 |
 |
|
Appendices: 
|
An increasingly interconnected environmentThe library systems environment is becoming more densely interconnected. This is a result of several pressures:
Systems Support
Most libraries have a library management system. Many will have more than one of the above systems. Some larger libraries will have them all. An interesting manifestation of this trend is the diversification of product offerings from the major library management system vendors. Although they may be bundled differently, the larger library system vendors now offer digital object management systems, portal systems and resolver systems, in addition to library management systems. Of course, a variety of other providers also make these systems available and in some cases—digital object management, for example—open-source systems may have some impact. Growth of formalized sharing
One is a distributed approach where library systems remain autonomous, but employ portal and resource-sharing technologies to provide a “virtual” union resource. This is the approach taken by consortia that implement Fretwell Downing’s VDX for resource sharing for example. This depends on complex distributed interactions, using protocols such as Z39.50 and the ISO interlibrary loan protocol. A second approach is a totally centralized approach. This is not very common, but is implemented by the Norwegian academic system Bibsys for example. Here all the Norwegian academic libraries share the same centralized library system. A third approach is a hybrid one, a mix of centralized and distributed approaches. This is what we find in OhioLink for example, where libraries have their own local library systems but there is a centralized union catalog and interlibrary “circulation” or ILL system. Another hybrid approach is exemplified in OCLC’s group catalog service, where, again, each library retains its own system, but looks to a central resource on OCLC for union catalog and ILL request services. In the hybrid case, the central system needs to communicate with local systems to determine holdings and availability data. In the OhioLink case, all the libraries share the same system, which facilitates this interaction at the cost of uniformity; the group catalog approach is more flexible in terms of local system, but at the cost of complexity of interaction. It requires some protocol support. Interconnecting and interoperabilityThe third pressure is relatively new, but will become more important over time. This is the need to interact with other systems’ environments. Take two topical examples. The first is the learning—or course—management systems. In academic environments, the library is looking for ways to ensure that its services are visible within the learning environment where students increasingly do much of their work. The leading learning management systems—Blackboard and WebCT especially—are in discussion with library management system vendors about facilitating these links.15 A second example is the campus portal. It is estimated that two-fifths of campuses in the U.S. will have campus portals by the end of 2003.16 Increasingly, the library will need to think about how its services are surfaced in those environments.17 Finally, library applications increasingly need to interact with “common services”—services that are delivered enterprise-wide. The one of most immediate importance is authentication and authorization, as library users want single sign-on facilities to library resources. Several techniques are in use here, but Shibboleth is emerging as an approach of great interest. This is a common service because it is one that needs to be used by many applications, and one, which, increasingly, it does not make sense to provide on an application-by-application basis. What we have here then, is a systems environment becoming more and more complex. And these complex systems need to talk to each other in various ways. So, for example, one wants to move content between repositories. A portal application needs to search across a range of resources. A central catalog may need to query a local circulation system for availability data. This in turn raises—much more starkly than in the past—the need for interoperability and a move to thinking about systems as communicating network services. Library Landscape: |
The first area of pressure is the diversity and number of systems that information organizations may have. Consider the range of systems investments libraries now potentially make to support their operations:
The second pressure is the growing trend towards group resource-sharing arrangements, at various levels. Depending on circumstances, these may be consortial in nature, or may flow from state, regional or national structures. This has led to several systems solutions.