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Five Years of Library Services Platforms

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Five Years of Library Services Platforms Newsletter TM A LA TechSource alatechsource.org Formerly Library Systems Newsletter™ 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611-2795, USA to capture the essence of this new generation of products, as does the term “library management system,” IN THIS ISSUE though it is used in other parts of the English-speaking world. While A Progress Report on Library Services the new genre entrants are indeed Platforms integrated—even more so than those PAGE 2 of the past generation— the term ILS has become synonymous with the print-oriented products. We see that Smarter Libraries OCLC and Serials Solutions have both latched onto the term “Web-scale.” through Technology: Ex Libris tags their product “unified Five Years of Library resource management.” One might be tempted to use a term such as “next- Services Platforms generation integrated system,” but such a designation comes with a short By Marshall Breeding shelf life, especially for long-overdue revitalizations. We are now five years into the deploy- I’m gravitating toward the term ment of the genre of library services “library services platform” for this platforms. This breed of software, new software genre. The products August 2016 Volume XXXVI Number 8 August 2016 Volume implemented primarily in academic and are library-specific, they enable other types of research libraries, departs the library to perform its services, from the model of the integrated library internally and externally though system (ILS) in several critical areas. their built-in functionality, as well as Although the conceptual and technical exposing a platform of Web services development of this new type of library and other APIs for interoperability ISSN 1541-8820 software was in the works for a few years, and custom development. In a time its deployment in libraries began in 2011. when long-standing terms like At this five-year benchmark it is of inter- “integrated library system,” or OPAC est to review the current landscape of bring along considerable negative these products, assess the level of adop- baggage, we need new terms when we tion, and note any discernable trends. talk about what comes next. In the I initially introduced the term same way that discovery services has “Library Services Platform” in this pub- become a fairly well accepted genre lication for its August 2011 issue, and it for the patron interfaces that replaced has been adopted fairly broadly in refer- online catalogs, I posit something like ence to this category of products. The library services platform for the genre following excerpt describes the ratio- of software that replaces the legacy of nale for proposing this term rather than integrated library systems.1 continuing to consider these products within the existing category of ILSs: This issue of Smart Libraries News- letter gives an overview of the progress It is clear that the connotation of the of the genre of library services plat- term “integrated library system” fails forms. We review the basic functional A LA TechSource alatechsource.org and technical characteristics that have coalesced in these Reference products and report on the level of acceptance these prod- 1. Marshall Breeding, “The Beginning of the End of the ILS in ucts have received in the field. These products have sparked Academic Libraries,” Smart Libraries Newsletter XXXI, no. 8 a major transition in technology infrastructure for academic (2011): 2–3. libraries and warrant our ongoing attention. A Progress Report on Library Services Platforms Definition and Characteristics The genre of library services platforms includes products with distinctive characteristics in their approach to function- Although each of the products offers its distinct approach to ality and in their technical architecture. These characteristics functionality and technology infrastructure, there are a set of include: products that have diverged significantly from the well-estab- lished category of ILSs. Many of these characteristics arise • Web-based interfaces. All functionality can be accessed out of the current technology paradigm centered on services via a Web browser without the need for locally installed deployed entirely through the Web, oriented to collaboration software for staff members using the system. The interface and social interactions, and powered by massive data stores. should function without additional software layers. Library services platforms are a type of “resource man- • Deployed via software as a service. The implementation agement system.” These products are used by the personnel of of the product should be accomplished without installing a library or related organization to perform functions related local server software or hardware. to the acquisition and description of collections, fulfillment • Multi-tenant platform. All users of the service share the of materials to users, and other operational tasks. Some may same instance or code base. All organizations use the same include or be packaged with an online catalog or discovery version of the service. Multi-tenant architecture aggregates tool designed for patrons. Types of resource management and segregates data and functionality appropriately for systems include ILSs, library services platforms, electronic each consortium or library that uses the product. Finan- resource management systems, archival management systems, cial, user, and other data held privately by each organiza- or other specialized tools. tion cannot be accessed by other organizations. In most Discovery products, though related, fall into another cat- cases there will be a single global instance of the software, egory. Index-based discovery services, such as EBSCO Dis- although there may also be additional instances for special covery Service, Primo with Primo Central, Summon, and circumstances. WorldCat Discovery Service, come powered with an index • Shared data components. These library services platforms populated with article-level metadata or full text from the include built-in knowledge bases and other shared content scholarly and professional literature. Discovery interfaces components that can be used by all users of the service to provide an alternative way of searching a library’s online cat- avoid replicating common data elements. A library services alog and other resources, usually based on relevancy-based package will generally provide access to a knowledge base retrieval, faceted navigation, and other tools to facilitate of e-content resources that details and organizes the items search, improve user experience, or explore library collec- available within aggregated databases and other content tions. Open source discovery interfaces include Blacklight products. and VuFind; proprietary discovery interfaces include Sirsi- • Consolidated resource management. Rather than offering Dynix Enterprise, Innovative’s Encore, and LS2 PAC from The separate interfaces for managing media of different types, Library Corporation. Discovery interfaces may be tied to a library services platforms follow a more unified approach, particular vendor’s products or may be configurable to work branching workflows as needed to accommodate any dif- with a broad range of resource management systems. ferent processing tasks relevant for print, electronic, or digital resources. 2 Smart Libraries • Extensible and Interoperable. These library services plat- In addition to the products that embrace all aspects of the forms provide a complete set of application programming library services platforms model, others can be considered as interfaces (APIs) to enable third-party tools to program- partial or hybrid implementations. The ILSs based on the cli- matically access the data and functionality of the platform. ent/server architecture can be expected to evolve to increas- These APIs can be used by library programmers to create ingly incorporate aspects of the technology architecture and new services or units of functionality, to exchange data workflow patterns seen in library services platforms. Some with administrative systems, learning management plat- organizations may positon their products as library services forms, or any other relevant application within its technical platforms even before they fully adhere to the principal char- environment or with its business partners and providers. acteristics of the genre. Products and Projects Ex Libris Alma Only a limited number of products have been developed that Ex Libris began the conceptual exploration of what it termed embody the characteristics of the services platforms model. its Unified Resource Management framework in May 2009 This limited number of products is not surprising given the and began working with a group of development partner massive consolidation of the industry, where both the num- libraries that July. The product brand of Alma was announced ber of technology providers and products continues to narrow. in January 2011. The first production implementation of Alma For the organizations offering library services platforms, these took place in July 2012 at the Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Library of products are meant to displace multiple incumbent products in Boston College. their long-term business strategies. Library services platforms Prior to the production launch of Alma, Ex Libris made are a very complex type of business software requiring large- a number of sales to libraries interested in early adoption. 24 scale development capacity and a multi-year effort for an initial libraries signed agreements for Alma prior to its availability
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