Found a fantastic slideshow covering the basics of Open Source ILS software via the Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian:
Direct link to the slides on SlideShare
A List Apart has been a steady source of thought-provoking inspiration over the years, not only from a website building perspective, but also because much of what they publish crosses boundaries and impacts other projects and interests in my life.
Their current article, Accent Folding, greatly impacts library data in general, and library catalogs in particular. It deals with the issue of Unicode and pattern recognition, namely how one creates search tools that allow for variations in how words containing accents, stress marks, and other non-ascii characters. The most succinct example:
There is no excuse for your software to play dumb when the user types “cafe” instead of “café.”
The article presents methods of “normalizing” text to allow for proper matching, and should be read by anyone who gets to deal with library data for reports and searching aids. If you know how to use regular expressions, you will likely be in for a treat.
The other example they present, this time to demonstrate the limitations of accent folding, uses Japanese to illustrate just how differently the same data can be presented:
These four sentences all say “Children like to watch television” in Japanese:
- Kanji: 子供はテレビを見るのが好きです。
- Hiragana: こども は てれび を みる の が すき です 。
- Romaji: kodomo wa terebi o miru noga suki desu.
- Cyrillic: кодомо ва тэрэби о миру нога суки дэсу.
Even if you don’t end up applying this directly to your work, the information in this article will help your appreciation for the challenges contained within your data, and how tough it can be to make it “just work” sometimes.
Library Technology Guides has a couple of interesting data sets that, in a limited way, shows some of the dynamic patterns in the Integrated Library System (ILS) market:
Integrated Library System turnover in 2009 (listed by the ILS migrated to)
Reverse Integrated Library system turnover in 2009 (listed by the ILS migrated from)
It is interesting to note that a great deal of activity involves libraries moving to open source systems, mainly Koha (143) or Evergreen (92). The top proprietary system is SirsiDynix’s Symphony (84), but over 70 of those installations are from other SirsiDynix products. After that, the numbers drop to the 40-something range.
Note that these only reflect libraries that have their relevant information listed in Lib-Web-Cats. If your library isn’t listed, you should submit your information; if listed, you should double-check your information and update if necessary.
found via GuidePosts
The Kirkendall Public Library in Ankeny, Iowa wanted to install a self-checkout system. The $23,000 price tag meant that, at best, they would need to wait until they could raise the money to purchase the system.
Eric Melton, circulation librarian and tech support for the library, came up with a solution: he built a self-check system for $1,500, less than 7% of the quoted cost for a purchased system.
Enterprising Ankeny librarian builds money-saving kiosk
How many opportunities can be discovered to save money in how we operate our libraries? For most libraries, this is becoming more critical than ever.
found via AL Direct
While clearing out old lists of post inspirations, I ran across a post on Commonplace.net that still gets my brain going:
At my place of work, my desk is in close proximity to our two catalogers. The conversations that ensue about cataloging standards, MARC, and such are often interesting, and occasionally stray into realms so esoteric that it becomes a challenge to keep up with the thread of conversation.
My rare contribution usually boils down to “I am an agnostic as to what standards are used, but the basic storage and retrieval of cataloging information should be as granular and relational as can be achieved.”
By granular, I mean that information should be divided into small, well-defined chunks. When an author is listed as “Smith, John, 1947-” I cringe a little. Dividing the author’s first and last (and middle) names into separate fields makes a world of sense, especially when you encounter authors with multiple middle or last names (or both). Instead, MARC relegates the name into one string. This also creates problems with cultural differences in how given and family names are presented.
Another problem is that this information exists separately in each bibliographic record. If our data storage systems were to store author/creator information in a relational manner, we could have one record for “Smith, John, 1947-”. This would make it much easier in the unfortunate circumstance that the author becomes “Smith, John, 1947-2010″.
Most library software uses granular and relational database methods for the storage of circulation and acquisitions information. It is our bibliographic information that is stuck in an inefficient rut.
The strongest argument I can think of for changing this is that is is very easy to create scripts and use software to put together small pieces of information to create an easy-to-understand string; it is much, much harder to take that string and break it into well-defined and usable chunks in order to use the information in new ways.
The future of data is not so much everyone using the same specific standards, but using standards that can be compared and used in ways that are compatible. We can easily build MARC records from a granular relational database; cataloging need not change how it views and edits records (not much, at least), but the current methods are holding libraries back.
I see these types of messages all the time on library-related websites, and I agree that it sends the message that those who manage those sites don’t have a good grasp of current web technology:
Time to Update? by David Lee King.
Check the web sites that your library presents to the world. If you see messages like those highlighted by David, start talking to people about getting them up to date (or better yet, getting rid of them, since a good standards-designed site will work well across browsers and browser versions).
A link to a thought-provoking article on Open Source business models was posted by Stephen Abram on his blog, Stephen’s Lighthouse. If you follow that last link, you may note that not only does he post the link “without comment”, he has also turned off the option for his readers to comment on the article.
I suspect (but truly don’t know) that this is because of the firestorm of attention he received surrounding a position paper he wrote, and that his company was circulating to some of their customers. If comments were enabled on his post, the following thought (probably compressed) would have been left by me. Now it is a post all its own:
What libraries need now, more now then ever, is a good, open discussion of software and service models. Many of our problems derive from weaknesses in those models, and many of our future problems will derive from weaknesses in the models we choose to move forward with.
The New York Times article is a good example of reporting that misses the elephant in the room: the Open Source model is not the same as the Closed Source model. The closed source model uses sales and company profit to determine success. An open source project could succeed in that way, but looking simply at this ignores the model.
If a group of people put the effort into creating, maintaining, distributing, and using an open source software product, it will survive. If the project is dynamic, and responds to the needs of the users, it will thrive. If it does all of the above better than the closed source companies that make competing products, then it is not fair to judge them based only on sales and profit.
One other thing to add to the mix: don’t ignore the wealth created and saved by those who use the product. If this were calculated and compared, there might be a few surprises in store for companies, including some companies that have libraries for their customers.
My former place of work (FPOW) used to have Social Security numbers as college ID numbers, which were written on book checkout cards. About ten years ago, we switched to an ILS and began generating in-house ID numbers for students.
This transition worked well, and when we conducted our next inventory we removed every checkout card from all of the books. There had been growing concerns about ID theft, and completing this task eased our minds.
Has your institution used Social Security numbers as library identifiers? Do you have checkout cards in your books that could lead to ID theft? If so, do you have a plan to remove them?
It is best to be proactive about this sort of thing. You don’t want to wake up to the type of news story that the University of Toledo did this morning.
found via LISNews
Most of us who have used and installed any of the many variants of Linux started off with a live CD. These allow you to boot your computer up using the CD, and try out the operating system without having to install or configure it. The CD can have whatever software the creator decides to install, pending available space.
I first used the Knoppix live CD, later Ubuntu, and now many other variants (including my current favorite, LinuxMint).
Mizstik has put together a live CD with Ubuntu server and an installation of the Koha ILS, calling it Koha LiveCD.
I think this is a fantastic idea, and it holds the potential for introducing many people to Koha, and giving them a better understanding of what the software can and cannot do for them. This understanding will only help the adoption of open source library software.
My next wish at this point would be for a live CD of Evergreen.
found via What I Learned Today
With our increasing reliance on electronic record keeping, especially online records, it makes a lot of sense to consider the use of virtual bookplates for those items which would normally have a printed label affixed within the book:
This strikes me as an especially effective way to both recognize and promote donors. The only real technical requirements are graphics software to create and edit the bookplate design, and the web space to store the finished graphics. Neither should be a problem for any library willing to spend the time required to get the project rolling.
The people who created the above-linked presentation are conducting a survey on library practices on bookplates.
found via AcqNet-L
May All Your Standards Be Simple and Evolvable is a post by John Wilbanks on Science Blog’s Common Knowledge. It is written with medical data standards in mind, but it could be discussing the state of library data as well:
“…TCP/IP, created simply to move bits between computers, begat a variety of new protocols like FTP, Gopher, Finger, many other protocols that layered atop the basic bits standard. Complexity from simplicity. Attempting to embed file transfer into the bits protocol would have made this whole process a lot harder.”
We are approaching a point in which we will be moving our data out of the cumbersome and outdated MARC format. It will happen, regardless of the heel-dragging that has been taking place for over 10 years. The debate is still heated over what we will replace the standard with.
Can we come up with something simple and evolvable? I define this as being able to build things out of data without having to break the it up into usable chunks. Have you looked at a MARC (.mrc) record with a text editor? There is no easy way to determine what much of the data means, and the entire record is one string of information. You can usually pick out the title, author and a few other things, but mostly it looks like gobbledygook.
If our data were in nice, small, understandable pieces to begin with, with straightforward rules guiding how it was formatted, it would invite innovation and creative use. We are only hindering ourselves with the complexity and arcane rules; simplicity would serve everyone’s needs far better.
Brett Bonfield has a great post, actually more of a long essay or article, on open source library software projects. W-E-B-S-I-T-E, Find Out What It Means To Me (great title, but certainly more limited than the post’s topic) covers a wide range of software, the reasons people use (or don’t use) them, and the status of several of the larger projects that currently exist.
There is a lot of information in the post, and links for further exploration. This just made my recommended reading list.
The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) has weighed in on OCLC’s proposed policy changes. Of note:
“The proposed policy appears to freeze OCLC’s role in the library community based on historical and current relationships. We share the concern, voiced by many, that the policy hinders rather than encourages innovation, and we urge the Review Board to carefully examine this issue. It is unclear that the policy has been constructed with a focus on an evolving role of OCLC in enhancing the missions of an international library community with diverse and complex interests.”
This may not seem like a strongly worded statement, but take a look at the list of consortia behind the statement (located at the bottom of the statement, linked above). Is your library, or geographic region, represented by one or more of these? Based on the consortia I recognize, this statement has thousands of libraries behind it.
“Speak softly and carry a big stick, you shall go far”, Theodore Roosevelt’s iconic statement, applies very well to this statement.
My own addition to the current state of events is that the broad-based library community needs to be strongly involved with the record use policy, especially now that OCLC has solidly entered the ILS arena with their new WorldCat functionality. If they are able to use access and use of the records as a way to encourage/coerce/retain customers, they likely someday will. It makes good business sense, even if it is lousy public relations.
Further reading:
Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian
Oracle has purchased Sun Microsystems.
This is significant on many levels. Many of our library systems run on software or hardware from these companies. The Voyager library I used to work for used an Oracle database running on a Sun Solaris server. The clients (Circulation, Cataloging, Acquisitions, etc.) for III’s Millennium system run on Java.
Many web-based software platforms use MySQL (an open-source database project owned by Sun), including many, many blogs (including this one) wikis and CMS.
Many of us use OpenOffice as either their primary or as an additional office suite.
I am not saying that we are at risk for losing these foundations of our library and internet software programs. The fact that OpenSolaris, Java, MySQL, and OpenOffice are all open source means that we can trust that they will be with us in some form for as long as there is a demand (a trust that cannot be equally placed with any closed source software, which can disappear with the collapse or acquisition of the company holding the software rights).
What I am sure of is that we will see changes. Oracle has a strategy, or if it doesn’t, it will. Some of these programs will likely see greater support and resources (hopefully OpenOffice), others will likely see less (hopefully none of them). Some may become more focused towards a particular segment of the technology world (watch MySQL for this possibility).
Look at what you use, and recognize that today marks a turning point for some of the software. Hopefully it is for the better.
found via TechCrunch and MetaFilter
For those interested in Open Source Integrated Library Systems such as Koha, Evergreen, Open Library Environment Project (OLE), OpenBiblio, etc., the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) will be holding an e-forum on April 21st and 22nd. From the announcement:
Please join us for a free ALCTS e-forum discussion! Participation is open to all.
April 21-22, 2009: Open Source ILS and Technical Services: High Risk or High Reward?
Moderated by Clint Chamberlain, University of Texas Libraries, and Rob Van Rennes, University of Iowa Libraries, members of the ALCTS CRS Acquisitions Committee.
Over the past few years, many librarians have expressed dissatisfaction with our current ILS, citing inflexible systems, high costs, and lackluster vendor service. Some libraries have consequently pursued Open Source ILS such as OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. Join this e-forum to share your experiences with and your questions about Open Source ILS and your thoughts on the future of the traditional, proprietary ILS. We are particularly interested in hearing about experiences with the technical services aspects of Open Source ILS: acquisitions, management of continuing resources, and cataloging.
Discussion will start Tuesday, April 21, 9AM EST and will conclude Wednesday, April 22, 5PM EST.
You can sign up at http://lists.ala.org/sympa/, go to the ALCTS section, then select alcts-eforum@ala.org.
I am especially interested in hearing about how the Cataloging, Acquisitions, and Circulation functions are viewed by people who use them in a production environment. Koha and Evergreen have been making incredible progress into the library world, and I suspect that many of us will have experience with them before long.
received via SerialsT list
Marc was a Good & Loyal Mule but Now It’s Time to Shoot It is a post over on the Future4catalogers blog that does an effective job at explaining why the library community should be focusing on using a new, more powerful (and easier to learn, use, explain, and mashup) metadata structure.
I suspect that part of the problem lies with people who don’t really know what a marc record looks like, and why it is nearly impossible to work with in its native form. From the essay:
To do anything with a Marc record, it must be disassembled and reconstituted in pieces. Even the displays we see as Marc workforms require this disassembly and reassembly to make it comprehensible to catalogers.
Most see the nicely formatted row-by-row marc view that can be seen on some library OPACs as well as cataloging software in our ILS platforms. If you have ever opened a pure marc file in a text editor, you would quickly conclude that locating and understanding information in the record is very challenging, and the thought of editing the record in this form is crazy talk.
If a good and robust metadata format were used instead, then the data could be arranged and edited in a wide variety of ways (including replication of the standard cataloging interface). Even better, however, is that one can open, view, and edit the record (or even a large group of records) within a text editor (though there are and will be many tools to streamline and simplify the process).
It is nearly time for Marshall Breeding’s annual Automation Systems Marketplace report, published in the April 1st edition of Library Journal. This is as comprehensive and informative a report on the software we use to organize and present our collections as exists, and it portrays trends within the library community.
Paired with his announcement, however, was a request for library staff to review their listing on lib-web-cats, an online database of libraries, their basic directory information, and the software packages they use. Find your library, review the information, and add / update / remove any information needed to make your listing current.
encountered on GuidePosts
The Library Web Site of the Future, written by Steven J. Bell, is yet another essay about what is wrong with library web sites, and yet it is not just another essay…
It is a strong critique that touches upon many aspects of our web presence, and emphasizes that users, both students and faculty, are increasingly bypassing it and seeking information elsewhere. Read it with a critical eye towards your library’s web site, but I suggest taking some of it with a grain of salt.
Bell’s conclusion is that libraries have erred in not following the lead of marketing design experts, that we are moribund because we don’t let our sites be transformed into an “advertiser of campus wares to those who would buy into the brand.”
I suspect the answer is that our web sites tend to be moribund because we let them be. We tend to design by committee, attempting to force what should be a easily navigated collection of resources into a click-fest labyrinth.
Try having someone unfamiliar with your website navigate it with a general purpose in mind (“I want to find a full-text magazine article.”) and see what blind alleys they encounter. This is about the simplest usability test you can create, and it can be telling. But it is only the start.
Bell suggests that focusing on usability is a misstep, and that it is simply “rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic.” I think that the problem is that usability is not a misstep, but only the first step in a different direction.
We need to make accessing our resources so straightforward, so open, and so universal that people will use them because it is the path of least resistance to the information they seek.
There are many elements to this, and Bell is right in many of his criticisms, but libraries need to be as universal as possible. Keeping our resources in a silo, no matter how good the resources, does not generate traffic. We need to open it up as much as we can, and continually push to open the rest.
In addition, we need to get our resources where our users are. Do you use RSS to get information to users? Do you use social networking to get information to users? Your resources, if disseminated the right way, become your best marketing strategy. Figure out where your potential users are, and then figure out how to connect your resources to wherever that is.
You don’t need to turn your site into a product to be marketed; you need to get your product to market.
found via LISNews
A recent post, and the resulting discussion, on Metafilter has put me in a Unicode font frenzy. A few links of note from there and elsewhere:
As someone who has worked with an ILS that didn’t have Unicode support, which was then upgraded to support Unicode, and then changed jobs and is now working with an ILS with very limited Unicode support, I have a great appreciation for the benefits of Unicode.
Libraries should, in all that they do, attempt to store and present data in Unicode. This includes our catalogs, web sites, and other data repositories. Even if you offer very little outside of the standard Western characters, it makes your data that much more accessible and useful.
LibraryThing has partnered with Cambridge Information Group (Bowker, AquaBrowser, ProQuest, Serials Solutions, and RefWorks), though Tim Spaulding still retains a majority stake.
This means that we will be seeing a lot more of LibraryThing for Libraries in the future (good for everyone)!
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