Major suppliers

Meanwhile, the big system suppliers are rolling in two directions. First like the electronic library start-ups, they are grappling with the problems posed by digital content and secondly they are signing deals with ILL systems companies as electronic inter-loan becomes a reality.

Ex-Libris announced MetaLib which together with the SFX product recently announced (see review) forms their strategy for controlling access to the multiplicity of resources confronting a researcher and librarian today. It was very impressive.  The combination of features to search and administer diverse collections has been well designed and, true to Ex-Libris's international focus copes with the true diversity that is encountered in the academic research world. The main components are, first of all a "Universal Gateway" that extends the job done by most Z39.50 gateways - it will broadcast search over Z39.50, http, and other protocols and retrieve records not handled by Z39.50 e.g. MAB, XML etc.  So your spectrum of resources is bigger.  To this search capability is added a merge function at the hit-list level, result set storage and search refining. To these features MetaLib adds some very nice customisation features for the user - folders for result storage - a personalised catalogue, SDI (selective Dissemination of Information) - via user definable scheduler, saved search strategies and personalised display formats.

The librarian gets a centralised ResourceStore that enables a one place control for description, management, and license/copyright control. Added to this is the optional use of SFX to provide dynamic linking to the full text of retrieved items and other resources.

Endeavor Information Systems have announced ENCompass which has some of the aims of MetaLib in presenting disparate resources for searching, navigation and managing but also includes, via its partnership with Cornell a "Digital Object Repository" and "Collection Manager" which is a document management system with full text indexing of digital text resources.

Both Endeavor and Ex-Libris as Sun re-sellers can make use of the new SunRay thin terminal from SUN Microsystems. Neat and practical - details.

Sirsi Corporation were showing a "hot from the development shop" enhancement to their OPAC called iBistro - a a smorgasbord of add-ons to the main OPAC functions an example of how the OPAC is evolving towards a general portal for the library user - collecting together all the possible things that might be interesting.  iBistro adds: "most popular title" list- what most people are borrowing, best seller lists, hot web sites, online book purchase, reviews link, TOC details, jacket images, search transfer to Northern Light and personalised "new acquisitions" list - so - a collection of additional information about titles and add on-services.

Innovative Interfaces Inc were also showing their "My Millennium" OPAC that I saw in January at the Mid Winter Show.  A deeper approach to personalisation allows users to choose the format by which their circulation notices are sent to them (e-mail, telephone, postal mail); customise personal data on their user record (such as address, telephone number, e-mail address); sort checked-out items by a number of parameters; and build, save, modify, and add to preferred searches. Users can also suggest titles for library acquisition; after the book is purchased and processed, My Millennium's "push technology" automatically notifies the user via email.

For library staff, My Millennium allows usage statistics to be generated with a new circulation report based on user-initiated functions such as renewing items, cancelling holds, booking materials, and making ILL requests, as well as modifying PINs and other personal information.  Other Innovative technologies on show.

Smaller / New companies

Book Systems, Inc.   - are a small company creating some useful component software products bringing some of the high-tech capabilities of the big systems to the smaller library.  eZcat Pro for example is a simple Z39.50 catalogue record retrieving tool with MARC editing built in. This gives it an additional function over most Z-clients - and it will work with any automated system that can import MARC records. Other products include eZhost - Z39.50 server hosting software to enable a system to share their records with other libraries.

Insignia Software  are a new Canadian company with an ambitious marketing plan and a neat looking new system with some impressive features for a newcomer - full Z39.50 and MARC21 compliance, and multilingual capability - as all Canadian systems must have. Insignia are going aggressively for the schools market on price and then aim to move higher up the size chain.

SA & A Inc.  were also showing a new system - the SA2000.

Serials Solutions  is a start-up that aims to solve the problem of tracking which e-journals a library has access to via content aggregators. This information is often difficult to present to users without wading through the  many different catalogues of material potentially available.  SerialsSolutions will provide you with both simple printed links and also with MARC records including the relevant 856 tag data to enable your OPAC records to be kept simply up-to-date.

Career WebSource  - a career information resource service that provides a wealth of facilities to a library via the OPAC pulling information together from a host of sources and providing résumé help, salary surveys and geographic maps of vacancies.

ColorMarq  - now you would have thought it difficult to use IT for aiding the time honoured shelving process. ColorMarq have done it via re-thinking the spine label from scratch using colour banding to represent each subdivision of a call number so that books grouped together incorrectly on shelves stand out. It also helps the user navigate the shelves to the correct place.  All shelving processes are claimed to be more efficient with some unexpected gains too - for example you can read the call number at a greater distance since only the colour needs to be distinguished. Software can be used in-house for new books or ColorMarq will provide labels to you or to your book supplier.  Proof that innovation can be applied to the simplest and apparently unimprovable of functions.

Library Dynamics Co.  were showing their Weedlist service - as far as I know a unique contribution to library management.  Basically, it will accept a catalogue list of ISBNs from a library and then return a list of those titles that ought to be withdrawn for reasons of later editions, recommendations from the authoritative Books for College Libraries. Coupled with the list of items for withdrawal is an analysis of the space that can be re-claimed by the withdrawal.

Deals announced

As usual many deals were announced to coincide with ALA. Amongst these were several showing the importance of ISO based ILL functionality as they signed deals with the smaller specialist companies.

• Illiad wins OCLC deal details.
• Data Research Associates, Inc. to supply ’s RSS
• VTLS Inc partner with Pigasus Software, Inc and Gemplus Tag RFID systems - details
• AMLIB - the Australian integrated system to be sold in in USA by Brodart Co and in the UK by Specialist Business Solutions plc.
• The Library Corporation buy CARL Corporation - details.