In another major transition, Civica a UK-based company that offers the Spydus library automation system and a number of IT products for local governments, is in the process of being acquired by 3i, a major private equity firm. Prior to this acquisition, Civica was a publicly traded company on the AIM exchange. Spydus, formerly Urica, is one of the dominant library automation systems in Australia, has a large portion of the libraries in Taiwan, has a growing portion of libraries in the United Kingdom, and has a presence in many other geographic sectors.

Civica joins the ranks of other library automaiton companies owned by private equity firms: SirsiDynix (Vista Equity Partners), Ex Libris (Francisco Partners), Infor (Golden Gate Capital).

I have written an article on the transition of Civica and the background of Civica and its Spydus automation that will appear in the June 2008 issue of Smart Libraries Newsletter published by ALA TechSource.

The consolidation of the library automation business continues abroad as well as among the companies familiar to those of us in North America. In recent news, DS, one of the major companies involved in the United Kingdom has been acquired by Axiell Group, a company that develops library automation in for Nordic countries.

In Jan 2008 Axiell Group reorganized itself into three business units. The acquisition of DS adds a fourth:

• Axiell Bibliotek AB (Sweden)
  • Axiell Biblioteksystem AB
  • BTJ System AB
  • CSC Consulting Group (Library Section )
  • TietoEnator Library (2005)
• Axiell Bibliotek A/S (Denmark)
• AB Axiell Kirjastot AY (Finland)
  • TietoEnator Libraries Oy (acquired 2007)
  • Akateeminen Tietopalveu ATP OY (acquired Dec 2007)
• DS (United Kingdom)
  • Acquired April 2008

In 2007 the Axiell Group reported revenue of 21.17 million euro and employs a total of 117 personnel.

The full acquisition of DS by Axiell Group follows a successful collaboration where the two companies worked together to produce a next-generation interface product, Axiell Arena/DS Arena, that would work across the automation products of both companies.

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Taiwan and South Korea, I’ve been working in gathering information on the library automation scene in Asia. Libraries in most parts of Asia have generally implemented sophisticated approaches to automating their libraries. Most all academic and public libraries have integrated library systems and have implemented digital library systems, content management systems, or other portals to handle their Web sites.

I will be speaking at the Annual Meeting of University Librarians in Taiwan. and for the Graduate Institute of Library and Information Science at the National Chung Hsing University. The trip will include a quick trip to Seoul, South Korea to talk about next generation library interfaces.

As part of my background research in library automation in Asia, I have been working on adding libraries from this region to lib-web-cats and trying to determine the automation systems they use. Here are some graphs based on data from lib-web-cats:

• Academic Libraries in Taiwan
• Academic Libraries in China
• Public Libraries in Taiwan (Not very complete)
• Academic Libraries in South Korea
• Academic Libraries in Hong Kong

As seen in these charts, a number of companies that provide automation software to libraries in the United States have found a market in Asia, including: Innovative Interfaces, Ex Libris, SirsiDynix, and Civica.

Some of the companies involved in providing automation systems in Asia that might not be familiar to those of us in the United States include:

• Top Information Technologies. A distributor for Civica for Spydus to public libraries in Taiwan. The company is a distributor for Ex Libris with many deployments of ALEPH 500, SFX, MetaLib in many academic libraries in Taiwan.
• Transtech Computer Company, offers the TOTALS II, a major automation system used in Taiwan. The company also distributes the MuseSearch federated search product from MuseGlobal.
• Jiangsu Huiwen Software created LibSys, the most prevelant automation system among academic libraries in China with 383 installations to date.
• Futurenuri provides the XMLAS and TG-Vintage-LAS automation systems to libraries in South Korea.
• INEK provides the Solars automatoin system to libraries in South Korea.

Many libraries in China use the ILAS system developed by the Shenzhen Library.

Over time, I’m trying to ensure that Library Technology Guides represents a more international perspective. This information on a few of the countries in Asia is just a small step toward that goal. Despite the internationalization of the library automation industry, I’m becoming aware that every region and country has its own distinct dynamic of companies and products.

With all the recent interest in next-generation library catalogs, also called discover-layer interfaces, I have created a new resource page in Library Technology Guides to guide you to libraries that have implemented, or at least selected, one of these systems. The main feature of this page consists of logo of each of the major discovery layer products that launches a query into lib-web-cats to retrieve libraries associated with these systems. In some cases the default online catalog link will take you to this interface, but for many libraries you may need to go to the Web site to find a link to it. Especially in cases where the product has been recently purchased, the next-generation interface may not be publicly available. Even in these cases, seeing the kind of libraries that have purchased one of the commercial products or committed to implementing one of the open source ones should be useful information to those considering this new genre of library software.

I’ve also included links to some of what I’ve written about these new interfaces.

This resource is a work in progress. Please let me know if I’ve missed any of the major offerings in this area or libraries that involved with them.