small libraries do not have the
  resources to deal with security, disaster
  planning, and other technical aspects of
  maintaining and ILS.

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The ILS Crisis

• The ILS, which had been steadily evolving for
  over 2 decades reached a crisis in about 2000.
  While libraries had evolved into new roles
  involving increasing electronic content, the ILS
  remained fixated on print and traditional
  materials.

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Response to the Crisis

• A bevy of add-ons
• OpenURL Link Resolvers
• Metasearch environments
• Electronic Resource Management modules
• New front ends and portals
• Replacement OPAC interfaces
• AquaBrowser Library
• Endeca Guided Search

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Blindsided despite Obvious Trends

• Libraries have been acquiring and creating
  electronic content since the emergence of the Web
• One of the most fundamental changes in the nature
  of libraries, yet the automation systems fell
  behind in features needed to manage and deliver
  electronic content.

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A fundamental failure

• The emergence of these non-integrated add-on
  applications stand as an indictment that the ILS
  failed to evolve in step with changes in the
  library environment.
• Libraries failed to demand adequate tools in time
  of need. Satisfied with ad-hoc solutions.
• Vendors failed to incrementally evolve their core
  products to accommodate electronic content.
• The ILS would be much different today if it
  gained these functions as native capabilities.

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Threats and challenges -- general

• Library users expect more than they currently
  receive.
• Google and other modern Web destinations set high
  user expectations.
• Library offerings seem clumsy, complex, and
  ineffectual.

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Threats and challenges academic

• Libraries struggle to find their place in the
  academic enterprise
• Organizationally Role in academic support and
  student life
• Virtually Challenge to be both conspicuous and
  transparent in the academic web presence
• Challenges
• be a great destination among the Web services the
  university offers its faculty and students
• To deliver library services through non-library
  interfaces campus portal, courseware, etc.

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Threats and challenges public

• Increased pressure to
• Reduce costs
• Share resources
• Increase service quality
• Integrate with municipal or county IT
  infrastructure and support structures
• Integrate with e-government systems
• Deliver access to more electronic content

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Threats and challenges schools

• Automate at the district level rather than
  individual school libraries
• Decrease IT support burden
• Support assessment and reporting requirements
• Integrate library automation with other school
  administration systems
• School Interoperability Framework

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Path to Recovery?

• More systematic approach toward hybrid
  print/electronic collections
• Adoption of technologies that support e-content
• OpenURL-based linking widely deployed
• Metasearch stands as the current kludge for
  unifying the OPAC and ever-growing collections of
  electronic content
• Develop new search and information discovery
  models
• Redefine the library catalog
• Not just the physical holdings
• Library portal options still limited and immature
• New library interfaces with more comprehensive
  scope
• Library Web services that integrate into
  strategic higher-level interfaces and portals

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Questions and Discussion