Library Automation Trends: Enhancing Digital Libraries

1. Trends in Library automation and digital libraries Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technologies and Research Vanderbilt University http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding Special Seminar for Library Development Program 2007 May 21, 2007 Chiang Mai

2. Business Landscape • Library Journal Automated System Marketplace: • An Industry redefined (April 1, 2007) • An increasingly consolidated industry • VC and Private Equity playing a stronger role then ever before • Moving out of a previous phase of fragmentation where many companies expend energies producing decreasingly differentiated systems in a limited marketplace • Narrowing of product options • Open Source opportunities rise to challenge stranglehold of traditional commercial model

3. Library Automation M&A History

4. Consolidation among Libraries for automation • More libraries banding together to share automation environment • Reduce overhead for maintaining systems that have decreasing strategic importance • Need to focus technical talent on activities that have more of an impact on the mission of the library • Pooled resources for technical processing • Single library ILS implementations becoming less defensible • Essential for libraries to gain increased leverage relative to large companies

5. Diverse Business Activities • Many ways to expand business in ways that leverage library automation expertise: • Non-ILS software • Retrospective conversion services • RFID or AMH • Network Consulting Services • Content products

6. Key Business Perspective • Given the relative parity of library automation systems, choosing the right automation partner is more important than splitting hairs over functionality. • Understanding of library issues • Vision and forward-looking development

7. Product and Technology Trends

8. Current state of the Integrated Library System • The core ILS focused mostly on print resources and traditional library workflow processes. • Add-ons available for dealing with electronic content: • Link resolvers • Metasearch environments • Electronic Resource Management • A loosely integrated environment • Labor-intensive implementation and maintenance • Most are “must have” products for academic libraries with significant collections of e-content

9. Library OPAC • Evolved from card catalogs and continues to be bound by the constraints of that legacy. • Complex and rich in features • Interfaces often do not compare favorably with alternatives available on the Web • Print materials becoming a smaller component of the library’s overall collections.

10. State of the Library OPAC?

11. Comprehensive Automation • The goal of the Integrated Library Systems involves the automation of all aspects of the library’s internal operations and to provide key services to library users.

12. ILS – Broad Overview • Business automation system • Automates each aspect of a library’s operations • Smaller libraries may implement only selected modules • Tightly integrated modules

13. ILS characteristics • Shared bibliographic database • Holdings records • Copy records • Circulation transaction file • Patron database • Acquisitions: vendor database, financial transaction files • Serials – volume holdings records; issue check-in records; summary holdings, routing, etc

14. OpenURL Link Resolver Context-sensitive Linking Links to resources built dynamically

15. Benefits for library users • A more seamless and unified interface to assist users with their research using library resources • Need to present the user with the appropriate copy • Ability to offer other services and options • Multiple copies available for any given document or resource

16. Benefits for Library Staff • Static URL’s becoming untenable in electronic publishing environment • Placing static links in 856 fields increasingly untenable • URL’s change – direct deep linking unstable • Libraries change sources for content • Single point of management for article databases and e-journal holdings • Can be populated and updated by providers such as Serial Solutions

17. More than linking citation to full text • Holdings look-up in OPACS • Requests for document delivery • Interlibrary Loan request • Related works – more by this author

18. The down side of dynamic reference linking • More options, more complexity • No guarantee that links created by a resolving application will be successful • Eg: TOC instead of full text • Users may not always understand what is happening • Maintaining the Link Resolver database

19. Reference linking framework • A database populated with data about the library’s electronic resources • What aggregations the library owns • Which titles available in each aggregation • What years available for each title • Which stand-alone e-journals? • A&I databases • Metadata harvested from a citation and passed through the OpenURL syntax • A resolver that turns metadata into a specific link to the appropriate link • Resolver can provide links to other services • ILL/Document Delivery request • Holdings Look-up in library catalog • Web search

20. OpenURL Framework • Linking Products – Applications that rely on the OpenURL specification • Sources -- a resource capable of generating an OpenURL • Targets – Web-based resources capable of being linked to in an OpenURL environment

21. Link Server or Resolver • A server that resolves an OpenURL into one or more services. • Takes into consideration the local context of the user • What content is available through subscriptions provided by the institution? • What content is available within each database or full-text aggregation • Other services available: print holdings; document delivery; bookstore purchase;

22. OpenURL • A de facto standard for reference linking • A syntax to create web-transportable packages of metadata or identifiers about an information object • Not a static link • Transports metadata • Relies on a local resolver, which makes use of data carried on the OpenURL to perform services

23. Linking Products • SFX -- Ex Libris • WebBridge -- Innovative • 360 Link -- Serials Solutions • LinkSource -- EBSCO • 1Cate -- Openly Informatics / OCLC

24. Digital asset management • Products for creating and managing collections of digital content • Utility for creating metadata • Dublin Core • VRA • Other library / discipline-specific formats

25. Library-specific products • CONTENTdm – OCLC • Digitool – Ex Libris • Hyperion – SirsiDynix • Luna Imaging

26. Metasearching / Federated Searching • Allows the user to enter a search once to search multiple databases • All selected resources searched simultaneously • Single user interface • Results presented through the metasearch application not in their native interface

27. Metasearch groupings • Resources organized by the library into groups • Typically subject based • Relieves the users from having to know what products cover what topics • Generally impractical to search all products in each query

28. Common metaserach features • Presents common interface for formulating query • Keyword combinations and options • Boolean operators • Results interfiled or separated by source • Deduplication of results • Sort and relevancy options • Customization to blend with library’s Web site – color scheme, fonts, layout, banner, logo, etc.

29. Authentication • Needs to work for remote users • Interface with campus authentication environment • Interacts with proxy servers

30. Other Features • General tool for managing access to electronic resources • Links to native interfaces • Select resources by subject • Link to native interfaces • Detailed information about each resource

31. Technical challenge • How to perform search and retrieval among many separate information resources that operate in fundamentally different ways • Target resources vary significantly • Abstract and Indexing (A&I) databases • Full Text resources • Library Catalogs • Specialized databases • No single search and retrieval protocol used among the common library information resources

32. Limitations • Not all resources can participate in metasearch environment • Shallow result sets returned from each target • Difficult to achieve true relevancy • Slow Performance

33. Architecture and Technology Components • Take advantage of search and retrieval protocols when possible • Z39.50 (mostly library catalogs) • Web services • XML gateways • SQL interfaces • Proprietary API (Applications Programming Interface) • HTML Parsing

34. Technology… • Connectors or source packages that understand how to send queries to and receive results from each resource • All results converted into a unified record structure • Application component for managing results • Web interface for presenting results

35. Moving forward: Transition to an era of next-generation library interfaces

36. Traditional Library Search Model • Provide a full featured OPAC • Give the user a screen full of search options • Assume that researchers will begin with library resources • Reliance on Bibliographic Instruction

37. Troubling statistic Where do you typically begin your search for information on a particular topic? College Students Response: • 89% Search engines (Google 62%) • 2% Library Web Site (total respondents -> 1%) • 2% Online Database • 1% E-mail • 1% Online News • 1% Online bookstores • 0% Instant Messaging / Online Chat OCLC. Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005) p. 1-17.

38. New Library Search Model • Don’t count on users beginning their research with library catalogs or Web site • Consider the library’s Web site as a destination • Make it a compelling and attractive destination that uses will want to explore more. • Web users have a low tolerance for ineffective and clunky interfaces

39. Library Discovery Model A Web Library Web Site / Catalog Library as search Destination

40. Library Discovery Model B • Do not give up on library search technologies! • Libraries must also build their own discovery, search, and access services • Effective, elegant, powerful • Once users discover your library, give them outstanding services: • Catalog search, federated search, context-sensitive linking, etc.

41. Library Discovery Model C • Expose library content and services through non-library interfaces • Campus portals, courseware systems, e-learning environments • County and municipal portals and e-government • Other external content aggregators: RSS, etc • Web services is the essential enabling technology for the delivery of library content and services to external applications. • Library community lags years behind other IT industries in adoption of SOA and Web services.

42. Working toward next generation library interfaces • Redefinition of the library catalog • More comprehensive information discovery environments • Better information delivery tools • More powerful search capabilities • More elegant presentation

43. Comprehensive Search Service • More like OAI • Problems of scale diminished • Problems of cooperation persist

44. Replacement Search Interfaces: • Endeca Guided Search • AquaBrowser Library Are library users satisfied with native ILS interfaces?

45. Replacement OPACs • Endeca Guided Navigation • AquaBrowser Library • Common thread: • Decoupled interface • Mass export of catalog data • Alternative search engine • Alternative interface

46. Expanded discovery and delivery tools • Ex Libris Primo (in development) • Encore from Innovative Interfaces (in development) • Common threads: • Decoupled interface • Comprehensive indexes that span multiple and diverse information resources • Alternative interface

47. Library-developed solutions • eXtensible Catalog • University of Rochester – River Campus Libraries • Financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation • http://www.extensiblecatalog.info/

48. Redefinition of library catalogs and interfaces • Traditional notions of the library catalog are being questioned • It’s no longer enough to provide a catalog limited to print resources • Digital resources cannot be an afterthought • Forcing users to use different interfaces depending on type of content becoming less tenable • Libraries working toward consolidated search environments that give equal footing to digital and print resources

49. Interface expectations • Millennial gen library users are well acclimated to the Web and like it. • Used to relevancy ranking • The “good stuff” should be listed first • Users tend not to delve deep into a result list • Good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach, including objective matching criteria supplemented by popularity and relatedness factors.

50. Interface expectations (cont…) • Very rapid response. Users have a low tolerance for slow systems • Rich visual information: book jacket images, rating scores, etc. • Let users drill down through the result set incrementally narrowing the field • Faceted Browsing • Drill-down vs up-front Boolean or “Advanced Search” • gives the users clues about the number of hits in each sub topic. • Navigational Bread crumbs • Ratings and rankings