Interesting news on HORIZON-L from COSUGI chair Chris Hauser. SirsiDynix are resurrecting the Horizon Enhancement database, where the user groups can feed into development priorities for Horizon. So it's not dead yet... and this comes on the back of some discussion that SD are definitely not saying that Horizon is EOL. One wag commented that he wished SirsiDynix killed Horizon a decade ago considering that since Horizon 8 was dumped there's been more development of Horizon then ever before....
And, coincidentally, Marshall Breeding's Perceptions 2009 survey of library automation has been released. Oddly it shows that Horizon customers are more satisfied with SirsiDynix than Unicorn/Symphony customers. Weird.
As always with Marshall's survey the free text comments are very interesting. I found myself nodding in agreement with one Horizon user's remark about not being impressed with what was currently available in the ILMS market and that they were happy to sit with Horizon and look at other methods of presenting their collections while waiting for what the future brought for both print and electronic collection management. Then I suddenly realised I could well be reading my own comment!
Showing posts with label Catalogues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catalogues. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2010
Friday, October 16, 2009
Discovery layers article
From the Chronicle of Higher Education 'After Losing Users in Catalogs, Libraries Find Better Search Software' an overview of 'the problem with catalogues' - and Summon gets a mention eventually.
Great quote from the article:
"a graduate student specializing in early American history, once had such a hard time finding materials that she titled a bibliography "Meager Fruits of an Ongoing Fight With Virgo [the U of Virginia's catalogue]."
Great quote from the article:
"a graduate student specializing in early American history, once had such a hard time finding materials that she titled a bibliography "Meager Fruits of an Ongoing Fight With Virgo [the U of Virginia's catalogue]."
Friday, February 13, 2009
Horizon unConference part 2
Day 3 and we start with an extremely interesting chat with John Dalton who, though based in Hobart is a DBA for LibraryThing. He talked a little about LibraryThing 4 Libraries, but stressed he wasn't a salesman, and a lot about user tags and the power of folksonomies - and coffee table books.
Next DA's GM talked about the future of publishing from his perspective - probably the highlight was the video of the Espresso Book Machine in action. Yet again I got a sense that an industry intertwined with tertiary education was at the brink of major change. Publishers are getting closer to accepting the primacy of E over P, and considering ideas like selling micro content (eg a chapter out of a textbook).
The next ILS vendor was Civica showing Spydus. I got all nostalgic, having administered URICA back in the mid 90s - the product has come a long way - in fact it's not recognisable as related to URICA at all, which was written in Pick and sitting on a UniData dbms on a proprietary UNIX box (how did I get so old?) - Spydus is firmly in the Windows camp sitting on SQLServer and with client modules that act very much in the manner of the Microsoft Office Suite. It was the only Australian provider.
We then had Innovative Interfaces present, tag team, their core product and a couple of add ons. They worked hard to dispel the 'black box' myths about Millenium, saying that the data was fully accessible through web services. The ability to access functions associated with other modules without having to leave the module you were in was very appealing (eg create a temp bib record while in circulation). Another high point was the fuzzy search that when queried for 'Harry Potter and the Magician's Rock' asked if we meant 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'.
The day wrapped up with a group session led by Anne Scott of the University of Canterbury. We got a sense of who was happy to sit with Horizon and tweak HIP, who was looking at a discovery layer over Horizon (which would make the move from Horizon transparent to searchers). We agreed to take HES up on their offer of groupware to give us a space to continue the conversation.
We discussed the possibility of collective bargaining, and while it makes sense to combine our economic 'might' there is little chance we would have identical aims for our resource discovery systems.
A draining but thought provoking three days, well organised, and a much needed crash course in the major ILS options open to us. I look forward talking more about the things it's making me ponder.
Next DA's GM talked about the future of publishing from his perspective - probably the highlight was the video of the Espresso Book Machine in action. Yet again I got a sense that an industry intertwined with tertiary education was at the brink of major change. Publishers are getting closer to accepting the primacy of E over P, and considering ideas like selling micro content (eg a chapter out of a textbook).
The next ILS vendor was Civica showing Spydus. I got all nostalgic, having administered URICA back in the mid 90s - the product has come a long way - in fact it's not recognisable as related to URICA at all, which was written in Pick and sitting on a UniData dbms on a proprietary UNIX box (how did I get so old?) - Spydus is firmly in the Windows camp sitting on SQLServer and with client modules that act very much in the manner of the Microsoft Office Suite. It was the only Australian provider.
We then had Innovative Interfaces present, tag team, their core product and a couple of add ons. They worked hard to dispel the 'black box' myths about Millenium, saying that the data was fully accessible through web services. The ability to access functions associated with other modules without having to leave the module you were in was very appealing (eg create a temp bib record while in circulation). Another high point was the fuzzy search that when queried for 'Harry Potter and the Magician's Rock' asked if we meant 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'.
The day wrapped up with a group session led by Anne Scott of the University of Canterbury. We got a sense of who was happy to sit with Horizon and tweak HIP, who was looking at a discovery layer over Horizon (which would make the move from Horizon transparent to searchers). We agreed to take HES up on their offer of groupware to give us a space to continue the conversation.
We discussed the possibility of collective bargaining, and while it makes sense to combine our economic 'might' there is little chance we would have identical aims for our resource discovery systems.
A draining but thought provoking three days, well organised, and a much needed crash course in the major ILS options open to us. I look forward talking more about the things it's making me ponder.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Horizon Unconference : where to from here
I'm at the end of day 2 of a three day 'unconference' at the University of Tasmania in chilly Hobart, where a group of Horizon using libraries have sent representatives to talk about what's the next ILS now that it's clear SirsiDynix will not reverse their decision to euthanise Horizon 8.
About 26 libraries are here. University of Tasmania are the organisers and drivers. They had three staff in the USA last year conducting an environmental scan (I'll make Rod Foley's reports available on the intranet - very interesting reading). One thing that strikes you immediately is the difference in resourcing between US and Australian libraries. One University with around the same number EFTSUs as JCU has 185 employees (with 11 dedicated to library IT).
As Di Worth said in opening the unconference, 'we won't come away with the answer' but I already feel that I have a much clearer handle on what the question is. Linda Luther asked the question 'What is an ILS really for?'
The proprietary vendors of ILS are surprisingly few in number (at least those in the University sector) and even more surprising is how old their offerings are; Endeavour is the youngest and first released in 1995. All the products have evolved but you wonder about the core assumptions in their initial design when the most recent was released the same year as Netscape 1.0
Warwick Cathro outlined the NLA's experience with OSS but focused mostly on the directions they are taking in evaluating the multitude of systems they have think about Service Oriented Architectures.
Ex Libris then presented their ILS and product suite and answered questions about migration paths. They stress their position as an innovator and Unified Resource Management (URM) was discussed as their next generation discovery layer.
Then it was off to the library staff room for welcome drinks and nibbles - nice couches well laid out kitchen and servery, and facing an atrium full of barwangs - better laid out than Cairns but doesn't have our view!
Open Source software has been bandied around a bit, Anthony Hornby had a very pragmatic overview of how you should approach Open Source - the same way you approach proprietary software - evaluate for best fit. He dispelled a bunch of myths about OSS, from the wildly evangelical to the demonising (and showed us the little funny below).
Anthony pointed out that even proprietary vendors relied on OSS (e.g. Java), and that we all use it every day (thing blogs like this one, or IM).
We were given overviews of Koha and Evergreen by brave souls who've installed and played with it in test environments (common theme: follow the installation instructions meticulously).
HES then presented, offering the group tools for future collaboration and collective action. JCU participates in HES for a number of systems e.g. our HR system, and we benefit from the negotiated agreement with Oracle.
Next was Serials Solutions, which held little new for me, until Summon got a mention, which is sort a competitor for URM but much closer to implementation. Basically it operates more like Google Scholar in that databases are harvested for metadata, removing federated search's Achille's heel; connection files and retrieval times. SS benefit from being part of the Cambridge Information Group which includes Proquest, Bowker and Ulrich's. Apparently they have an agreement with Thomson Gale to allow harvesting of the databases and many other larger publisher are either on board or soon will be.
SirsiDynix then made their presentation, revolving around Symphony, which looked quite cool. I admire SD staff, they've had so much flack from customers since the Horizon 8 death notice but they are still cheerfully plugging away. The word going around is that SD are focusing on the international market, and rumour says that's because the customer response to H8's death in the US was so vitriolic - but it might also have something to with it's ability to handle unicode making it usable in Asia.
Softlink (Liberty) then presented - they chiefly work in the specials and small publics sector and don't have any university customers in Australia.
The breaks are full of conversations between people asking each other 'what are you going to do?'
Friday we have LibaryThing, DA, Civica and Innovative Interfaces, before another all in library only session to finish up.
Most of the powerpoints will be made available, and I will be writing a more detailed report after cogitating a bit. I think this is a good time to think about our ILS as we are thinking a lot right now about how we do resource discovery with the CMS and 360 Search being launched in the last week and a bit of January (my blonde tips are getting bigger).
Another thing Anthony Hornby had in his powerpoint really tickled me - I think I'll make it my family crest:
About 26 libraries are here. University of Tasmania are the organisers and drivers. They had three staff in the USA last year conducting an environmental scan (I'll make Rod Foley's reports available on the intranet - very interesting reading). One thing that strikes you immediately is the difference in resourcing between US and Australian libraries. One University with around the same number EFTSUs as JCU has 185 employees (with 11 dedicated to library IT).
As Di Worth said in opening the unconference, 'we won't come away with the answer' but I already feel that I have a much clearer handle on what the question is. Linda Luther asked the question 'What is an ILS really for?'
The proprietary vendors of ILS are surprisingly few in number (at least those in the University sector) and even more surprising is how old their offerings are; Endeavour is the youngest and first released in 1995. All the products have evolved but you wonder about the core assumptions in their initial design when the most recent was released the same year as Netscape 1.0
Warwick Cathro outlined the NLA's experience with OSS but focused mostly on the directions they are taking in evaluating the multitude of systems they have think about Service Oriented Architectures.
Ex Libris then presented their ILS and product suite and answered questions about migration paths. They stress their position as an innovator and Unified Resource Management (URM) was discussed as their next generation discovery layer.
Then it was off to the library staff room for welcome drinks and nibbles - nice couches well laid out kitchen and servery, and facing an atrium full of barwangs - better laid out than Cairns but doesn't have our view!
Open Source software has been bandied around a bit, Anthony Hornby had a very pragmatic overview of how you should approach Open Source - the same way you approach proprietary software - evaluate for best fit. He dispelled a bunch of myths about OSS, from the wildly evangelical to the demonising (and showed us the little funny below).
Anthony pointed out that even proprietary vendors relied on OSS (e.g. Java), and that we all use it every day (thing blogs like this one, or IM).
We were given overviews of Koha and Evergreen by brave souls who've installed and played with it in test environments (common theme: follow the installation instructions meticulously).
HES then presented, offering the group tools for future collaboration and collective action. JCU participates in HES for a number of systems e.g. our HR system, and we benefit from the negotiated agreement with Oracle.
Next was Serials Solutions, which held little new for me, until Summon got a mention, which is sort a competitor for URM but much closer to implementation. Basically it operates more like Google Scholar in that databases are harvested for metadata, removing federated search's Achille's heel; connection files and retrieval times. SS benefit from being part of the Cambridge Information Group which includes Proquest, Bowker and Ulrich's. Apparently they have an agreement with Thomson Gale to allow harvesting of the databases and many other larger publisher are either on board or soon will be.
SirsiDynix then made their presentation, revolving around Symphony, which looked quite cool. I admire SD staff, they've had so much flack from customers since the Horizon 8 death notice but they are still cheerfully plugging away. The word going around is that SD are focusing on the international market, and rumour says that's because the customer response to H8's death in the US was so vitriolic - but it might also have something to with it's ability to handle unicode making it usable in Asia.
Softlink (Liberty) then presented - they chiefly work in the specials and small publics sector and don't have any university customers in Australia.
The breaks are full of conversations between people asking each other 'what are you going to do?'
Friday we have LibaryThing, DA, Civica and Innovative Interfaces, before another all in library only session to finish up.
Most of the powerpoints will be made available, and I will be writing a more detailed report after cogitating a bit. I think this is a good time to think about our ILS as we are thinking a lot right now about how we do resource discovery with the CMS and 360 Search being launched in the last week and a bit of January (my blonde tips are getting bigger).
Another thing Anthony Hornby had in his powerpoint really tickled me - I think I'll make it my family crest:
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Virtual Library - where to next?
I was going to post about SirsiDynix releasing their Enterprise V1.0 product. I've read the media release and perused the web site at http://www.sirsidynix.com/Solutions/Products/portalsearch.php and I'm still not sure I see anything to get overly excited about. Enterprise is a layer that sits on top of the OPAC (in our case HIP) which provides a few bells & whistles, like faceted results analysis, profiles for specific user groups, some fuzzy searching logic, and a little web2ish content integration (cover images, for example).
It might be attractive to a library with a number of discrete collections, or a consortium, but it seems tied to physical collections and increasingly our collection development revolves around the virtual (ie electronic/digital).
I feel like we can probably stick with our current ILMS for two years before we'd enter a review phase about what we do next. Horizon is now a dead end, if stable, product (after the 7.4.1 upgrade in September). It will continue to be the chief management tool of our physical collections from acquisition to circulation at least until that review.
I think we need to step back and think about how all our resources can best be delivered to our clients and look for tools that allow us to do that, rather than acquiring systems and then trying to figure out how to make them do what we want.
In the last client survey the one area where we lost ground, admittedly not much, was in the 'virtual library' section. Personally I didn't find this a surprise even though I think the resources we provide are better than we have ever provided before. I believe the rapid acquisition of resources and entry points to those resources (think X Search, LearnJCU, Reserve Online, 30000+ ejournals subs, 300+ I&A/FT databases, numerous guides, VISA, LearningFast, remote access, library policies, rules and regs) has swamped an information architecture firmly rooted in a much less virtual information world.
It is time to seriously look at our approach, both in philosophy and technology. I believe we need a more client-centred and client/context-centred approach. I often ponder why we silo-off library materials and services from the rest of the students learning experience. Are we not a key part of the process that creates the perfect graduate? Why aren't our services seamlessly integrated with teaching materials, at the point where they are most relevant. For example why does a student who has logged into LearnJCU and selected a particular subject have to login again to Reserve Online and then enter the subject code to see the readings for the subject? We already know who they are and what subject they're doing. Why aren't the reading lists embedded in the course materials with links directly to the item's full text? I think we should be asking these questions.
It might be attractive to a library with a number of discrete collections, or a consortium, but it seems tied to physical collections and increasingly our collection development revolves around the virtual (ie electronic/digital).
I feel like we can probably stick with our current ILMS for two years before we'd enter a review phase about what we do next. Horizon is now a dead end, if stable, product (after the 7.4.1 upgrade in September). It will continue to be the chief management tool of our physical collections from acquisition to circulation at least until that review.
I think we need to step back and think about how all our resources can best be delivered to our clients and look for tools that allow us to do that, rather than acquiring systems and then trying to figure out how to make them do what we want.
In the last client survey the one area where we lost ground, admittedly not much, was in the 'virtual library' section. Personally I didn't find this a surprise even though I think the resources we provide are better than we have ever provided before. I believe the rapid acquisition of resources and entry points to those resources (think X Search, LearnJCU, Reserve Online, 30000+ ejournals subs, 300+ I&A/FT databases, numerous guides, VISA, LearningFast, remote access, library policies, rules and regs) has swamped an information architecture firmly rooted in a much less virtual information world.
It is time to seriously look at our approach, both in philosophy and technology. I believe we need a more client-centred and client/context-centred approach. I often ponder why we silo-off library materials and services from the rest of the students learning experience. Are we not a key part of the process that creates the perfect graduate? Why aren't our services seamlessly integrated with teaching materials, at the point where they are most relevant. For example why does a student who has logged into LearnJCU and selected a particular subject have to login again to Reserve Online and then enter the subject code to see the readings for the subject? We already know who they are and what subject they're doing. Why aren't the reading lists embedded in the course materials with links directly to the item's full text? I think we should be asking these questions.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Open Source Integrated Library Management Systems
I necessarily subscribe to a bunch of lists and feeds. The flow can be overwhelming but if you get into a simple scanning routine you notice patterns in the ebb and flow of the communal mind that is the web. In addition I actually talk to you about issues and ideas. For this post I thought I just mention some of the things that have caught my eye/mind recently.
Open Source Integrated Library Management Systems are a key watch topic with QULOC-ICT. The two main systems are Evergreen and Koha the general feeling is that these systems don't have the full range of modules the commercial providers have but they do work. On web4lib there has been a lot discussion not about the software itself but hiring third parties to maintain and develop it.
The software is free but support is not. But, unlike the pricing model the commercial providers use (an annual license/maintenance fee that has no connection with what you actually get, and additional costs for customised development) you negotiate with the third party when you want something done or get quotes from a number of third parties.
Sidebar: Talk to an ex-sales person from one the big ILMS providers and to find some truly bizarre formulas for calculating costs (which are usually manipulated so that a pre-decided on price is the answer): number of campuses, students, staff, books and multiply, divide, add, subtract, sine, cosine, tangent them in an order of their choosing.
Increasingly libraries are dipping their toes in the Open Source Software (OSS) water by using it as an additional layer or view to existing data stores, for example the NLA use of VuFind as an alternative OPAC, Charles Darwin University is experimenting with it as well.
A number of libraries have announced an actual dive into the water. In the last month the following libraries have gone KOHA:
We are currently planning to upgrade Horizon to 7.4.1 in the mid-semester break, more information as we approach that period.
Library Journal article: Automation System Marketplace 2008: Opportunity Out of Turmoil
Open Source Integrated Library Management Systems are a key watch topic with QULOC-ICT. The two main systems are Evergreen and Koha the general feeling is that these systems don't have the full range of modules the commercial providers have but they do work. On web4lib there has been a lot discussion not about the software itself but hiring third parties to maintain and develop it.
The software is free but support is not. But, unlike the pricing model the commercial providers use (an annual license/maintenance fee that has no connection with what you actually get, and additional costs for customised development) you negotiate with the third party when you want something done or get quotes from a number of third parties.
Sidebar: Talk to an ex-sales person from one the big ILMS providers and to find some truly bizarre formulas for calculating costs (which are usually manipulated so that a pre-decided on price is the answer): number of campuses, students, staff, books and multiply, divide, add, subtract, sine, cosine, tangent them in an order of their choosing.
Increasingly libraries are dipping their toes in the Open Source Software (OSS) water by using it as an additional layer or view to existing data stores, for example the NLA use of VuFind as an alternative OPAC, Charles Darwin University is experimenting with it as well.
A number of libraries have announced an actual dive into the water. In the last month the following libraries have gone KOHA:
- Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
- Butte Silver Bow Public Library
- Fort Wayne Museum of Art
- Birmingham Museum of Art
- Highland Park Public Library
- Salinas Public Library
- Polytechnic University
- Pemberton (B.C.) Public Library
- Houston Public Library in British Columbia
- Marshall Public Library
- Whistler Public Library
- Kent County, Maryland, Public Library
- University of Prince Edward Island's Robertson Library
We are currently planning to upgrade Horizon to 7.4.1 in the mid-semester break, more information as we approach that period.
Further reading
The JISC review: Library Management Systems: Investing wisely in a period of disruptive changeLibrary Journal article: Automation System Marketplace 2008: Opportunity Out of Turmoil
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