Building Creative and Inspiring Discovery Platforms Marshall Breeding Director for Innovative Technology and Research Vanderbilt University Library Nashville, TN USA

 1) Participants will assess the latest library automation innovations and discovery platforms. 2) Participants will better understand how libraries can meet patron expectations.

 Marshall Breeding will address next-generation library interfaces and what the future holds for merging currently disparate resources, or silos of information. Some next-generation discovery platforms include AquaBrowser, Encore, Endeca, Primo, WorldCat Local and NELLCO’s Universal Search Solution. Breeding is a VIP to AALL 2009, sponsored by ALL-SIS, the Library Journal author of “Automation System Marketplace,” and a Computers In Libraries columnist. In addition, Breeding will update the audience on current innovations in library automation technology.

 Georgia Briscoe, Coordinator and Co-moderator, University of Colorado Law Library, William A. Wise Law Library  Filippa Marullo Anzalone, Co- moderator, Boston College Law Library  Marshall Breeding, Vanderbilt University, Jean and Alexander Heard Library

 Library Technology Guides / lib-web-cats  Annual Perceptions Survey  Library Journal Automation Marketplace  Regular contact with principals of library automation companies and projects  Regular publishing commitments: ◦ Library Technology Reports ◦ Smart Libraries Newsletter ◦ Computers in Libraries

 Track automation trends beyond North America  UK, Australia: comprehensive automation data on public and academic libraries  China, Taiwan: Most academics, working on publics  South America: building database on library automation  Interest in automation in the developing world

  Repository for library automation data  Expanding to include more international scope  Announcements and developments made by companies and organizations involved in library automation technologies

 Started building database in 1995  Most comprehensive resource for tracking ILS and other library automation products  Serves as a directory for general public  Specialized tool for tracking ILS and other automation products  40,825 Total libraries listed  377 Law Libraries listed

 Academic law libraries share the ILS of the broader institution ◦ Few operate their own systems  Stand-alone law libraries gravitate toward fairly narrow slate of products  Data difficult to gather for libraries in law firms: typically behind corporate firewall  Seeking a comprehensive listing of US law libraries

 Sophisticated clientele – emphasis on experienced researchers  Need for comprehensive and precise information tools  Cost of errors or omissions high  Complex collections of electronic and print  Press the limits of cataloging, serials, and acquisitions functionality in ILS  Serials more prominent than monographs  Electronic content concentrated in a small number of delivery products ◦ HeinOnline, Westlaw, Lexis-Nexis  Many boutique products with niche area content  General Web content less of a threat to law libraries than to public and academic libraries

Annual Industry report published in Library Journal:  2009: Investing in the future  2008: Opportunity out of turmoil  2007: An industry redefined  2006: Reshuffling the deck  2005: Gradual evolution  2004: Migration down, innovation up  2003: The competition heats up  2002: Capturing the migrating customer

 Industry Consolidation  Abrupt transitions for major library automation products  Increased industry control by external financial investors  Uncomfortable level of product narrowing  Open Source products and service companies enter the competition  A small contingent of founder-owned companies continue to thrive  New wave of companies based on open source service and support Breeding, Marshall: Perceptions 2008 an international survey of library automation. January 2009.

 Demise of the traditional OPAC  New genre of discovery interfaces  Conventional ILS less tenable ◦ Conceived around print inventory, difficult transition to mostly e-content  Increasing pressure for new innovations in automation solutions  Proliferation of products related to e-content management

 Currently implemented ad hoc  Many libraries putting up blogs, wikis, and fostering engagement in social networking sites  Proliferation of silos with no integration or interoperability with larger library Web presence  Next Gen: Build social and collaborative features into core automation components

 Open Source Software ◦ Alternative to traditionally licensed software  Open Systems ◦ Software that doesn’t hold data hostage  Increasing need for enterprise integration

 Explosive interest in Open Source driven by disillusionment with current vendors and increasing support of this software licensing model  Beginning to emerge as a practical option both in the ILS and discovery layer arenas  TOC (Total Cost of Ownership) varies relative to proprietary commercial model ◦ Many libraries document substantial savings  Both open source and commercial software involve risk  Law libraries less involved in open source ILS than other segments

 Earlier era of pioneering efforts to ILS shifting into one where open source alternatives fall in the mainstream  Off-the-shelf, commercially supported product available  Sectors: Public, Academic, Schools  Still a minority player, but gaining some ground

 Integrated Library Systems ◦ Koha, Evergreen, OPALS, NewGenLib  Repositories ◦ Dspace, Fedora, DuraCloud  Discovery Interfaces ◦ Vufind ◦ Blacklight ◦ SOPAC (Social OPAC) ◦ eXtensible Catalog  ILL ◦ Relais (?)

 Some libraries moving from traditionally licensed products to open source products with commercial support plans  Disruption of library automation industry ◦ new pressures on incumbent vendors to deliver more innovation and to satisfy concerns for openness  Low-cost options may help moderate pricing of commercial products  New competition / More options

 Pressure for traditionally licensed products to become more open  APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) let libraries access and manipulate their data outside of delivered software  A comprehensive set of APIs potentially give libraries more flexibility and control in accessing data and services and in extending functionality than having access to the source code.  Customer access to APIs does not involve as much risk to breaking core system functions, avoids issues of version management and code forking associated with open source models.

 Lots of non-library Web destinations deliver content to library patrons ◦ Google Scholar ◦ Amazon.com ◦ Wikipedia ◦ Ask.com  Do Library Web sites and catalogs meet the information needs of our users?  Do they attract their interest?

 Urgent need for libraries to offer interfaces their users will like to use  Powerful search capabilities in tune with how the Web works today  Meet user expectations set by other Web destination  Maintain quality of searching in precision, predictability, and scope

 Online Catalog modules provided with an ILS subject to broad criticism as failing to meet expectations of growing segments of library patrons.  Not great at delivering electronic content  Complex text-based interfaces  Relatively weak keyword search engines  Lack of good relevancy sorting  Narrow scope of content

 Silos Prevail ◦ Books: Library OPAC (ILS module) ◦ Articles: Aggregated content products, e- journal collections ◦ OpenURL linking services ◦ E-journal finding aids (Often managed by link resolver) ◦ Local digital collections  ETDs, photos, rich media collections ◦ Metasearch engines  All searched separately

 Widespread dissatisfaction with legacy OPACs. Many efforts toward next- generation discovery layer products.  Movement among libraries to break out of the current mold of library catalogs and offer new interfaces better suited to the expectations of library users.  Decoupling of the front-end interface from the back-end library automation system.  Eventual redesign of the ILS to be better suited for current library collections of digital and print content

 Online Catalog ◦ Interface conventions from an earlier Web era ◦ Scope: Tied to the ILS and its content domain  Discovery Layer ◦ Modern interface elements ◦ Scope: aims to address broad range of components that constitute library collections 

 Most vendors are deemphasizing their traditional catalogs  Separate discovery interface  New-gen online catalog with features borrowed from the discovery interface genre

 More comprehensive information discovery environments  Primary search tool that extends beyond print resources  Digital resources cannot be an afterthought  Systems designed for e-content only are also problematic  Forcing users to use different interfaces depending on type of content becoming less tenable  Libraries working toward consolidated user environments that give equal footing to digital and print resources

 Current distributed query model of federated search model not adequate  Expanded scope of search through harvested content ◦ Consolidated search services based on metadata and data gathered in advance (like OAI-PMH)  Problems of scale diminished  Problems of cooperation persist  Federated search currently operates as a plug-in component of next-gen interfaces.

 Strategic infrastructure + Web 2.0  A more social and collaborative approach  Web Tools and technology that foster collaboration  Integrated blogs, wiki, tagging, social bookmarking, user rating, user reviews  Avoid Web 2.0 information silos

 Single point of entry ◦ Optional advanced search  Relevancy ranked results  Facets for narrowing and navigation  Query enhancement – spell check, etc  Suggested related results / recommendation service  Enriched visual and textual content  Single Sign-on

 Based on advanced search engines specifically designed for relevancy ◦ Endeca, Lucene, FAST, BrainWare, etc  Web users expect relevancy ordered results ◦ Items with strongest probability of interest should appear first ◦ Users tend not to delve deep into a result list ◦ Good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach, including objective matching criteria supplemented by social and relatedness factors.  Continued need for objective, comprehensive search techniques ◦ Ability to select other search methods and sorting options – browse, linked data, 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 ◦ Ability to explore collections without a priori knowledge

 “Did you mean?” and other features to avoid “No results found”  Validated spell check / query suggestions  Automatic inclusion of authorized and related terms  More like this – recommendation service  Make the query and the response to it better than the query provided

 Attempt to collapse silos or draw appropriately from each silo  Unified user experience  A single point of entry into all the content and services offered by the library  Print + Electronic  Local + Remote  Locally created Content  User contributed content

◦ Tags, user-supplied ratings and reviews ◦ Leverage social networking interactions to assist readers in identifying interesting materials: BiblioCommons ◦ Leverage use data for a recommendation service of scholarly content based on link resolver data: Ex Libris bX service

 New-generation interface  Harvested local content  Vendor-supplied indexes of library content ◦ E-journals, databases, e-books ◦ Book collections beyond local library collections

 Indexing the full corpus of information available globally  Or at least major portions  Google aims to address all the world’s information  Not quite comprehensive – partial harvesting of any given resource  Discovery Layer Products for libraries aim to address all content collected by libraries:  Print  Remotely access electronic content: e-journals, e-books, databases, licensed and open access.  Local special collections: digital and print.  Addresses the comprehensive body of content held within library collections  Comprehensive, unified

 Local discovery provides flexibility for libraries to create customized access to collections  Web-scale discovery emphasizes unified access and broad scope

 Entering post-metadata search era  Increasing opportunities to search the full contents ◦ Google Library Print, Google Publisher, Open Content Alliance, government publications, etc. ◦ High-quality metadata will improve search precision  Commercial search providers already offer “search inside the book” and searching across the full text of large book collections  Not currently available through library search environments  Deep search highly improved by high-quality metadata See: Systems Librarian, May 2008 “Beyond the current generation of next-generation interfaces: deeper search”

 Fulfillment oriented  Search -> select -> view  Delivery/Fulfillment much harder than discovery  Back-end complexity should be as seamless as possible to the user  Offer services for digital and print content

Current Commercial and Open Source Products

 AquaBrowser  Ex Libris Primo  Innovative Interfaces: Encore  Serials Solutions: Summon (under development)  Medialab Solutions: AquaBrowser  SirsiDynix Enterprise  The Library Corporation: LS2 PAC  VUFind (open source)  BiblioCommons  eXtensible Catalog (under development)

 Initial products focused on technology ◦ AquaBrowser, Endeca, Primo, Encore, VUfind ◦ Mostly locally-installed software  Current phase focused on pre-populated indexes that aim to deliver Web-scale discovery ◦ Summon (Serials Solutions) ◦ WorldCat Local (OCLC) ◦ EBSCO Discovery Service (EBSCO) ◦ Primo Central

 New England Law Library Consortium  Consolidated search environment with specialized content for law libraries  HeinOnline, local catalogs, etc.  arentID=504 arentID=504  s/litaforum2008/NELLCO.pdf  Partner with Index Data for software development and hosting  ◦ Subscribers only -- Authentication required

 New Discovery Service – initial libraries now in production  Consolidated index harvested from many sources ◦ ProQuest, Gale, Thompson Reuters (Web of Science), LexisNexis, etc ◦ 500,000,000 articles represented ◦ Full-text search + Citations  Local catalog data harvested, real-time link to holdings  Other local repositories harvested  Others available through metasearch

 Agreement with OCLC for WorldCat data  EBSCO Host interface and content  Content from other publishers and providers

 Repository of article-level indexes maintained and hosted by Ex Libris  Available to Primo sites without additional cost  Move more content from metasearch to local index

 Existing service in pilot stage for new discovery service  WorldCat.org data + ArticleFirst (30 million articles)  Agreement with EBSCO to load EBSCOhost citation data into WorldCat  Pursuing agreements with additional content providers

 No-cost option to FirstSearch subscribers  No reclamation to reconcile local ILS with WorldCat  One ILS supported; must be among supported products  Program to expose thousands of libraries to WorldCat Local as a discovery option

 Extend WorldCat Local to include ◦ Circulation ◦ Delivery ◦ Acquisitions ◦ License Management  Positioned as Web-scale, cloud computing model, cooperative library system  Pilot sites being finalized; general availability in 2010

 Traditional Proprietary Commercial ILS ◦ Millennium, Symphony, Polaris  Traditional Open Source ILS ◦ Evergreen, Koha  Clean slate automation framework (SOA, enterprise-ready) ◦ Ex Libris URM, OLE Project  Cloud-based automation system ◦ WorldCat Local (+circ, acq, license management)

 Beyond selecting one brand from an assortment of similar products  Several conceptually diverse options  Companies and projects now competing on innovation