Library Technology Guides

Inside Higher Ed leads today with an article by Andy Guess titled "Open Minds, Open Books, Open Source." The article starts with a reference to my Perceptions 2007 article and survey, and how it "revealed a measure of discord over the options available to librarians for automating their electronic catalogs and databases, software called integrated library systems."

The article then goes on to describe some of the open source initiatives in the new generation library interface realm, including VUfind from Villanova University, the eXtensible Catalog work at University of Rochester River Campus Libraries, and LibraryFind from Oregon State University. None of the open source ILS poducts such as Koha or Evergreen were mentioned.

This article makes great points about libraries inventing their own way by embracing open source alternatives as they feel that the traditional ILS companies have not provided the level of innovation needed.

I agree that these projects represent important efforts within the library community. Interest in open source has never been stronger. I would only temper this observation with the other major finding in the Perceptions 2007, that libraries as overall expressed a relatively low interest in open source ILS alternatives. While I think that the levels of interest will continue to grow, I can't disregard the surprising low rankings given in response to the question regarding interested in implementing an open source ILS.

I expect to see robust competition between open source and proprietary closed source options in the library software space for the foreseeable future. But having the open source alternatives in the game at all represents an incredible change.

Marshall Breeding Feb 19, 2008 10:43:00 Link to this thread