Library Technology Guides

If your library has recently acquired new library automation software, please make that information available to others by updating your entry in lib-web-cats.

Some of the major projects I take on every year involves reports relate to the library automation industry. This includes the Automation Marketplace feature that I write for Library Journal published in the April 1 issue. I’ve been writing this feature since 2002. The Automation Marketplace feature takes a close look at the activity related to integrated library systems, link resolvers, federated search products, and discovery interfaces that libraries acquired during that calendar year. The report that will be published in April 2010 will describe the business activity from January 1 through December 31, 2009.

While much of that report is based on a survey that I send to the companies, I also rely on data that I collect from a variety of other sources. I’ll be sending each of the companies involved their survey later in the year. Now I’m interested in information from libraries. I would like to be sure that any library that acquired any kind of major software product in 2009 has had that recorded in the lib-web-cats directory. The implementation of the system does not need to be complete. I’m interested in recording the transaction at the point of institutional commitment, which usually corresponds to signing a contract with a vendor. In the open source arena, things may happen somewhat differently, but I’m just as interested in hose systems.

Having this information registered in lib-web-cats not only helps my research, but also helps support other libraries as they make decisions regarding their library automaton strategies. Knowledge of what automation systems that other peer libraries have acquired provides important perspective. Collecting more data from libraries makes me less dependent on the what the venders choose to submit and provides the means to cross-check and verify results.

The Advanced Search of lib-web-cats supports queries that involve current and previous automation systems, which can be qualified by library type, location, collection size, and many other ways to help identify patterns in library automation deployments.

Even if your library did not make a recent change, please take time to review the entry for your library in lib-web-cats and be sure that I have the complete history of the automation systems deployed. Thanks in advance for the help and support.

Marshall Breeding Sep 14, 2009 08:58:18 Link to this thread