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Me Too!

By Andrew K. Pace
American Libraries Columnist
andrew_pace@ncsu.edu

Head of Systems, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh.

Column for August 2005

Maybe it’s because the show was in ALA’s hometown of Chicago. Maybe it was the heat outside driving people indoors. Maybe it was the record attendance of 27,962 that filled the ALA Annual Conference exhibit hall also known as The Stacks with excitement and interest. Regardless of the cause, it was easy to spend several hours walking the floor in order to get a slightly different taste of Chicago.

In the past, some vendor press releases might have begged the question of whether development preceded demand. With innovation seemingly on a market plateau, the library vendors of three or four years ago seemed desperate to come up with anything that might capture the imaginations of their captive markets.

But now, not only are vendors responding to the demands of libraries and the service expectations created by commercial internet services, they are doing so with unprecedented alacrity. At its best, this denotes a keen awareness of the market, but still has the danger of being simply “Me too-ism.” That is, if one vendor demonstrates a product at the Annual Conference, half a dozen other vendors must have it by the Midwinter Meeting.

The ERM Boom

Seemingly the hottest thing since sliced bread (thanks, in part, to columnists who can’t stop writing about it!), electronic resource management systems have taken the vendor floor by storm. As reported back in March, most large ILS vendors and several A–Z e-journal services have gotten into this market.

New this summer is Endeavor’s initial release of Meridian. By Annual, Endeavor had already announced plans for implementations at 17 libraries. TLC announced that it would further its strong relationship with the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries to market Gold Rush, one of the first ERM systems. Ex Libris has already contracted with 15 libraries for the installation of Verde.

Barely out of the gate, but gaining fast on Innovative Interface’s first-to-market release of ERM, these competing products are already maturing, shifting as libraries and vendors realize that they must consider print collections as well as electronic. Would that we had called them serial management systems, as the future development of these systems depends a lot more on “seriality” than on “electronicness.”

Mergers, Markets, and Migrations

From “me too” to “we two,” Sirsi CEO Patrick Sommers announced the merger of the ILS industry’s two largest companies, Sirsi and Dynix, into SirsiDynix. This merger has created the largest vendor on the market with over 4,000 installations serving over 20,000 libraries. Sommers has taken the reins of the combined companies, which for the time being will maintain their individual corporate identities, offices, and product offerings. Jack Blount, CEO of Dynix, remains with SirsiDynix as executive technology consultant.

The companies, both privately held, did not disclose the financial terms of the merger, the ripple effects of which will certainly play out in the market in general and the company in particular over the next few months. One year ago, I predicted that up-and-comers TLC and Dynix would go head to head with newly developed systems. With Sirsi’s plans to continue the development and marketing of Horizon 8.0—and its academic library branding, Corinthian—it is easy to add the rest of the ILS market to that head-to-head battle of legacy migrations. Though it’s hard to imagine further consolidation of the market at this point, it’s difficult to predict how other vendors will choose to compete with a company as large as SirsiDynix.

Google Bandwagon

One might not expect cries of “me too!” when it comes to dancing with an 800-pound gorilla, but that’s just what vendors and content providers are doing when it comes to Google—which along with Yahoo had booths in the exhibit hall this year. Google also used several programs at the conference to continue its promotion of Google Scholar and Google Print. Ex Libris, Innovative Interfaces, EBSCO, and Serials Solutions have all announced new link-resolver features that allow libraries to send their electronic serial holdings to Google. Pitched as an effort to make better linkages to commercial content already owned by libraries, all other resolver services are sure to follow suit.

Gale Group announced in June that it would allow Google and Yahoo to crawl its content for inclusion in the major web indexes. With partnerships already underway via CrossRef and other electronic journal publishers, it’s only a matter of time before other major content providers follow suit. This major development should shift libraries’ attention away from the comparatively mundane technology of Google Print and Google Scholar and toward the underpinning business model that is sure to emerge—Google Wallet. Sure to compete with Paypal, Google Wallet will undoubtedly be part of Google’s commercially driven focus on content markets.

We Too

As Roy Tennant of the California Digital Library reminded audience members at LITA’s Top Technology Trends session, “Google is more like Microsoft than like libraries.” A more trusted source, OCLC, is also getting in on the action. OCLC has announced several initiatives tied to Open WorldCat that will change the landscape of the online catalog and integration with online search services like Yahoo and Google.

OCLC has created an online registry for link resolvers. This would obviate the need for each resolver provider to work with every search and content service in order to ensure that users can connect to the proper link resolver. The firm hopes to be the trusted source for both libraries and search services for this information. OCLC is also piloting a registry for virtual reference services so that WorldCat users can be connected with the appropriate chat service for their area.

Finally, OCLC has partnered with Baker and Taylor so that users wanting to purchase books found in WorldCat can do so through B&T. OCLC already has a relationship with B&T through NetLibrary and YBP, making one wonder if more synergistic opportunities are in the works on these fronts.

Me Too Global

It’s always entertaining to watch the general public attempt to reverse engineer librarianship on the Web. So it is with the emergence of “folksonomies.” Simply described as collaborative categorization, these are cropping up all over the Web via social bookmarking sites or photosharing services like Flickr, which is owned by Yahoo. “There’s nothing really new here,” commented Coalition for Networked Information Executive Director Clifford Lynch at LITA’s Top Technology Trends discussion. Librarian’s Index to the Internet Director Karen Schneider added, “Civilians [non-librarians] think they have invented metadata. Wait until next year when they discover authority control.”

More interestingly, LexisNexis has launched a taxonomy program that will allow companies to license proprietary taxonomies with access to expert consulting services. In the spirit of sharing expertise, MuseGlobal’s Certified Content Partner Program provides a framework for content providers to ensure that their data maintains availability and efficient use by metasearch technologies.

Me Too’s Coming Soon

Self-checkout and patron payment services are continuing to dovetail. Comprise’s Smart Access Manager and TLC’s Tech Logic   are two leading the way to combine patron self-checkout with what Comprise calls “cash management reconciliation,” namely a single place at which to capture either payment for services or retrieval of fines owed. The clear trend is away from completely unattended self-check stations, and toward a kiosk service more like those found in grocery stores and airports.

The American playwright Wilson Mizner once quipped, “When you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” Stealing in the information age is getting even harder with services like Turnitin and Ithenticate.  Expect these online plagiarism detectors to both grow in number and increase in interoperability with library content resources and instruction.

Short Takes

Chicago Public Library has contracted with TLC for all basic ILS functionality in CARL.X, as well as AquaBrowser Library, Endeca Guided Navigation, OSA collection development, and e-commerce modules—a project valued at nearly $14 million.

Project Muse is celebrating 20 years online with the addition of several new publishers supporting the Muse platform, as well as a new Premium Collection that’s designed to keep current pricing at a stable level, preserving previous price-cap promises.

ProQuest Information and Learning has appointed industry veteran Jane Burke as vice president, ProQuest Information and Learning, and general manager of Serials Solutions. Burke is well known as the cofounder and CEO of Endeavor Information Systems until its acquisition by Reed Elsevier in 2000. Burke will undoubtedly work toward integrating Serials Solutions’ popular technology tools more closely with ProQuest’s content and services.

OpenRFP has rebranded itself as Ringgold, a market channel for library automation vendors. The firm has also acquired Biblio Tech Review, edited by Peter W. Evans, who is not part of the Ringgold team. Vendor-neutral, Ringgold strives to describe system functionality for a wide range of library automation in terms that spare libraries the burden of creating RFIs and streamline the creation of RFPs.

VTLS might have lost Virginia Tech to Innovative Interfaces, but it has picked up the University of Virginia (UVA) as a partner for the development of a metadata editor for digital repository products such as FEDORA, jointly developed by UVA and Cornell University. VTLS also continues to make headway internationally, with sales of Virtua to 11 libraries in seven different countries.

With an impressive list of names on its advisory board and a growing list of customers, Xrefer is making a big splash in North America with over 170 reference titles from nearly 50 publishers. Xrefer also includes an impressive array of technical features, including concept maps and an easy-to-use search box that cross-searches entire reference collections.

Notable Newcomer

With the simple download of a plug-in, JYBE, short for “Join Your Browser with Everyone,” is earning fans in the chat reference arena. With chat, document sharing, and cobrowsing, this lightweight tool could be a serious challenge to more bloated software packages currently used by several libraries. Northern Illinois University is already using JYBE in its library.

Me too-ism can be fun, and it certainly keeps the vendor floor interesting. While vendors strive to keep up with (and ahead of) the Joneses, libraries benefit from hot new technologies and the automation commodities (and lower prices) that ultimately result from everyone running in the same race.

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