There is an announcement on the OLE Project site that links to the final report as submitted to the Mellon Foundation. This version of the report has minor corrections in the text and now includes information about the group of libraries that have committed to the build phase of the project. Those libraries are:

• Indiana University (lead)
• Florida Consortium (University of Florida, Florida International University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, Rollins College, University of Central Florida, University of Miami, University of South Florida, and the Florida Center for Library Automation)
• Lehigh University
• Triangle Research Libraries Network (Duke University and North Carolina State University participating)
• University of Chicago
• University of Maryland
• University of Michigan
• University of Pennsylvania

The project is also listed as being in the incubation phase on the Kuali website.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

OLE Project Design Phase Final Report

Carl Grant, president of Ex Libris North America, posted a pair of messages on his corporate blog that it is worth calling attention to regarding the OLE Project final report, if you haven’t already run into them: OLE; The unanswered questions and Library Software Solutions – We need a higher level of discourse... Equally important is the comment on the first by Brad Wheeler, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at Indiana University. The whole thread should take about five minutes to read; five minutes well spent if you are interested in the intersection of community source software development with proprietary, closed-source software development. It is even more important if you are looking for a case study of governance issues surrounding community source software development. Go ahead…I’ll wait.

It is important to clear up one misconception. Brad Wheeler, at Indiana University, was not involved in the design phase of the OLE Project. Heavens — I hope someone who is VP of IT and CIO of a major university would have better things to do than to slog through discussions of workflow decomposition of back-room library automation functions. No, Brad is a consumer of the final report draft, just as many library directors and CIOs are the intended audience of the draft. In fact, Brad is a special category of report readers because he is at the forefront of community source in higher education; he believes in the community source model because he is witness to how it has and is working. From his biography:

Dr. Wheeler has been a pioneer in leveraged models for university collaboration. He serves in leadership roles for over $50M of shared university investments in open source software and was a co-founder of the Sakai Project and co-principal investigator on its $2.7M in grants and the $500K Open Source Portfolio project. He was a co-founder of the original Kuali Project, and now chairs the Kuali Foundation, Inc. board of directors. He has been a co-principal investigator on $4M of Kuali grants and three of the foundation.

Sakai (learning management system), Open Source Portfolio (electronic portfolio, since folded into Sakai), and Kuali (a suite of project including student records, research tracking, university financials, as well as other systems) are all well-regarded open source projects that are “leveraged models for university collaboration” — projects where universities have pooled their resources to develop and own the systems that are at the core of their institutions. The OLE Project is looking to join the Kuali Foundation and follow its proven and evolving patterns for community source development. From that perspective, it might be valuable to go back and reread Brad Wheeler’s response to Carl’s first post.

As someone embedded deeply in the OLE Project design phase, I can only speak for myself. Given the depth my head was in the design documents — and there were many others deeper than I was — it is difficult to separate reality from my perhaps biased impression of the report. I’m not sure a point-for-point debate on the merits of the report are useful as public discourse. Rather, I for one am listening to what others have to say and assimilating that into my version of reality. I’m grateful to Carl for taking the time to post his observations, just as I am to Brad and the other commenters on Carl’s post.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

A Thread of Comments on the OLE Project Draft Report

Over the weekend, the folks at Duke University coordinating the development of the OLE Project Design Final Report released a draft for public comment. Weighing in at 100 pages (don’t let that put you off — there are lots of pictures), it represents the best thinking of a couple dozen individuals listening to hundreds of professionals working in libraries. Participants were challenged to consider not only their existing environments and workflows, but also how things could be put together differently. And “differently” — in this context — means thinking about tighter integration with information systems and processes at the host institution.

I’m proud to have worked on and been associated with the project to this point. My future participation will depend on whether OhioLINK finds itself in the governance structure being set up to oversee the build process. I’m excited about the direction this project is going, and hope that enough build partners can be found to propel it to the next phase.

This is a project of and for the community. Comments are welcome on the draft.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Open Library Environment Final Report Draft Released

Add this event to your desktop calendar program.

There will be two programs at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago where aspects of the Open Library Environment Project will be discussed. The participants in the design phase of the project encourage you to attend one or both of them to learn about the design phase deliverables and the plans for the build phase.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Two ways to learn about the OLE Project at ALA

Last Friday, Andrew Pace (Executive Director of Networked Library Services for OCLC) was interviewed by Richard Wallis of Talis on OCLC’s recent announcement of a cloud-based library management service. As part of that conversation, Richard and Andrew touched on the ongoing debate on the OCLC record use policy. Below is a transcript from that part of the interview (with time markers from the start of the interview).

Richard Wallis (27:00)

What about [libraries'] local data? By providing data up onto the OCLC platform, will that data be restricted in its use — how they can use it — or will it be totally open for them to use it in any way that they want to?

Andrew Pace (27:17)

That data is the library’s data.

Richard Wallis (27:21)

One of the reasons I ask that question is obviously we’re aware of the issues about bibliographic record reuse licensing that is going on at the moment. Do you see that conversation having any impact on the back-end data or the usage statistics data or anything like that?

Andrew Pace (27:41)

I imagine there will be service-level agreements we’ll build for the data that are going into library management services, but I am reluctant to combine what is going there with the record use policy discussions. I think as the record use policies are under revision — they are under discussion right now — I think libraries are cognizant of all of the data issues, but I am reluctant to tie the two together completely.

Richard Wallis (28:11)

So you probably see the bibliographic conversation separate from the raw data type conversation.

Andrew Pace (28:20)

Yeah, I think they are related to each other but I think they are separate conversations.

I think this is absolutely the right answer, and I’m glad to see the distinction between the shared bibliographic data and the holdings/circulation-transaction data so cleanly separated. They are related, but in the case of the former it is truly the library’s data. Earlier on in the interview, Andrew addressed the issue of how OCLC would respond to disclosure requests from law enforcement agencies.

Richard Wallis (21:35)

How would OCLC handle an inquiry under the [USA] Patriot Act or something like that?

Andrew Pace (21:42)

I might beg off on that as being a legal question, but it is one that we have asked about what it means for that data. I’m not sure it is going to be entirely different than how libraries would have to deal with it on a local system.

Richard Wallis (22:02)

I suppose the only concern is if you have the records for transactions in a signifcant number of libraries, it may actually be somewhere that government star people might want to wander and ask questions. I suppose that is where it is different in this environment.

Andrew Pace (22:20)

Yeah, and what I’m arguing is that it would be similar situation to software as a service or other hosted applications as well. But I’m not going to attempt any kind of legal answer since I’m not a lawyer.

Richard Wallis (22:37)

Ah, that’s disappointing. I could have quoted you back to yourself in a year’s time, but never mind, I understand why you ducked that question. I would have done so as well.

For me, this is further evidence that OCLC would consider the transaction data to be owned by the library. I’m not a lawyer either, but this would seem to push the responsibility for responding to a law enforcement agent request to the member library. Hopefully, there is legal precedent to make that stick.

Overall, it is a good interview that really puts some added definition to the plans for WorldCat Local Library Management Services.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

At the Intersection of the OCLC Records Use Policy and the WorldCat Local Cloud-based Library Management Service

Participants in the design phase of the OLE Project met in Lawrence, Kansas, earlier this month for a week-long work session. Coming out of the session are several documents that form the foundational elements of the report to be published and delivered to Mellon in July. Interested parties are invited and encouraged to sign up for the project update webinar to be held on March 31st from 3:00pm to 4:30pm (Eastern time). There will be a project update at the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Task Force Meeting on April 7th. Those in the midwest might also be interested in the Indianapolis OLE Workshop on April 22nd.

One document is the updated Frequently Asked Questions; this has answers to the common questions received during the previous regional workshops and webcasts. This is backed up by two other documents: first the assumptions underlying the design of OLE and the OLE project scope. The latter is notable in particular because it was updated to take on the perspective of the OLE Project in general, not specifically the design phase of the project (as it was originally).

For the most details, see the OLE Project Meeting Notes from Kansas, March 15-20, 2009.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Open Library Environment Project Picks Up the Pace

Coming out of the face-to-face meeting in Rutgers earlier this month, the OLE Project has posted a number of announcements for upcoming events. The first is a webcast on Nov. 20, 2008 from 3:00pm to 4:30pm Eastern Standard Time, US, free of charge and open to anyone. The webcast topics are:

• Update on the project
• Timeline and topics for remaining project activities
• Overview of upcoming OLE workshops and invitation to attend
• Overview of working groups and invitation to participate
• Q&A

Registration is required; directions for accessing the webcast will be emailed to those who register. There is a limit of 200 participants (the maximum the webcast service allows), and the session will be recorded for later playback.

Update: Recording of Webcast Now Available

Regional Workshops

The Open Library Environment (OLE, pronounced oh-lay) Project invites you to apply to participate in a two day Regional Design Workshop. The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for representatives of local research libraries and related institutions to discuss our work surrounding the current Integrated Library System and ideas on what this type of core system should incorporate.  Workshops are being held in a variety of locations in the US over the next 2 months. For more information and to find a location near you, go to http://oleproject.org/workshops.

Participation is open to any member of the research library community who works with the Integrated Library System either on a day to day basis or from a higher level. OLE will be developed as an open source library environment that meets the needs of research libraries. While care will be taken to design an open and flexible system that is useful for other types of libraries, such as public libraries, the focus of the project in this early stage is on research libraries.

The OLE project, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, seeks to convene the academic library community in the design of an Open Library Management System built using the principles of Service Oriented Architecture.  The project partners consist of leaders from academic libraries in the United States, Canada, and Australia dedicated to thinking beyond the current model of an Integrated Library System.  We seek to design a new system that is flexible, customizable and able to meet the changing and complex needs of modern, dynamic academic libraries.  The end product will be a design document to inform open source library system development efforts, to guide future library system implementations, and to influence current Integrated Library System vendor products.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

OLE Project Webcast, Workshops Scheduled

This is interesting news — Don Hamparian, Manager WorldCat Grid Portfolio at OCLC, formally announced the WorldCat Hackathon to the WorldCat Developer Network Discussion List tonight.

Join fellow coders, hackers and tech-enthusiasts for a two-day WorldCat Hackathon at the New York Public Library. Sponsored by the OCLC Developer’s Network and NYPL Labs of The New York Public Library, the WorldCat Hackathon gives participants the opportunity for two full days of brainstorming and coding mash-ups and other Web services to take advantage of all that WorldCat, the world’s largest bibliographic database, has to offer.

November 7-8, 2008
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Science, Industry and Business Library, New York Public Library, 188 Madison Avenue
$30 registration fee

http://worldcat.org/devnet/index.php/2008NYCHackathon

• It’s a chance for anyone interested in structured data to get their hands on the new WorldCat Search API.
• Participants both inside and outside the library industry are encouraged to participate.
• Gain development access to 1.2 billion items from more than 10,000 libraries worldwide.
• Integrate these resources with many others to create innovative new services.
• Share your creative vision and be a part of the next wave of online library development.

Ideas, outcomes and code from the Hackathon, together with a linked participants list, will be shared during and after the event for others to download and build on.

Web Services provided for the Hackathon by OCLC include the following, although any web service can be used at the event:

• WorldCat API
• xISBN, xISSN, xOCLCNUM
• WorldCat Identities
• Registries including institution, reviews, citations (lists), tagging
• Terminologies
• Metadata Crosswalk

Bring your laptop, your ideas and your curiosity, and we’ll supply breakfast, lunch and snacks. Space is limited to the first 65 participants, so register early to assure your participation.

The confirms the preliminary announcement I heard (although with slightly different dates) at the BarCampOhio/LibraryCampOhio meeting last month. It makes me wish I could get to NYC for the two-day event. The likelihood of doing so is slim, though, given restrictions on non-essential travel for state employees. Suggested wording for justifications as to why this would be essential travel would be most appreciated in this posting’s comments.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

OCLC WorldCat Hackathon — New York City — November 7-8

In the course of putting together the JISC/SCONUL Library Management Systems Study, the authors interviewed the four major vendors of integrated library systems in higher education in the U.K.: Ex Libris, Innovative Interfaces, SirsiDynix and Talis. Among the “who are you” and “what do you do” questions were two that get to the heart of what many of us are clamoring for from our vendors:

• How do your products interoperate with products those from other LMS/ERM vendors?
• Do you have partnerships with other LMS/ERM vendors?

Since three of the four are also leading vendors in North America (and I’m betting the fourth would like to be one as well), I think it is instructive to look at how these four vendors answer these two questions.¹

Ex Libris

How do ExLibris products interoperate with products those from other LMS/ERM vendors?

We interoperate with our own products first (e.g. Primo and MetaLib) but all new products designed to interoperate more widely by means of standards

Does ExLibris have partnerships with other LMS/ERM vendors?

With Talis for Verde

Innovative Interfaces

How do Innovative products interoperate with those from other LMS/ERM
vendors?

Our history is rooted in providing products that interoperated with other products. This continues with ERM for example

Does Innovative have partnerships with other LMS/ERM vendors?

No. Our aim is to provide best of breed across the whole range of library needs. Of course we don’t stand in the way of libraries that wish for example to add Aquabrowser or Endeca. However we want to provide solutions that are better. To date, we haven’t seen a big groundswell for these types of products…for all of the press and interest it has gotten, products like Endeca haven’t made a major dent in the marketplace.

SirsiDynix

How do SirsiDynix products interoperate with those from other LMS/ERM
vendors?

Z39.50 and other, APIs (SD has been doing this API stuff for over 15 years). We work with other vendors through our certification programme — in particular for SIP2 and NCIP. All other ILS vendors are supported through Z39.50 as well as federated search programs.

Partnerships with other LMS/ERM vendors?

No genuine partnerships with LMS competitors (e.g. to cross sell products).

Deeper integration is available for resource sharing and ILL.

Talis

How do Talis products interoperate with those from other LMS/ERM vendors?

Talis List integrates with all LMSs and Talis Base does too (via Ztarget). Gateway (EDI) will interoperate but it not quite there yet. We work with other link resolvers, self-serve, and SRU/SRW services etc

Keystone is focussed on our own LMS for now but is designed to enable interoperability with other LMSs. Anything new we develop is standards based to work with other LMS and as appropriate with other external system

Partnerships with other LMS/ERM vendors

The only formal relationship is with ExLibris. Our Connexions programme includes working with ExLibris with Verde but there were some problems because Verde didn’t support 1Cate (now OCLC resolver), which the customer wanted to continue to use.

In section 4.41 of the report (“The staff perspective on the LMS”), the authors quote a passage from Carl Grant’s blog²: “These companies have become unresponsive to the collective goals of our profession and, like so much of our society these days, are no longer focused on the we but the me. It is a sad state of affairs and one that will not be tolerated.” There is a growing desire from the library community, particularly in the U.K. with the formal study of the JISC Information Environment for higher education institutions, to have systems interoperate in a clean, service-oriented architecture kind of way.

The vendor responses, on the other hand, would seem to be more akin to one-upmanship and isolationism: we look to interoperate with ourselves before others, we’ll interoperate if we’re at the center, you’re on your own if you want to try to integrate another product with ours, we’ll interoperate if others play by our rules. This isn’t what the customer is looking for.

Too harsh of an assessment? Let me know in the comments.

Footnotes

1. Adamson, V., Bacsich, P., Chad, K., Kay, D., & Plenderleith, J. (2008). JISC & SCONUL Library Management Systems Study. 156 p. Retrieved April 17, 2008, from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/resourcediscovery/lmsstudy.pdf.
2. Grant, Carl. (2007 Jul 4) A symphony out of tune: when companies go deaf. Care-Affiliates blog. Retrieved 13-Jun-2008 from http://www.care-affiliates.com/thoughts/archives/6.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

A Note to ILS Vendors: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Richard Akerman’s recent post highlighting SOA resources at Educause reminded me about the aggregation point on Educause Connect for SOA resources. I’m assuming significant number of those interested in applying SOA to library systems are at an institution of higher education or in some related organization, so I’m adding the RSS feed for that aggregation to Planet LibrarySOA. This will undoubtedly result in a large spike of “new” postings to the planet aggregator, but should settle down after that.

If you are blogging about the application of SOA to libraries and want your postings to see a wider audience, let me know and I’ll add you to the aggregator.

Post from: Disruptive Library Technology Jester

Adding Educause Connect’s “Service Oriented Architecture” Term to Planet LibrarySOA