Sirsidynix & Serials Solutions

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Strategic Development: SirsiDynix & Serials Solutions IN THIS ISSUE

Part of The ILS Scoop by Marshall Breeding The ILS Scoop by Marshall Breeding Strategic Development: SirsiDynix & Serials Solutions As technology competition gets tougher in the library-automation PAGE 1 industry, vendors are looking to third-party developers for specialized Getting a Second Life Library solutions. PAGE 4

June 2006 XXVI Volume Number 6 Culture War: Read-Only vs. Read-Write irsiDynix has unveiled a new strategy for its electronic-resource management PAGE 5 (ERM) offerings for libraries. According to company officials, it has selected Weaving Your Schedule into a Web 2.0 World SSerials Solutions as a strategic partner for the delivery of products related to PAGE 6 e-resource management and access (as well as for linking and metasearch). Google Corner(ed) by Tom Peters Previously, the company had planned to develop proprietary ERM products for each of its flagship ILS products, and it had other partnership arrangements Google’s Patent for Voice-Activated Searching in place for linking and metasearch products. But this new collaborative mar- PAGE 7 keting agreement gives both companies important benefits. In a market sector ripe for abundant sales, SirsiDynix secures products it can offer to its customers Beta Than Google Scholar? Windows Live Academic Search Launches immediately, and Serials Solutions gains access to libraries outside its traditional PAGE 7 scope. The enormous number of public libraries, consortia, and school districts

within the SirsiDynix fold extend the reach of Serials Solutions beyond the already strong customer base it has established among academic libraries.

Yet the decision to buy—rather than build— ISSN 1541-8820 products in this area reflects the reality that [SirsiDynix] does not have the resources to tackle every aspect of the library-automation sphere.

A motivating factor behind SirsiDynix’s decision to form this partnership Receive Smart Libraries via e-mail involves the need to have a single suite of products that would operate with Subscribers that would like an e-mailed both Unicorn and Horizon/Corinthian, as the company inherited a plethora of version of the newsletter each month arrangements from the pre-merged companies. The partnership with Serial Solu- should forward one e-mail address and all of tions gives SirsiDynix the opportunity to focus on developing a cooperative rela- the mailing label information printed on page tionship with a single company, so it can offer a full suite of ERM products. 8 of the newsletter to [email protected]. Type “e-mail my Smart Libraries” into the subject line. In addition to your monthly printed newsletter, you will receive an electronic copy via e-mail (to one address per paid subscription) at no extra charge each month. See Strategic Development on page 2 ALA TechSource www.techsource.ala.org

THE ILS SCOOP BY MARSHALL BREEDING

Suite Products can be loaded into the library’s ILS ing it the first company in the industry The products covered in the agreement so the e-journal titles and holdings to offer libraries an automated service to include the full suite of integrated prod- stored in a library’s OPAC (online keep their journal holdings (represented ucts and services offered by Serials Solu- public access catalog) are up-to-date in their automation systems) up-to-date. tions including: and consistent with those that can Subsequently, the company launched be viewed through Article Linker or Article Linker in December 2002, and  Central Search—A federated- ERMS. unveiled its E-Resource Management search application, Central Search System in October of last year. Serials Solutions delivers all its tech- relies on the company’s federated- In July 2004, Serials Solutions was nology products as hosted solutions in search technology, supplemented acquired by ProQuest Information the Application Service Provider (ASP) by translators into remote resources and Learning, a large corporation with model, which means all the software and licensed from WebFeat. In January many subsidiaries involved in various data reside on servers hosted and man- 2005, Serials Solutions partnered aspects of publishing and electronic aged by Serials Solutions. Libraries uti- with WebFeat for access to its library content. ProQuest Information and lizing these products do not need servers of translators for connecting to Learning is part of the even larger Pro- for local installation of the software. information resources. Serials Solu- Quest Company, a public company One of the key strengths of the prod- tions developed, in house, Central (NYSE: PQE) involved in publishing uct suite offered by Serials Solutions Search’s core technology. SirsiDynix and information products across several involves the centralized knowledgebase will also incorporate the Central different industries. of e-resources it maintains: Serials Solu- Search technology in its new Rooms In June 2005, Jane Burke joined Pro- tions devotes seven full-time staff mem- product. Quest as a VP and was named general bers to the knowledgebase maintenance,  Article Linker—Released by Serials manager of Serials Solutions. Formerly, and the knowledgebase is updated daily. Solutions in 2003, Article Linker Burke helmed Endeavor Information The accuracy and quality of this provides an OpenURL-based link- Systems as president/CEO (from March knowledgebase has played a major role ing service. Article Linker relies on 1995 through December 2002), and she in the company’s success. By subscribing the knowledgebase of e-journal data was also president of NOTIS Systems, to products based on this knowledge- (maintained by Serials Solutions), Inc., from its founding through July base, libraries can track their e-journal which works in conjunction with a 1994. holdings more accurately and in a more detailed profile of a library’s Serials Solutions operates as an inde- sustainable way than by attempting to subscriptions. pendent, wholly owned subsidiary of maintain this information through indi-  Electronic Resource Management ProQuest, keeping its facilities, manage- vidual library-based efforts. System—This product provides an ment, personnel, and identity intact, environment in which the library The Story of Serials while benefiting from the deep resources can efficiently manage its electronic available from its parent company. resources. It includes tools to man- Solutions age all aspects of licensed electronic Founded in 2000, Serials Solutions content, including procurement; established itself as a small company Prior SirsiDynix Efforts license tracking; current status of devoted to helping libraries manage Prior to this arrangement, SirsiDynix each resource; relevant technical their burgeoning collections of e-jour- had a number of products in place or in and administrative contacts for each nals. The company’s initial product was development. For instance, on the Dynix resource; proxy services for off-site produced in the form of an A–Z list, side, the company had been working access to resources; as well as many which managed a library’s collection of with Serials Solutions since November different reporting and analytic e-journals available through its various 2003. Its Horizon Link Resolver was tools related to usage statistics. subscriptions. based on technology from Serials Solu-  Full MARC Records Service—This In the fall of 2001, Serials Solutions tions, and the development of an elec- component delivers records that debuted its MARC record service, mak- tronic-resource management module

2 Smart Libraries

was on the agenda for Horizon. In June continue to support and, under some Unicorn nor the Horizon ERMS has BY MARSHALL BREEDING 2004, the company, in partnership with circumstances, sell its existing SirsiDynix been delivered as a finished product, Johns Hopkins University, announced Resolver, which is based on technology yet the competition on the ERMS front it would create an integrated ERM for from Openly Informatics and Single is well underway. Innovative Interfaces Horizon. Even earlier, in March 2001, Search (based on metasearch technology launched its ERMS in 2002, and Ex Dynix (then epixtech) formed a partner- from MuseGlobal). Sites that have made Libris and Endeavor announced their ship with WebFeat as the basis for its significant investments installing and ERM offerings in mid-2004. Horizon Consolidated Searching offering. customizing these locally installed prod- According to executives at both Sirsi- On the Sirsi side, the company inked ucts will be able to continue with these Dynix and Serials Solutions, one of the an agreement in October 2003 to license products indefinitely. motivators in forming this partnership the 1Cate (“one click to everywhere”) involved the need to deliver an ERM technology from Openly Informat- Integration Issues product to SirsiDynix customers in the ics for its link-resolver offering, Sirsi One of the key issues with any elec- shortest possible timeframe. Through Resolver. The metasearch product Sirsi tronic-resource management system this agreement with Serials Solutions, SingleSearch was based on MuseSearch (ERMS) lies in how it integrates with the SirsiDynix can offer its customers these developed by MuseGlobal. On the ERM other related system components. The key products immediately. front, Sirsi had originally planned to ERMS overlaps with both the knowl- develop an ERM module that would be edgebase of the link resolver (for data A Trend Toward integrated with Unicorn. related to the library’s current holdings Partnerships of e-journals) and with the ILS’s acqui- Employing more than 675 overall, with A Flexible Agreement sitions module (for data related to the at least 150 devoted to software develop- The Serials Solutions and SirsiDynix vendors from which subscriptions are ment (more developers than any other partnership, although strategic, is not licensed, the financial-fund manage- ILS company), SirsiDynix stands as the exclusive. It takes into consideration ment files from which subscriptions are largest company in the ILS arena. Yet the existing business relationships and purchased, and the bibliographic com- decision to buy—rather than build— offers both companies flexibility. Under ponents that provide descriptive infor- products in this area reflects the reality the terms of the agreement, SirsiDynix mation regarding each subscription). An that it does not have the resources to will market Serials Solutions’s products ERMS, by its nature, deals with many tackle every aspect of the library-auto- to its customers, and Serials Solutions different data components, and using a mation sphere. will continue to sell directly to all other stand-alone third-party product pres- These days, companies in the library- libraries. ents quite a challenge—in order to avoid automation arena must make hard Any client libraries of SirsiDynix that duplication of management among the choices about which products to develop had previously purchased any of Seri- overlapping data components—for ILS as proprietary and which to license from als Solutions’s technology products will integration. third parties. The partnership with Seri- continue to deal with Serials Solutions SirsiDynix will work to integrate als Solutions reflects SirsiDynix’s strat- directly, and although SirsiDynix will the Serials Solutions ERMS into both egy to outsource development of these offer its new partner’s products as the Unicorn and Horizon, and the initial resources so it can focus its resources preferred option, there may be circum- integration level will require users to on other products it considers more stances that require other alternatives. launch its management console from the strategic. For example, because Serials Solutions Horizon or Unicorn staff client. Higher- The relationship between Sirsi- offers its products only as hosted solu- level integration, such as automated Dynix and Serials Solutions, too, par- tions, SirsiDynix will offer other prod- interchange of data between the ERMS allels recent announced partnerships ucts to libraries that prefer (or require) and the ILS, will be developed over time. between other library-software vendors. locally installed applications or extensive Endeavor Information Systems recently customization. Competitive Concerns partnered with TDNet for its suite of The new partnership with Serials At the time of the merger last sum- e-resource products, and earlier this Solutions does not cancel any of the mer, both Sirsi and Dynix were in the year, Endeavor announced it would existing agreements SirsiDynix has process of developing their own ERM transition from its locally developed in place with other companies. It will systems. Since the merger, neither the ENCompass and LinkFinderPlus

3 ALA TechSource www.techsource.ala.org

THE ILS SCOOP

products to the federated-search and non-ILS companies are gaining more More info. @: link-resolver products from TDNet (See and more ground in the library-auto- Serials Solutions, www.serials SLN, April 2006, p. 1). mation arena. More than ever, libraries solutions.com In both cases, the ILS vendors in- are focused on products related to the “SirsiDynix Partners with Serials volved made major shifts in product management and access of electronic Solutions for Integrated E-Resource offerings, both utilizing technology from resources. Companies that deliver strong Management and Discovery,” a third-party company that specializes products in this sector have a promising www.sirsidynix.com/Newsevents/ in the development of e-resource outlook. In this case, SirsiDynix gains by Releases/2006/20060425_ technologies. associating itself with a strong suite of serials_erms_marc.pdf The SirsiDynix partnership with Seri- products, and Serials Solutions expands als Solutions reinforces the trend that its market opportunities too. ■

Getting a Second Life Library Have you ever dreamed of starting a that touched on the value and basic new library from scratch? Have you design of a “physical” library in this vir- spent many a happy hour thinking tual-reality environment. (This environ- about the collections, services, organi- ment, by the way, has a real economy, zational charts, funding sources, and where land, building materials, furni- related matters? Well, if you have, you ture, other equipment, and services can may be interested to know that a group be bought and sold using a currency of librarians is really doing this in a vir- unique to this online world.)

tual environment. Another fundamental question the © 2006, Linden Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The process of creating the Second volunteers considered involved whether Life Library 2.0 (SSL2) in the Second or not the SSL2 should have a collec- Life virtual-reality environment has tion. A collection-development team received a big boost when the Metaverse been very interesting to date. Basically, quickly formed to investigate the issues Messenger, the most widely read publi- a group of avatars controlled by self- and opportunities, and they then came cation in Second Life, ran a front-page selecting volunteer librarians has been back to the full group with some recom- article about the new library on April 25. working to create and launch the new mendations. The early thinking was to at If you have a Second Life avatar, the library. The Alliance Library System, least try to collect “in-world” informa- Second Life Library 2.0 can be found at headquartered in East Peoria, Illinois, is tion objects—that is, publications and Minoa (205, 85). —Tom Peters the real-world library organization pro- other information objects created by viding the impetus and overall manage- avatars in Second Life itself. More info @: ment of the project. Publicizing the new library and “A Library for Avatars,” www In late April, the first official organi- creating a presence in this virtual envi- .techsource.ala.org/blog/2006/04/ zational meeting of the volunteer group ronment also has been a major part a-library-for-avatars.html was held. It was an amazing online of early discussions. The volunteer www.metaversemessenger.com/PDF/ event. The approximately twenty avatars librarian avatars want the library to be MM-2006-04-25.pdf in attendance were not only sharing responsive to the information needs of “ALS & OPAL to Open: An Alliance lots of ideas, but also volunteering to the Second Life avatars. Already there of Libraries 2.0 on Second Life,” work on various components of the is talk of creating separate “branch” www.alliancelibrarysystem.com/ new library’s plan and launch. Many a libraries for teens, health information, article.cfm?id=946 discussion often began with some really and other specific information needs. Second Life, http://secondlife.com/ fundamental questions, such as ones Efforts to publicize the new library

4 Smart Libraries

Culture War: Read-Only vs. Read-Write

A cultural, social, and economic battle recorded music, radio programs, motion building net-based cultural-consump- is being waged, and digital information pictures, and other media developed a tion engines based on the Apple busi- accessed by the public is at the center of massive and passive entertainment soci- ness model. For the read-only culture, the controversy. Whether we like it or ety. Basically, the ability and impetus to the Internet represents the perfection of not, librarians are in the thick of this, create new cultural material passed, in passive couch-potato culture. because our institutions are general, large part, from the general populace to The advocates of the re-emergence non-discriminating purveyors of public a relatively small number of professional of a read-write culture see in the Inter- information. Business information, raw creative artists and the companies that net, especially in Web 2.0 tools, the data, military intelligence, and other produced, marketed, and distributed catalyst for a renaissance in our current specialized forms of information are their creative output. milieu—where everyone who wants to be creative can do so in a supportive, online community. The advocates of the re-emergence of a read-write Lessig exhorted librarians to be clear and vocal about the values we want culture see in the Internet, especially in Web 2.0 this network infrastructure to support. tools, the catalyst for a renaissance in our current He said the read-write culture wants to be practiced, not sold. The developing milieu—where everyone who wants to be creative world cannot afford to buy culture and can do so in a supportive, online community. knowledge, even at a discount. Science has an embedded ethic not only to pro- duce knowledge, but also to make it uni- not our strong suit. Some of the pub- To some extent, libraries also par- versally accessible. The Jeffersonian ideal

© 2006, Linden Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved. lic information that libraries collect, ticipated in the read-only culture that of knowledge as widely accessible to all organize, and deliver is in the public dominated most of the last century. You is what libraries are all about. domain, while some of it remains under could check out a book from your local Lessig also asserted that librarians the protection of copyright laws. When library and read it, but writing in the have an extremely important role to Lawrence Lessig—the Stanford law book brought fines, and writing com- play in this culture war. We need to professor and founder of the Creative ments in the card catalog, and later the use and apply our cultural authority to Commons—spoke at the annual confer- online catalog, was not facilitated and spread the news about the values that ence of the Texas Library Association in was generally frowned upon. support a wide range of creative econo- late April, he described the struggle as The emergence of the Internet and mies. Our rhetoric is often too timid, “Read-Only culture versus Read-Write the networked digital-information too apologetic, and too late. Librarians culture.” infrastructure in the final decades of the need not apologize for arguing for a free According to Lessig, read-write cul- twentieth century was the fireball in the society. The intellectual property rights ture was widespread up until the early night that resulted in the current cul- system is becoming increasingly out of twentieth century. When people sat on tural—if not civil—war. Lessig asserted balance. It needs to be retooled. Lessig their front porches playing and sing- that both cultures want to dominate the pleaded with us to join this cultural war. ing older and recent popular tunes, Internet in the twenty-first century and He said librarians are the soul and the with their own riffs, lyrics, and entirely mold it to reflect their business models conscience of a free, participatory, and new songs thrown into the mix, they and cultural values. Lessig noted that inclusive culture.—Tom Peters were involved in a participative read- Apple, with its iTunes Store, is the poster write culture. Read-only culture devel- child of read-only culture, but Amazon, More info. @: Stanford Law School: oped early in the twentieth century as Sony, and other corporate entities are Lawrence Lessig, www.lessig.org

5 ALA TechSource www.techsource.ala.org

Weaving Your Schedule into a Web 2.0 World

Web-based calendars made a big splash this spring. Several you put an address in brackets in your natural-language com- services have been around for a while, but more entered the mand, 30 Boxes will create a link to a Google map pinpointing market this year, apparently due to the widely held (likely that address. venture-capitalist) belief that there’s money in them thar You also can add Web 2.0-type content and connections to calendars. your 30 Boxes calendar, such as material from Flickr, MySpace, You can use a Web-based calendar service to create and and blogs. You also can see this type of content from your manage a personal calendar, or a calendar for your project buddies in your calendar, and, if one of your buddies has an team, library department, or the entire library. And many of editable profile, you can add content to that buddy’s calendar. these calendar services offer free accounts. Obviously, this isn’t your parent’s Daytimer. When Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian, spoke at the The folks at 30 Boxes also have created an experimental Texas Library Association’s annual conference in late April, she import tool that will allow you to add events you have sched- was keen on a service called 30 Boxes. A feature of this service, ule in Outlook, iCal, or Yahoo Calendar. Google is also trying one that Levine says impresses her, is its ability to add an item to muscle its way into the online calendaring space. The beta to a calendar using natural language, such as “lunch Thursday version (of course) of Google Calendar was launched in mid- at noon with Biff at Burger Hut.” April.—Tom Peters Indeed, this does work, but the 30 Boxes intelligent interface is not very smart. For example, when I entered “Duel at More info. @: sundown in a fortnight (bring pistols),” it did not have the “Google Launches Google Calendar,” www.pcworld.com/ sufficient intelligence to schedule this two weeks in advance, news/article/0,aid,125389,tk,dn041306X,00.asp and it could not calculate the time the sun will set in Cen- http://30boxes.com tral Daylight Time in two weeks. Instead, it scheduled it for The Shifted Librarian, www.theshiftedlibrarian.com tonight. To its credit, it did include the reminder to bring the Levine’s Work on the ALA TechSource Blog, www pistols. I don’t know if it alerted the local constabulary or not. .techsource.ala.org/blog/Jenny/Levine/100001/ But the 30 Boxes Web-based calendaring system does have some other nice features. You can set up buddies and share all, parts, or none of your calendar with these buddies, and of course, they can reciprocate. You can use the one-box natural language interface to set up repeating events. You can invite other people to your scheduled event simply by adding a plus sign and their e-mail addresses to your natural-language (well, semi-natural) entry. If an invited individual accepts and also has a 30 Boxes calendar, the event will be added to that per- son’s calendar too. You can even send an e- mail message to the 30 Boxes e-mail account. The subject line of your message will be treated as the natural-language command, and the body of the e-mail message will be added for that date in your calendar. So, the next time you receive an e-mail message con- taining a meeting agenda, conference schedule, or airline reservation, just forward that message to your 30 Boxes calendar. A 30 Boxes Web-based calendar created for ALA TechSource. A Web-based calendar can be And yes, Virginia, it is possible to add tags created for a specific library, library department, and/or project team, and many of these to your entries in your 30 Boxes calendar. If calendar services, like 30 Boxes, offer free accounts.

6 Smart Libraries

Beta Than Google Google Corner(ed) Scholar? Windows BY TOM PETERS Live Academic

Search Launches Google’s Patent for Voice-Activated Microsoft recently launched a beta version of Windows Live Searching Academic Search. According to the Web site, the beta ver- If you’d rather express your Web-based information sion currently indexes “content related to computer science, needs by talking rather than typing, Google has you physics, electrical engineering, and related subject areas.” In in mind. In April, Google was granted a U.S. patent the left-hand nav column of the site, you’ll find the link For for voice-activated searching. Soon you may be able to Librarians—which greets you with, “Welcome to the Windows use a PC microphone or your cell phone to initiate a Live Academic search information page for librarians. This vocalized search command. This will be a bit of prog- page is designed to provide you with more information about ress for all information seekers, especially the blind Academic and how you can gain the most benefit from this and visually impaired. service.”—and another one For Publishers. A voice-activated interface for a search engine At launch, the site claimed to have more than six million may be one small step for man and one giant leap records for articles and papers culled from more than 4,300 for humankind, but it’s a thorny problem in regard journals and approximately 2,000 conferences. The Web site to how to efficiently and effectively convey a search reports that the relevance ranking given to items in the search engine’s query results as voice-like output. results is based on the quality of the match between the search No word yet on what this new search interface terms and the index to the article or paper and the “authorita- may be called—whether it’s Google Yell, Google Come tiveness” of the paper. Hither, or Google Watson, you can almost bet it will be Currently, citation analysis is not part of the relevancy- released as a beta version. ranking algorithm. Academic Search has implemented the OAI (Open Archives Initiative) protocol for harvesting metadata More info. @: from OAI-compliant digital repositories, and its using the “Google Patent Points to Voice Search,” OpenURL standard.—Tom Peters www.cnet.com.au/software/internet/ 0,39029524,40061984,00.htm More info. @: Windows Live Academic Search, Beta, http://academic .live.com Open Archives Initiative, www.openarchives.org

7 Smart Libraries Newsletter American Library Association NON PROFIT 50 East Huron Street US POSTAGE Chicago, IL 60611-2795 USA PAID PERMIT 3020 ALA TechSource BIRMINGHAM, AL www.techsource.ala.org

June 2006 A Strategy for Electronic Subscriptions: SirsiDynix Selects Serials Solutions

Smart Libraries Newsletter

Smart Libraries Newsletter delivers hard data and innovative insights about the world of library technology, every month.

Contributing Editors Marshall Breeding 615-343-6094 TO SUBSCRIBE [email protected] To reserve your subscription, contact the Customer Tom Peters Service Center at 800-545-2433, press 5 for 816-228-6406 assistance, or visit www.techsource.ala.org. [email protected] The 2006 subscription price is just $85 US. Editor Teresa Koltzenburg 800-545-2433, ext. 3252 312-280-3252 [email protected] Production and design by Angela Gwizdala, Administrative Assistant American Library Association Production Services. Judy Foley Smart Libraries Newsletter is published monthly by ALA TechSource, a 800-545-2433, ext. 4272 unit of the publishing dept. of the American Library Association. 312-280-4272 [email protected] Copyright American Library Association 2006. All rights reserved.