What’s New in … Resource Management and Discovery Systems
The OLE Project Report
A movement away from the traditional OPAC to the modern discovery system began a few years ago. Now a similar transformation is in the works for that work-horse of technical services, the ILS. Integrated library systems were built to manage physical entities. They were designed around print collection workflows and haven’t adapted fast enough to meet the needs of 21st century collections that are increasingly electronic. Many libraries now need a separate electronic resource management system (ERMS) to do what the ILS doesn’t – manage electronic resources and licenses. Web services, standards, and systems are also transforming the way libraries do business.
The Open Library Environment (OLE) Project grew out of the need to radically change the ILS. It is a grass roots, grant funded effort to design and build a “next-generation library technology platform.†Librarians and information professionals from 300 institutions and organizations around the world organized working groups in 2008 to develop a design document. A final draft was released in late July. It’s available for download from the project website at http://oleproject.org/final-ole-project-report/.
The document is essentially a wish list, a group brainstorm about what a new age ILS should look like and do. The first two pages describe a faculty member’s interaction with the future OLE for a research project. Searching, selecting, acquiring, storing, and organizing documents is virtually effortless in this scenario, requiring seamless transactions between OLE and systems across campus. The OLE eliminates duplication of data and truly integrates with other systems and services.
If OLE is built (and that’s a big if – projected costs total $5.2 million), it will utilize service oriented architecture. Modern SOA systems are web services based, relying on XML to communicate in real time with other systems and sources of data (HR systems, financial systems, content management systems, etc.). OLE will also be modular, so a library could purchase only the pieces needed.
Assuming that funding is secured, the first modules of OLE won’t be available until 2012 as open source software. Ex Libris has already incorporated many of these ideas into their Unified Resource Management product (also SOA based), expected to be released next year some time.
NISO will be holding a 2 day session in Boston on October 8th and 9th titled Library Resource Management Systems: New Challenges, New Opportunities. Industry heavyweights like Andrew Pace, Talin Bingham, Carl Grant, and Andrew Nagy are scheduled to be there. The session should give attendees a good preview of what else is coming from major vendors in the near future.
Summon
In the discovery system world, Serials Solutions launched Summon at ALA in July. A Summon beta implementation is now up and running at Dartmouth College (www.dartmouth.edu/~library/home/find/summon/).
Summon handles electronic content differently than discovery systems currently on the market. Instead of acting like a federated search tool, Summon indexes all of a library’s content and makes it fully searchable through a single interface. Serials Solutions developed partnerships with thousands of publishers, resulting in indexing of tens of thousands of journals and e-books.
Relevancy ranking needs to be highly tuned to return good results on such a mass of content. Dartmouth librarians reported to Library Journal that relevancy ranking had been improving steadily during the beta period. They still had concerns that searching with Summon lacks the specificity of searching databases in the native interface, but early testers liked the simplicity of the single search box and direct access to full text.
- OLE Project. The Open Library Environment Final Report. (Draft) July 26 2009. [Internet] http://oleproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/ole_report_draft_26july09.pdf [cited 22 August 2009]
- Ex Libris. Unified Resource Management: The Ex Libris framework for next generation library systems. [Internet] http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/files/Solutions/TheExLibrisFrameworkforNextGenerationLibraryServices.pdf [cited 23 June 2009]
- Hadro, Josh. Dartmouth opens Summon beta to faculty and students. Library Journal, 7/2/2009. [Internet] http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6668649.html [cited 2 September 2009]
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More Fall Newsletter Contents:
- From the Editors
- From the Chair
- MLA Technical Services Section Business Meeting II
- What’s New in … Cataloging
- What’s New in … Course Management Systems
- What’s New in … Electronic Resource Management
- What’s New in … Resource Management and Discovery Systems
- What’s New in … Web Development
- Membership News
- OCLC Update
- Professional Development (CE)
- Call for Papers
- MLA Planning Grid: Technical Services Section Goals, 2009-2010
