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June 2001

ALA 2001 - open revolution?

A look at the 120th ALA conference’s exhibition by Peter Evans

more ALA news from the daily report

Themes around this year's booths and sessions continued to be heavily influenced by the technical trends within the computer industry - more and more products are web-enabled for all functions and, as a consequence, the ASP model of delivery is becoming more popular.

The concept of Open Linking has been picked up by major and minor vendors alike and is fast becoming an indispensable part of any resource discovery tool or information portal. More openness too with the first totally free Open Source library system.

The major vendors have been busy expanding their OPAC’s capability via enrichment of the entries, personalisation features and variations on portal type technologies with links and partnerships forged between technologies and content/service providers.

Possibly the most important trend is the emergence of the Information Portal as a stand alone product. It has emerged from the plethora of technologies around searching and indexing including Z39.50, XML, OPACs etc. into a viable product idea that could stand the current LMS centred systems architecture on its head.

As ever, there was much of interest from the smaller companies and some neat new ideas - and, as ever, there were a number of deals done - products were cross engineered into other products and companies were absorbed or re-born.

Main Sections

[Biblio Tech Review]
[Archive Issues]
[Technical Briefings]
[Supplier Directory]
[Exhibitions]
[Archive Reviews]
[About BTR]

This Month’s Stories

[2001]
[ALA 2001]
[ALA Review]
[epixtech news]
[Innovative in Canada]
[Talis Campus Pipeline]
[Ex-Libris Sales]
[Ex-Libris new features]
[DRA EDI]
[Endeavor OpenURL]
[Sirsi OCLN & UK]
[TLC / CARL]
[Autographics Wings]
[VTLS partnerships]
[Dawsons sell EOSi]
[BDZ service]
[Luna & Ex-libris]
[CCC Click Thru]

ASP

The ASP model has always seemed an attractive one for libraries since it removes the concept of a capital spend and reduces the need for specialist staff - both obstacles for public authorities. It is no surprise therefore to see that most vendors now offer this way of implementing a system. EOSi (E-Library Service), Data Research Associates, Inc. (ASPEN), Innovative Interfaces Inc (Inn-Keeper)  Sirsi Corporation have all announced or implemented ASP capability. Meanwhile the first in this field - epixtech  Library Services Inc - partners with N2H2 - serious players in the ASP hosting business.  Other new products are coming to market with ASP as their only implementation model - My Community Inc. is a good example. Such products can afford to be pitched lower in price since shared central resources reduce implementation and support costs.

Portal Panacea ?

The term portal can mean everything from a themed collection of links on a web page to a full replacement desk-top within a web page.  For the library and information industry, the concept of the "information portal" could change the way we look at systems.  Traditionally the OPAC has been the public oriented window on the library's holdings.  Incorporating external digital resources seamlessly has been partially successful but often inelegant. Suddenly a function closely integrated within a Library Management System (LMS) has to turn to face outwards and deal with all potential resources.  Metalib from Ex-Libris was amongst the first integrated portals. At this ALA companies like Fretwell-Downing Informatics., and MuseGlobal Inc showed the first stand alone information portals. The potential for such products to change the way systems are envisaged is considerable. Suddenly, the OPAC can be considered at the centre of the solution not at the edge of a system.  With common interface standards for searching (Z39.50), Interlending (ISO 10160), circulation (NSIP), an "information portal" OPAC can be considered, assessed and implemented separately from the rest of an LMS.  From the vendors viewpoint, it may be more sensible to integrate such technology from a specialist supplier, than to develop it in-house.

For example ZPORTAL from Fretwell-Downing Informatics has an impressive feature list developed over many years. It is offered as a direct to end user product or on as a technology to other vendors.  ZPORTAL has a thoroughly modern web look and feel and allows the user to personalise their view of available resources, search any Z or non Z source including the web, search across domains (EAD, MARC etc.), de-duplicate results, save searches, sort and group results, email results etc. In addition, ZPORTAL supports that other hot function Open Linking so that the retrieved results display can link onwards to the appropriate electronic full text.

MuseGlobal Inc is a product with a similar objective - to provide a single search point under a common interface for the user of all avaliable resources. Already MuseGlobal provides the "engine" for Innovative's MetaFind, a component of MAP (Millennium Access Plus). MuseGlobal offers links on to book sellers with a neat "buy cheapest" option and record enrichment. - following on Sirsi’s pioneering iBistro Another interesting feature is the "workroom" where sets of records can be put to use - dropped into cataloguing etc. by individual users - staff or OPAC users.

Geac with GeoScan have portal features in their GeoWeb OPAC and epixtech  Library Services Inc have also mentioned their direction on this topic - at their recent user group ,Lana Porter mentioned that Horizon Sunrise would be using WebFeat - another portal technology company - in an upcoming version of the OPAC.

Open or shut ?

Open Linking has generated an immense amount of interest recently as the first implementation - SFX from Ex-Libris - has been followed by announcements from Endeavor (LinkFinderPlus), Innovative Interfaces Inc (Resource Linking), Fretwell-Downing Informatics (ZPORTAL),  and others. The Open URL has been submitted to NISO for fast track approval and so look out for a sudden surge of product announcements on this topic.  An explanatory article is planned on this topic to ensure that vendors claims and counter claims can be properly assessed. There are various parallel initiatives under way like DOI and CrossRef which complicate the mix but OCLC has aims to assist in the control via its Open Names service announced at ALA. This appears to be a cross linking service of resources so that you can find the options for a full text copy for an article reference - coupled with Digital Rights Management. Scheduled for operation next year, it is an attempt by OCLC to gain some high ground in the Open Linking battleground.

Whatever happens, it is important that the independence of the librarian to configure links to electronic sources appropriate to the needs of their patrons is maintained and not determined by commercial interests embedded with the linking systems.

Open Source has finally come to the LMS arena in a package that invites inspection.  The Technology Resource Foundation has released Open Book - a web based totally free integrated library system - currently capable of cataloguing to MARC21 stanadrds, with a nice OPAC. Circulation will be out later this year.

Smaller companies

Continuing my watch on the smaller companies around the show, I was pleased to see The MARC of Quality ’s products continuing to improve and develop. TMQ’s products now include a MARC editor and can be included in vendor’s products via a dll.

DiMeMa Inc. are having success with their CONTENTdm digital media management software showing that there is still a market for a well engineered stand alone systems. 

TalkingTech from New Zealand showed their impressive range of automated telephone services - the library can deliver overdues to patrons, patrons can renew books and even make a booking for computer use.  Where local calls are free these services become even more attractive as a staff saver.

New ideas and Products

Some interesting new products always come to light at ALA - often without a fanfare. Innovative Interfaces Inc were showing their wireless OPAC - via a palm-top computer - ideal for an interactive stock check or stock editing as well as an OPAC - also seen on the iii booth was web payments of fines - a first?

My Community Inc. demonstrated their standalone web based community information package.  Totally focussed on this one function the package allows a complete web site to be rolled out with no HTML coding required and lots of control for outsourcing content input to small organisations etc.

Partnerships

As well as the Innovative/MuseGlobal association, this year's ALA saw EOSi break free from Dawsons, Autographics buy WINGS - the ILL product from Pigasus, Ovid's purchase of Silver Platter was completed and of course Sirsi's purchase of DRA is still awaiting completion. Syndetic Solutions, Inc continued to partner with vendors for enriching the OPAC experience.  Wings was using WebClarity from Sea Change Corporation to provide Z-searching to identify possible sources of items.

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