Alejandro Garza over on the Stupendous Amazing Library blog, extrapolates the fact that there is very little partnership between library system vendors to conclude that they are not interested in interoperation between their systems.  He is picking up on extracts from the JISC/SCONUL Library Management Systems Study as commented upon by the Disruptive Library Technology Jester.

Coming from a history of integration protocols, in the library world, where they were more a framework for agreement than a standard, it is easy to assume that the only way to get two systems to talk is for their suppliers to establish a partnership to get it to work.  My least favourite standard NCIP is a classic in this regard. 

As I commented on the Jester’s post, the questions for the study were:

… in the present tense. Answering with ‘our products will integrate, etc., etc.’, would have no doubt drawn equal scepticism, but for different reasons.

The answers you picked out are symptomatic of an industry in transition. Transition from products without exception based on architectures that never envisioned light-weight loosely-coupled integration. Transition to a REST based service oriented architecture where integration between library and non-library applications should be simple and based on simple and open standards.

The “Do you have partnerships with other LMS/ERM vendors?” question in the survey demonstrates an attachment to traditional thinking towards integration. So far, with the traditional heavy-weight protocols we are used to in the library world, the only reliable way to get integration that works has been through a partnership between suppliers. Web 2.0 has demonstrated that with simple light-weight protocols, integration is possible without the need for commercial partnerships. There are many benefits that arise from partnerships, but they shouldn’t be a prerequisite for successful integration.

It is not all doom and gloom though. Initiatives such as the DLF’s ILS API defining simple REST base protocols that all vendors should be able to support, have started to gather momentum in the last few months. A momentum that appears to be supported both by vendors and open source groups.

Since I made that comment I attended a JISC and SCONUL Library Management Systems Study Consultation Event in London.  This event was a get together of stakeholders in the UK academic library community, which were joined by representatives from system vendors for the afternoon session.  For those with a sadistic streak in must have made an entertaining spectacle, watching six vendor representatives (Ex Libris, Infor, Innovative, OCLC, SirsiDynix & Talis) trying to squeeze their views in to 5 minute slots.  From most of those presentations and the discussion that followed, it is clear that the vendors are just as much stakeholders in this as the rest of the community.

I feel there is a refreshing openness in opinion and approach that is starting to spread through the conversations in the world of library systems.   This openness has been in high evidence in the recent Library 2.0 Gang conversations on ILS APIs and Bolt-on OPACs. 

It was a good meeting in London, I only hope that the organisers can keep the momentum going and build a community around the concerns of all the stakeholders, vendors included.  If the initiative started by the study falls back in to the traditional model of projects and reports that we are used to, it will be a massive waste of an opportunity.

Back to my original question - do we need partnerships to enable interoperability?  No we don’t.  With loosely-coupled integration, facilitated by web native light-weight open APIs, interoperability should ‘just happen’.  Vendors should, and are starting to be in the position to, say my systems are open for you to interoperate with - who ever you are, partnership in place or not.  This won’t happen over night, but we are already on a new path, with a healthy does of credit for the DLF’s leadership in giving us some direction.

Photo from Flickr by Just.Luc.

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Vendors respond robustly to critical HE LMS report is the headline on the front of the latest issue of the CILIP Gazette.  What follows is the second in a two-part feature on the JISC/SCONUL study, which I have discussed in Panlibus previously, by Gazette contributor Tim Buckley Owen.

In preparation for this second article on the subject, Tim contacted the four vendors (Ex Libris, Innovative, SirsDynix, Talis) who between them provide over 90% of the UK higher education Library Systems, and asked them to comment on the report.

I would have linked to the article if it been available on line.  Unfortunately the Gazette’s web page only shows an out of date thumbnail of the latest issue.  So, here are some snippets from Tim’s article:

[the vendors] acknowledge that things need to change in university libraries, and are starting to develop new systems as a result - but it’s not always clear yet what those changes actually need to be.

‘We agree that the library management system, with its “traditional” scope and functionality, does not adequately address the expectations of end users,’ says Tamar Sadeh of ExLibris, which has developed its Primo discovery and delivery solution in response.  ‘If the LMS does not interoperate with other institutional systems and resources, it deserves to be bypassed and become irrelevant,’ agrees Talis’s Richard Wallis

‘There is no disagreement that users’ demand for information is morphing in new and exciting ways and that the library (and library systems) need to change to meet those needs,’ agrees Gene Shimshock of Innovative.  ‘However, interoperability is but a part of a rather complicated puzzle, a means to an end, and is not the sole factor in determining libraries’ relevancy.’

Stephen Abram of SirsiDynix shares this view.  ‘You can build all this stuff but you actually have to align it with the way the users are behaving… there is no one right answer right now - and that no one right answer is the challenge for librarians.’

So what’s the solution?  Open application programming interfaces (API), says SirsiDynix’s Abram, with the vendor providing the toolkit and the librarians choosing the tools to meet their clients variegated needs.

‘Can we as vendors create appropriate solutions?  No,’ he declares.  ‘Can our clients, in a collaboration environment, using our tools, create them?  Yes.’

Talis’s Wallis agrees that open systems are the way forward.  ‘The current monolithic model and a lack of web based APIs and standards has led to an effective vendor lock-in… a lack of real competition, thus a lack of innovation and inevitably frustrated customers.’

The study proposes that JISC & SCONUL are best placed to ensure that the libraries and vendors agree on priorities.  As Tim says:

- and vendors are hardly likely to disagree.

‘Any initiative that moves our understanding of the problems (and opportunities) for the library forward in a meaningful way is always welcomed,’ says Innovative’s Shimshock, citing his own company’s work on the emerging Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI).  ‘We would welcome the ability to engage at a consortial level with important and influential organizations such as JISC and SCONUL that can work with their constituent members,’ agrees ExLibris’s Sadeh.

But there are some caveats.  ‘Looking at the programmes of the recent JISC and upcoming SCONUL conferences the role of vendors seems to be viewed by organizers as sponsors of drinks receptions rather than active participants in the debate,’ declares Richard Wallis of Talis.  ‘Our hope is that representative bodies as JISC and SCONUL find a way to constructively and openly collaborate with all stakeholders.’

Libraries, bodies such as JISC & SCONUL, the system vendors, and I would include the open source community, are all important stakeholders in the way libraries and the technologies and services they use develop over the next few years.  It is for all these stakeholders to agree in a conversation of equals as to the way forward.  The old ways of either libraries broadcasting requirements, or vendors individually coming up with ‘the new way to do things’ in the hope that everyone will move to their systems, did not and even more will not move us forward.  What is needed is a requirements, solutions, innovation sharing, and visionary, but also focused on practicalities, conversation - let’s hope it emerges from burst of activity following the publishing of this study.

The vendors, the type of library, and their issues, are not limited to the UK HE community.  They are replicated on a global scale.  Libraries and other interested parties outside of the UK, should be watching this closely - it could well save time and repetition in their own conversations with the same stakeholders in their locations - hopefully leading to a global conversation.

Egotistical note:  Those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed a picture of yours truly on the front cover of this issue of the Gazette.  Through a happy coincidence of editorial deadlines, I am not only quoted in Tim’s headline article on page one, but I am also to be found on page two introducing the Library 2.0 Gang.  I suppose they will have to name this one the Wallis issue!

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Rachel Bruce of JISC and Anne Bell of SCONUL join me in the latest Talking with Talis podcast to discuss the recently published JISC & SCONUL Library Management Systems Study - An Evaluation and horizon scan of the current library management systems and related systems landscape for UK higher education.

We discuss the report, the reasons for commissioning it, how it will inform the on going debate about the future of academic libraries, and how libraries could use it.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

During the conversation we reference the following resources:

• JISC
• SCONUL
• JISC & SCONUL Library Management Systems Study [pdf]
• JISC Information Environment
• Libraries of the Future

This conversation was recorded on Friday 9th May  and edited on a Mac with Garageband.

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Libraries are the Future, or that is the implication of the the new JISC initiative - Libraries of the Future. The initiative was trumpeted at the JISC 2008 Conference in Birmingham last week, which I commented about previously.  There was some good stuff that came out of the conference, not least this.  Checking out the Libraries of the Future site you get this overview of where they are coming from.

In an information world in which Google apparently offers us everything, what place is there for the traditional, and even the digital, library? In a library environment which is increasingly moving to the delivery of online rather than print resources, what of the academic library’s traditional place at the heart of campus life?

What about the impact of repositories and open access on the delivery of library resources? And the need to digitise and make more widely accessible key scholarly resources? And what of the calls for libraries to play a central role in the promotion of ‘information literacy’?

Through ‘Libraries of the Future’, JISC is hoping to explore these and many other questions, to open up - with partner organisations and librarians themselves - a debate about the future of the academic and research library.

To coincide with the launch, yesterday’s Guardian contains an eight page supplement Libraries unleashed, produced in association with JISC.  The print version has lots of nice pictures in addition to all the text in the online version.

Lots of good reading in here, not just about technology, the articles on buildings and spaces are interesting as well.  One particular paragraph caught my eye, quoting Dr Ian Rowlands from the Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (Ciber), in Wendy Wallace’s article Information Alert.

"There is a clear message that young people have not been taught to construct a proper search and evaluate the results. Libraries are spending a fortune on premium content, but fundamental skills are lacking."

Surely we should be investing in the development of the discovery and delivery tools for this premium content, so that you don’t need training to use it.  If you need to train users to use your system, you have probably failed the usability test.

The Libraries are the future theme is something I picked up on whilst at the JISC 2008 conference.  I get the feeling that the drift away from libraries providing and guiding access to information that serves the scholar and the researcher - Learning Management Systems/eLearning, archives, repositories etc., being set up and run away from the library - may well start to be reversed as folks realise the need for information management and librarian skills in these areas.

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