Technically Speaking

By David Dorman
American Libraries Columnist
ddorma@ltnet.ltls.org

Library consultant for the Lincoln Trail Libraries System in Champaign, Illinois.

Column for August 1999

Annual Conference Exhibits:
New Products in New Orleans

If there were an ALA Exhibit Award for the best chocolate given out by a vendor, the award at this year’s Annual Conference would surely have gone to Management Dynamics. The wrapped-in-silver mild milk chocolate squares with a hint of peppermint kept drawing me back to look at the company’s Bibliostat family of software.

Although there were over 1,400 other exhibitors and the company has been selling its software for over a year, I didn’t see another exhibitor offering statistical software comparable to Bibliostat and its related products. Bibliostat Connect (for comparing public library data) and Scholarstat Libraries (for comparing academic library data) allow users to rank libraries by any variable within either a software-supplied or user-configured reference group. An annual subscription ranges from several hundred to several thousand dollars per year depending on the size of the user community. See www.bibliostat.com or call 801-371-9222 for more information.

The new flat-screen LCD desktop monitors were surprisingly common at the exhibits, considering that six months ago I did not see any evidence of them. Actually using them was a valuable experience: It made me realize that while they might be useful for trade shows and other instances where space is at a premium and viewing is intermittent, their images are not yet as crisp or as easy on the eyes as a high-quality CRT, and the angle of viewing is decidedly narrower.

ILS notes

The cast of players marketing to large libraries represented in the exhibits remained relatively intact from previous conferences, except for the absence of CGI’s Amicus system. The CGI Group seems to have dropped out of the ILS marketplace. Not even its Web site makes mention of the Amicus system that the company sold to the British Library.

One new vendor, CyberTools, was exhibiting a multi-tier library system based on InterSystem’s Caché, a post-relational DBMS. (A post-relational database stores data in multidimensional arrays and uses object-oriented technology.) CyberTools features identical search functionality across all client interfaces and—the company claims—has the best serials-management software in the marketplace. Based on the homegrown Georgetown University Medical Center Library Information System, the software was purchased by CyberTools in March 1998 and is being extensively upgraded. The system is used by 14 customers in 23 libraries; at this time the company is marketing only to medical libraries.

CyberTools’ pricing is unique among ILS vendors. The basic system is $2,000 per library staff position, and the acquisitions module is another $2,000 per acquisitions staff position. For more information, visit www.cytools.com or call 800-894-9206.

The mood at ExLibris was noticeably upbeat, as the company had just landed its first really big ARL library—the University of Iowa—two weeks prior to the conference. And just as the exhibits opened, Endeavor announced that Cornell had decided, after a search that lasted three years, to replace its NOTIS system with Voyager. And this was on top of the announcements just prior to the conference that the National Library of Scotland, the University of Edinburgh, and Texas A&M University had selected Voyager as well.

At the same time, Ameritech Library Service’s NOTIS system seemed to get a renewed lease on life a few days before the conference when the Louisiana Online University Information System (LOUIS) announced that its 30 academic libraries will be replacing their existing shared NOTIS system with NOTIS II. ALS President and CEO Lana Porter used the occasion to redefine the acronym as “New and Old Technology in Synthesis.” EOSi (Electronic Online Systems International, a Dawson Company), on the other hand, has still not garnered any large public or academic libraries for its Q Series system, despite the software’s rich functionality and advanced features, which in some ways—particularly with regard to PAC searching functionality—equals or surpasses what many other ILS vendors offer.

Meanwhile, The Library Corporation’s Library.Solution and Sirsi’s Unicorn continue to be the market’s top-selling client/server systems—TLC to small and medium-sized libraries, and Sirsi to big and small libraries alike. And prices continue their steady march downward: Steve Silberstein of Innovative Interfaces estimates that system prices are declining approximately 10% to 12% per year. One reason is certainly the decline in hardware prices. Another is the stiff competition resulting from Endeavor’s and TLC’s efforts to gain significant market share quickly. TLC’s unprecedented low pricing in particular has put downward pressure on the entire library-automation marketplace.

The globalization of the ILS marketplace is fostering the development of multi-language handling ability. True polyglot functionality is finally a reality in more than a just a few systems. VTLS’s Virtua supports Unicode and makes selecting a keyboard interface a snap, and ExLibris’s Aleph user can select up to 17 different languages for the user interface. Most of the other vendors of client/server systems are also forging ahead in their efforts to display, edit, and index in the world’s major language scripts.

Emergence of XML

The ability to support multiple MARC formats as well as non-MARC formats is also a feature of a growing number of systems. While adherence to the MARC standard still remains one of the cores of a modern library system, there are clear signs that the 30-year reign of MARC will soon be coming to an end. The entire information-technology community is embracing XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and many ILS vendors are either experimenting with XML uses, or have begun development efforts to support the standard. Data Research Associates, for example, is experimenting with passing XML-encoded patron data to OCLC. Perhaps XML has the potential to bring more uniformity to the diverse ways that vendors are implementing patron-authentication functionality.

ExLibris is well under way with its XML development. The Aleph search engine now recognizes XML encoding for retrieval purposes and the software can formulate a display based on XML encoding. The company is working on the ability to index based on XML encoding, and is also planning to support XSL, the eXtensible Stylesheet Language. Endeavor has committed to developing XML data type definitions for Dublin Core, EAD (Encoded Archive Description), and TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) and geospacial metadata.

In talking to vendor technical staff people at the exhibits, I heard contradictory assessments of the ability of XML to encode all the relational capabilities inherent in a MARC-encoded AACR2 bibliographic record, both for relationships within a single record and for relationships among separate records. The capabilities limits of the current XML standard will doubtless only emerge once librarians have gained more experience using it to encode and manipulate AACR2 records. If the current version of XML does lack some of the relationship features of MARC, then a strong library presence in the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium, the standards-making body for the Web) would ensure that XML evolves to meet the needs of the library community. As of early July the W3C had about 360 members, and only three of them were library-related organizations—DRA, LC, and OCLC. Vendors, Uncle Tim (Tim Berners-Lee, who developed the original Web protocols and is now director of W3C) wants you!

Clients rule

The client/server library systems continue to add very impressive functionality in all areas. The newer programming tools seem to be paying off in shorter development cycles. An increasing number of vendors have GUI clients for all their modules, including Systems Administration. By the end of 2000 I expect to see the transition from text-based to graphic-user interface completed for those vendors who have been in transition from host-based systems to client/server systems.

While most vendors are providing Web PAC clients but sticking to vendor-specific clients for other functions, BestSeller is taking a more Web-centric approach. The company will be launching a Web-based cataloging module in the fall, with plans to offer circulation and acquisitions Web clients sometime in 2000.

Sorting out ILL options

The marketplace seems to be taking three basic approaches (and variations thereof) to supporting interlibrary loan (ILL) activity and document delivery (DD). The first approach is to support an individual library’s effort to manage its ILL and DD with a Windows-based application, and is often used in conjunction with OCLC’s interlibrary loan module. Perkins and Associates is the preeminent provider of Windows-based and networkable ILL management software with over 450 customers. Other providers are Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties, which markets the ILLiad system to academic libraries, and Pigasus Software, which markets several versions of its Wings Request Management System to individual libraries.

The second approach, and by far the one most often taken or planned for, is the virtual catalog consortial approach. Unlike the first approach, which almost always involves using OCLC and a single-library ILL management system, the second approach just as frequently bypasses OCLC as a first resort in favor of consortia-based ILL borrowing and management software, coupled with Z39.50 broadcast searching. This approach also is the most crowded with ILL software providers. Ameritech’s Resource Sharing System (RSS), CPS Systems’ Universal Resource Sharing Application (URSA), and Pigasus Software’s Wings Request Management System—also marketed by the Library Corporation as Library*Request—are the market leaders in this approach.

Yet a third approach is to provide a searchable statewide or regional union database based on bibliographic and holdings records (with status information) extracted from a number of library systems, coupled with ILL management software interacting with the union database for searching and with the individual library systems for actually requesting and loaning items. The Innovative Interfaces union database being installed in Colorado is an example of this approach. Creating a union database is more scalable than broadcast searching and allows for more sophisticated searching than the Z39.50 protocol provides in current implementations.

Will any one approach come to dominate the marketplace, or will all three approaches continue to thrive in various combinations? The folks at RLG (who are themselves developing an RLG ILL Manager that is currently in Beta testing) believe that as vendors implement the ISO ILL standard protocols for sharing ILL-related data in universally recognized formats, the way that ILL is now handled will be transformed. They have this to say about the future of ILL in a brochure on RLG’s planned ILL software:

“Within five years [the ISO ILL protocol] will have changed the very nature of interlibrary lending. . . . More and more ILL messaging will bypass [OCLC and RLG] and instead travel directly from partner to partner, peer to peer, server to server. Union catalogs like RLG’s and OCLC’s will remain vital for determining the location of material sought via interlibrary loan. But messaging and tracking for ILL requests will happen directly between these powerful, flexible new systems, and data will reside on your own PC or local server.”

Sounds good to me, but it still does not help us figure out which of the three scenarios described above will prove most useful to most libraries for managing interlibrary loans.

Hey, check this out!

I was walking back to the exhibits from lunch when a couple of earnest conferees from South Carolina approached me asking if I would view a private poster session on their RDesk Project. Since I’m a sucker for new library technology wherever I encounter it, I readily agreed. RDesk is a Web browser designed for student research and “for librarians and instructors to collaborate and present course content addressing research requirements.” After 10 minutes of seeing what it could do, I began drooling. “If you guys had an e-mail manager, I’d switch browsers tomorrow,” I informed them.

“Them” is Robert Fernekes, a reference/user education librarian at the University of South Carolina/Aiken, and Neil James Adcox, a programmer from Williston. RDesk has been in development since December 1997 and is not yet in general release. Adcox informs me that since returning from New Orleans he has begun working on an e-mail client. This is definitely a product to keep your eye on. For more information visit www.rdesk.com.

Short takes

If I were to imagine an ideal system made up of bits and pieces of what each vendor does better than any other, I would certainly consider Sirsi’s report writer as worthy of inclusion.
. . . CheckPoint is marketing RFID (Radio Frequency ID) technology for both inventory control and security, but 3M is using RFID for inventory only and sticking with magnetic strips for security, because the RFID chips can be blocked by a piece of foil. The cost remains about $1 per ID tag. . . .
SIRS now incorporates Validation Plus from TMQ (The MARC of Quality) into its Mandarin system. . . . Interloc became Alibris last year and morphed from being a listing service for out-of-print book dealers into a dealer of dealers, selling both to dealers and directly to end users. . . . Need a document fast? Cisti’s Urgent Handling service has been reduced from four hours to two hours for the same price. If Cisti does not send a document within two hours of receiving an urgent request, the delivery is free.