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.

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.

The text was modified to update a link from http://student.kuali.org/ to http://kuali.org/ks on June 9th, 2011.

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.

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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.

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.

I’m reading the notes from the Atlanta OLE Project regional workshop and right up at the top are these two statements that struck me as insightful. The first gets to the heart of how physical items in a library are different from digital items with respect to library service commitments:

With print items, we’re trying to give people access; with electronic trying to keep them out.

This stems, undoubtedly, from the first sale doctrine in copyright law; the library has purchased the item and chooses to lend it to others for a period of time. With electronic items, though, we typically agree to licenses, which — as contract law — trumps the rights given by copyright; those license are more restrictive in what we can and cannot do with the digital versions.

The second observation brings this difference into sharper focus by pointing out what we make users do in order to get access to that physical or that digital item:

Isn’t it interesting that users from other libraries have borrowed print books delivered to them, but must travel to another library to get access to their electronic items.

As we think about what is similar and what is different about workflows for physical and digital items, it is undoubtedly important to tease out these differences. Kudos to the staff attending the Atlanta OLE regional workshop for bringing this difference to the forefront.

The text was modified to remove a link to https://libshare.library.gatech.edu/clearspace/docs/DOC-2724 on February 11th, 2011.

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.

The text was modified to update a link from OLE%20Project%20Homep to http://dltj.org/article/ole-project-webcast-workshops-scheduled/ on December 30th, 2010.

The text was modified to update a link from http://dltj.org/article/ole-project-webcast-workshops-scheduled/ to http://oleproject.org/ on December 30th, 2010.