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May 2001

LIS 2001 shows the trends

The last LIS show at NEC (next year the show moves to London’s new Excel centre) demonstrated how the library vendors are beginning to diversify into e-related areas as the traditional library systems market blurs into other areas of the e-memory / e-learning industry. RFID tags are also gaining ground - on the booths if not yet in the libraries.

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The trend at LIS this year was definitely the diversification and expansion of ambition amongst system suppliers.  For many years the perfection of the basic LMS functions of catalogue, circulation and serials was enough for libraries and vendors alike to cope with but as the boundaries of the automated library have become blurred and the walls have come down, there is a pressure to deliver more.

Talis Information Ltd are a case in point.  As a major player, but only in the UK market, they have limited room for expansion in a market place that is saturated at the top end.  Their announcement of a partnership with WebCT was a surprise but not unexpected. Partnerships have been in the air for a while as a strategy.  The choice to move into linking with on-line learning management systems is one that BTR has been seeing as inevitable for a long while.  Neatly paraphrased by a University Librarian the other day as "the Library IS the University",  as learning goes on-line it becomes essential for learning management systems to be tightly integrated with library systems. The other major announcement from Talis was in association with the combined regional library bureaux - the launch of Unity Web. This is a centralised catalogue and inter-lending system, hosted by Talis for the regions, to provide a robust, low cost, simplified way of increasing efficiency of lending between the vast majority of UK public libraries who belong. Details.

Fretwell-Downing Informatics continue to productise their expertise in the Z39.50 searching area.  Their latest offering is Zportal which actually does more than it says on the tin.  The key features are the ability to provide a common search interface to virtually any database - Z39.50 bibliographic and any other database source - including Web search engines. Presenting all results in one consolidated list - regardless of original source - is a considerable feat.  The product can be supplied as a tool-set to other system vendors, or directly to libraries and obviously has markets outside the world of libraries.

Another approach to solving the management of content that does not fit neatly into the bibliographic category was launched by ESP . xdirectory is a tool that produces finished web based applications for managing directory style information.   The sort of thing that resides currently in Access and Word or static HTML pages in every organisation. Review.

Back to the E-Learning area, newcomer LSC Group,  were showing their digital library solution that will be adopted by The University of Central England soon to provide integration between the learning and library functions.

VFactO plc - another new company at the LIS show - were showing some interesting new public kiosk applications.  Their Vfind system is a touch screen driven terminal linked to a database of subject and classification numbers and their locations.  The user can select broad subject areas and drill down to the specific and the screen will display a map of the library with both the location of the terminal and the selected subject area indicated.  A map can be printed to carry on the journey round the stacks.  The easy to use front-end is backed up with good back-end administrative tools to adjust the shelving areas and class numbers to the locations of terminals.  Drag and drop of terminal locations onto a map make this a very useful guiding system for the larger library.  The system can also be linked to an OPAC to provide the physical guiding after a normal OPAC search.

The rise of RFID identification as an alternative to barcodes is evident as a trend. Two new companies were showing RFID based self service terminals.  Intrepid Security Solutions Ltd   were showing the Easy-Check system and Intellident Ltd were showing a terminal based using Gemplus tag technology. The RFID solution to self-issue terminals has the advantage of automatic detection of the ID without worrying about the position of barcodes, lining up laser beams etc. If the additional costs of RFID tags ( about 50 pence /  70 cents) can be offset against the more efficient throughput of an RFID solution then this technology will become increasingly popular. inotec Barcode Security Ltd were featuring their labelling technologies including combined barcode/RFID tags. Inotec have a useful glossary of industry terms available at their web site.

DS were also showing RFID self issue terminals CounterPoint and their new cross domain search portal - CrossDomain - which enables users to search across several applications at the same time including the complete suite of DS products - Galaxy, AMLIB and the archive product Calm.

A novel idea for this year was a small North American "Village" where we saw a few companies testing the market in the UK.  Follett software, VTLS - back after a long absence and COMPanion software with their Alexandria software - one of the few systems that will run on MACs.

This Month’s Stories

[2001]
[LIS 2001]
[VTLS_2001_05]
[Inno_2001_05]
[End_2001_05]
[SF-Systems]
[Sirsi Sales]
[XDirectory]
[Talis Unity WebCT]

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