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 September 2000

Annual Conference Exhibits:
First-Timers and Alliances

“Have you seen it yet?” “No,” I answered, “I missed that one.” I silently made up all sorts of excuses why I had failed to notice that a new library management system was being marketed for the first time at ALA’s Annual Conference, but I didn’t say anything. “Come with me,” said Hank, “It’s really dynamite!”

It was early Tuesday afternoon, late in the conference. Only a few diehard attendees still walked down the now seemingly widened isles, as most exhibitors were beginning to pack away the paraphernalia they had brought. We walked over to the Brodart booth, where Hank introduced me to the salesman he had talked to earlier.

Polaris, the client/server library management system (LMS) that Brodart’s automation division had been developing, was nowhere in sight. In its place the company was marketing Amlib, an LMS developed by InfoVision, an Australian company; Brodart became the exclusive North American distributor of the product this past spring. Running under both Unix and NT, and using either SQLBase or Oracle, Amlib is designed as a single-library system for small to medium-sized libraries. It has a very flexible user interface and can support image links from either the record or the field level. The cost of a basic system is $3,500 for an unlimited-user license. For more information, call 800-233-846, ext. 6581, e-mail salesmkt@brodart.com, or visit www.brodart.com. InfoVision’s Web site is www.infovision.com.au.

While the North American library market is getting used to vendors from Australia, a company from its smaller neighbor, New Zealand, is still a rarity. That’s why I was surprised to see first-time ALA exhibitor Talkingtech, which specializes in telephone messaging software. The firm has agreements with Geac as well as with Epixtech (in Australia only) that interfaces the Talkingtech messaging system with those companies’ LMS software. I got the impression they were at the exhibits as much to introduce themselves to other vendors for dealmaking as they were to make themselves known to North American librarians.

The trend toward forming ever-greater numbers of alliances seemed in evidence throughout the vendor community. Even two competitors like DRA and Epixtech signed a joint agreement under which the companies will develop an interface between DRA’s library-automation software and Epixtech’s URSA ILL product. While the agreement fueled speculation that a closer relationship could be in the offing, no signs of such were present. But one can wonder . . . .

SFX hits the spot

SFX, the reference linking technology that Ex Libris acquired earlier this year, garnered a lot of attention from academic exhibitgoers. SFX is one of those technologies that, while relatively simple in concept, has a lot of powerful uses. It uses the OpenURL draft specification, which enables the transfer of metadata from an information service to a remote server via the URL protocol. Here’s the idea in a nutshell: If the resource, or “source,” utilizes the OpenURL and is SFX-aware, it can include an SFX button next to citations. This button makes users aware that “extended services” are available. Clicking on the SFX button transfers the user to a menu of choices, or “targets,” on a local or remote SFX server.

What services appear on the menu of choices is decided in advance by the library, based on what other databases and services the user has access to, and whatever meaningful relationships between them the librarian wishes to create. Suppose, for example, a user clicks on an SFX button next to an index record in an EBSCO database. The user could then be taken to the SFX server where he or she is offered any number of options: perhaps a link to the full text of the EBSCO citation in another database service, perhaps a link to the appropriate periodical holdings record in the library OPAC, or perhaps a link to an Internet search engine that would automatically search for the e-mail address of the author.

But back to the exhibits: This SFX business seemed to be really hot stuff at the Ex Libris booth. The firm is marketing the service independently from its Aleph system, so interest was not limited to potential Aleph customers. Ex Libris hopes to forge alliances with information providers and other LMS vendors to encourage as many vendors as possible to make their systems OpenURL-enabled so that links can be generated from within their databases. ISI’s Web of Science and EBSCOhost have already become SFX-aware, and Ex Libris is talking with OCLC, SilverPlatter, and others to further broaden the use of the OpenURL protocol.

Ex Libris seems to have gotten in on the ground floor of an important emerging standard that could help libraries unify the disparate electronic resources they offer their patrons. SFX is scheduled to go into general release this fall. For more information on the technology, visit www.sfxit.com.

TLC buys Carl

The buyout of Carl by The Library Corporation occurred too soon before the conference to allow the (formerly) two companies to combine their booths. Since TLC’s Library.Solution LMS cannot scale up sufficiently to allow TLC to break into the very large library marketplace, they decided to buy into that market instead. There are currently no plans to merge the two systems. TLC also went after the very-small-library market by forming an alliance with Caspr Library Systems to market the new Web-based LibraryCom.

Epixtech was touting its new emphasis on being an application service provider (ASP), and no wonder, since the firm just sold the concept to the Chicago Library System. Epixtech is convinced that vendor hosting of library-management systems is going to grow into a big market, and the company is not alone in this belief: Ex Libris touts its potential as well. Perhaps it’s because Ex Libris just hired Ron Passmore, who came fresh from Epixtech, where he worked as director of ASP Services. Sirsi also announced a new ASP initiative, SIRSInet, “a personalized application service provider for libraries of all types and sizes.”

Perhaps the most widespread trend at the exhibits was the gradual but steady merging of different sectors of the library information marketplace. The major LMS vendors, through both alliances and internal developments, are moving towards becoming systems integrators for all the electronic information a library might wish to provide. TLC introduced a new version of its Site.Solution product for creating and maintaining Web sites. Endeavor demonstrated how users of Voyager could simultaneously search the OPAC and Elsevier’s Science Direct, and asserting that the same Z39.50-based technology can be used to integrate any number of databases into an OPAC search. Sirsi is developing iBistro, a new Web interface to its OPAC slated for the upcoming Unicorn 2000 release that incorporates multiple OPACS and other kinds of Z39.50 resources, as well as featuring a link to Amazon.com and to book reviews from various Cahners publications (e.g., Library Journal and Publishers Weekly). Innovative, meanwhile, offered up another kind of integration by a “proof of concept” demonstration of the ability of its Java circulation workstation to receive voice commands in lieu of mouse or keyboard input.

ILLiad makes a classic alliance

The major development in the ILL market was that OCLC has signed a letter of intent with Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties and Atlas Systems to license and become the sole distributor of ILLiad software. This means that the cost of this once-pricey software will be significantly reduced as OCLC applies its marketing muscle (it has 6,700 ILL customers) to sell the software. It also means that ILLiad will gain ISO compliance and be capable of receiving ILL requests from FirstSearch, because these functional enhancements are OCLC requirements. ILLiad will stay a stand-alone product: OCLC has no plans to integrate it into OCLC’s own ILL management software.

A week after the conference, OCLC announced that it had agreed to “suspend joint development efforts” with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation for phase two of the Virtual Electronic Library Project, which was to involve the “development of an independent client-server-based Interlibrary Loan/Document Request system.” But as the DRA-Epixtech deal indicated, other ILL vendors are not standing still: TLC signed a contract in late June with the State Library of Louisiana for use of its Library.Request software in the state’s 65 public libraries. Both Cleo and Wings continue to gain in functionality and sales, and Fretwell-Downing continues to market its VDX (Virtual Document eXchange) ILL package.

E-book madness

If spending big bucks on promotion is a sign of a dynamic marketplace, then e-books are by far the most dynamic segment of the library marketplace. Every ALA registrant was given a nylon briefcase emblazoned with the netLibrary logo, and the company provided a 25-station Internet cafe right in the middle of the exhibit area, which doubled the 24-station capacity of the Internet cafe offered by ALA just inside the entrance of McCormick Place. This all adds up to more than pocket change. The netLibrary booth was about as large as they come, and it seemed to attract a steady and large stream of exhibitgoers. The company featured the release of its e-book client software reader.

Future e-book distributor and first-time exhibitor Questia was more focused, but just about as generous, in its largess. To anyone who would stay to hear the company’s 10-minute presentation, the company offered a free stainless-steel thermos/coffee mug. Questia generated quite a bit of interest and anticipation for a product that is not coming out until early next year and, when it is released, will be marketed not to libraries but to college students. The Ebrary folks did not go all out with splashy and expensive marketing, but they did have a small booth explaining their upcoming service, and how its marketing model relies on use in libraries, and that its collection of e-books will be offered without cost to libraries.

Tool kits for cataloging

The market for MARC retrieval and editing clients was a lively one at the exhibits. From TLC’s Catnow! and ITS.MARC to Book Systems’ eZcat, catalogers have increasingly sophisticated tools to use. For the rigorous work of editing and validating the content and tagging of MARC records, Information Transform and The MARC of Quality were demonstrating sophisticated Windows-based tools. The former is replacing its DOS-based MITINET MARC software (free of charge to existing customers) with a new Windows-based program the company is calling MARC Magician. The latter was showing its ValidationPLUS, which is available as a stand-alone client or as a DDL application that can be called upon by any other Windows program.

Short takes

O’Reilly devoted four workstations in its crowded booth to demonstrating open-source software projects. It was one of the more enthusiastic scenes in the exhibit hall. The OSS folks are clearly on the move. . . . Innovative Interfaces and Best Seller are finally getting some flattery in the form of imitation of their development of Java clients. TLC announced that it, too, is developing a Java-based circulation client. . . . Encyclopedias have certainly changed from just five years ago—from stand-alone CD products that were basically imitations of print versions to products that fully integrate the content of their CDs with Web resources. The improvement represented by Encarta 2000 was especially dramatic. . . . The newest technology used by exhibitors was a 20-by-30-inch flat computer screen that can hang on a wall. They were used to good effect to provide screen displays to groups numbering well in excess of three or four, which is about the largest number than can comfortably gather around a standard CRT. . . . OCLC rolled out WebExpress and the CORC service, two major initiatives. . . . EOSi made its Q Series LMS support the Bath Protocol for Z39.50 bibliographic searching—and then searched unsuccessfully for an agency to test their implementation for certification. . . .