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 A quiet LIS 2000 with some surprises May 2000
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The LIS 2000 show appeared to be quieter than usual this year and had a number of exhibitors demanding a 2 day show next year. Despite this,
several suppliers claimed to have had some quality visitors and in amongst the familiar names there were some genuinely interesting products and information.
Surprisingly, two of the major players were missing from the show - Endeavor and Innovative - I met Innovative’s Mark Carden who voiced the
feelings of several other suppliers by saying that the 3 day show was too expensive and did not produce sufficient results to make it worthwhile.
Public libraries in the UK are having a bad time and the boom in Y2K system purchases last year probably has lead to a quiet time overall in the
UK library scene. The events room had some interesting items and were well attended but overall the show needs more attractions to bring people
in to the show. There are not enough people willing to travel to an event that is primarily an exhibition. The contrast with the ALA in USA is
startling where the exhibition is in partnership with, I believe, the second largest convention in the USA. About 25,000 attend the convention, there
are user group meetings, ALA committee and specialist group meetings and a host of other events which feed the exhibition with the ideas and people it needs.
Amongst the quieter booths this year there were one or two trends evident. The first was that
despite the market saturation, there are still new systems banging on the door and many of these are coming from outside the UK. Globalisation amongst the smaller system companies is taking
place as they seek partners to exploit new markets. Secondly, I noticed that differentiation between products is often via additional functions that build around the central core of information
management and library housekeeping. For instance DDE, the Danish market leader, now includes
WebTop - a "Desktop Portal" which allows a whole set of components to be configured and managed within a web page or Outlook. They also have a document server system that links with
the DDElibra library system or other library system via MARC compatibility. As organisations need to knit together the various sub systems they own, so the capability of doing this seamlessly from
the library system will make that library system more attractive. Adopting standards for interworking, software components, integration of the library functions into other areas - all were evident in system vendor booths.
Amongst the smaller system companies I spied possibly the most revolutionary piece of
technology for the library circulation desk that I have seen in a long while - fingerprint reading ID system - it’s neat and it’s been working in a library for 4 months - read the details.
That old timer of identification systems - ALSi
now part owned by PICA in the Netherlands was showing Concerto - or rather presentations about Concerto. Their main concentration on the
Netherlands, Germany and France has left only a scattering of UK sites left - but they have an impressive system architecture with an open systems approach providing resilience and speed of
circulation for the really large busy library system.
Esprit- the new knowledge product company
were pleased about their first sale to Bournemouth University as distributors for Aurora in the UK (see review).
Another Australian product AMLIB from InfoVision Technology Pty
was debuting at the show. Based on their healthy public library market share in Australia, they are now searching for a foothold via a
partnership/distributorship in the UK. Functionally, it has all the modules developed to a high level Z39.50 capability, offline circulation (useful for rural communities), and is scalable via an SQLbase
or Oracle RDBMS running under NT or Unix.
Geac were proudly showing their new Acquisitions client
for the first time. Like their circulation client it has a well thought out user interface with clearly defined areas for fixed data e.g.
bibliographic, with a separate pane carrying information about the order itself. The left hand pane has short cuts in an MS Outlook style to the various sub-functions within Acquisitions. Like the
recently announced Voyager feature, Geac Advance users can edit the bibliographic record in the GeoCAT MARC editor.
DS - the major UK public library system vendor
were sporting a new logo and showing some of their related systems. Beyond the normal library functions DS's Galaxy product can integrate with a
Learning Centre environment to provide additional functions for reading lists, print management, CD-Networking, Resource bookings, Internet access and Course management - registration etc.
None of these is revolutionary and most can be found in the top academic library systems but DS has integrated them for the public library environment where the concept of lifelong learning is
gaining so much momentum. Other DS news.
A topic that resurfaces every so often in the UK is that of the "core functionality specification.
Juliet Leeves a top system selection consultant, chaired a brief seminar on the topic with Ex Libris, Sirsi, DS and Geac representatives on the panel. The idea is to improve the tendering process by
creating an agreed specification for the core functionality expected in a library system - this would save time for both the library and the responding supplier by making many of the basic questions
asked during the tender process redundant. Having wasted many an hour of my own adult life on questions like " does the system issue and return books", I applaud the idea. Can it be realised? Report on the discussion.
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