Library Technology Guides

I have long held that libraries should not be passive consumers of technology products, but rather, active partners in shaping them. Libraries have a great deal at stake in how well these products work. They benefit from individual or collective efforts to influence product development in order to address ever evolving requirements. Not all libraries have spare resources to lend to such efforts, and opportunities for involvement vary widely. Libraries can take many different routes to have the most impact, depending on their circumstances.

In recent weeks, EBSCO has announced a number of partnerships that potentially extend the reach of EBSCO Discovery Service. This product has become well established as one of the major indexbased library resource discovery services, along with Summon from Serials Solutions, Primo and Primo Central from Ex Libris, and OCLC's WorldCat Local. These products compete vigorously to offer the broadest coverage of the resources in library collections, the strongest features for search and retrieval, and for the most flexibility and interoperability with other applications within a library's technical infrastructure.

On July 2, 2012, the Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. Library of Boston College became the first to place Alma, the library services platform created by Ex Libris, into production use. The library migrated from an Aleph system in place since 2000. Boston College had been working with Ex Libris since mid-2009 as a development partner, testing each incremental release of the software, and providing constructive feedback. The library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, with a staff numbering around 120, and a collection of 3.5 million volumes.