Library Technology Guides

Systems Librarian column

Marshall Breeding has writen the Systems Librarian column since January 2000. It was published in Information Today through December 2002 and has appeared in Computers in Libraries magazine since January 2003.

The terms of my agreement with Information Today allow me to publish the full text of these articles 90 days after they appear in the printed magazine.

	Breeding, Marshall Libraries Under Cyberattack (full text ) March 2024 The last year or so has brought incredible challenges to the digital infrastructure of some high-profile libraries. The recent wave of cyberattacks targeting one of the world’s most prestigious and well-resourced libraries brings a sobering reminder of the dangers lurking for libraries in this digital age. Libraries of all types and sizes must be vigilant and prepared for any possible security breach.
	Breeding, Marshall Library Tech Trends 2024 (full text ) December 2023 Libraries continue to steadily advance through a number of long-standing technology trends, but we should anticipate disruption from fast-moving technologies such as generative AI. Many of the trends involving library management systems and discovery services have played out over the course of years or even decades. ChatGPT, a service based on generative AI that was developed by OpenAI, was launched just a year ago and has already made a massive impact on education, business, and society. The next cycle of change may come upon libraries quite rapidly. Each type of library drives distinct trends. While all libraries share some core services and values, public, academic, and school libraries each follow distinctive paths related to their main technology infrastructure. The differing characteristics that each of these library types take for managing collection resources and providing services demand specific technology infrastructure. As such, a different set of technology trends can be seen in each of the subsectors of the library community.
	Breeding, Marshall Libraries Are Not Neutral: Neither Is Technology (full text ) March 2023 Libraries perform an important role in society and do it in ways that reflect a distinctive approach to their missions, informed by the policies of the communities or organizations they serve and by a set of professional values. The policies and values they embrace guide how they create collections and deliver services.
	Breeding, Marshall Future-Proofing Your Library's Technology Infrastructure (full text ) December 2022 Libraries make substantial investments in a wide array of technology products and services, both from their operational budgets and capital projects. This infrastructure includes equipment and connectivity for physical facilities and software and other technology components in support of operations and services. All technologies have a limited life span, both in terms of becoming obsolete relative to newer offerings, as well as falling behind in the capabilities needed to support a library's evolving requirements. Libraries must continually strive to shape their technology environment to meet their current needs and to anticipate future changes. The cycles of change in technology seem to turn faster than ever, making it quite a challenge for libraries to keep up. While the replacement of components is inevitable, libraries can take measures to ensure that their technology infrastructure is flexible and can endure through cycles of change with the least expense and effort.
	Breeding, Marshall Expanding Content Options Mean New Challenges to Libraries (full text ) October 2022 Libraries must adapt to the changing information landscape. A central aspect of their mission involves providing access to content, usually without direct cost, to their community members or patrons. Free access for library patrons requires substantial investments. Libraries must purchase or license that content, dedicating significant portions of their budgets for building collections. They must also invest in the technology systems that they use to acquire, manage, and provide access to each type of material. These systems must continually evolve to accommodate each new variation of the content ecosystem.
	Breeding, Marshall Technology Infrastructure Must Respect and Reflect Library Values (full text ) September 2022 Technology infrastructure is not a neutral medium. But it is infused with algorithms and data methods that reflect social values. The vast differences in fundamental operating principles between libraries and commercial enterprises bring enormous implications for the adoption of commercially available technology products and services.
	Breeding, Marshall Benefits and Challenges for Streaming Media in Libraries (full text ) May 2022 Streaming media is well-established as an everyday technology. We experience content of all types through some form of streaming digital service. At home, streaming video services have largely displaced physical DVDs. Cable television has begun to diminish, as more households cut the cord and switch to an assortment of streaming services. On the audio front, streaming services (such as Spotify) have largely replaced CDs for listening to music. Podcasts are more popular than ever, but are often delivered through popular apps and streaming services.
	Breeding, Marshall Looking Toward the Next Phase of Library Systems (full text ) March 2022 Libraries have benefited from technology systems for more than half a century. Computerized systems were developed to automate circulation, cataloging, serials, and other library activities in the mid-to-late 1970s, with some earlier precursors. Since that time, library systems have continuously evolved, driven by the advances in technology architectures, changes in the operational priorities of libraries, and the business environment. These factors will continue to shape future generations of library systems.
	Breeding, Marshall How to Secure Library Systems From Malware, Ransomware, and Other Cyberthreats (full text ) January / Febuary 2022 Libraries must pay close attention to the security of the technology applications they implement to support their work and provide access to resources for users. Any lapse can bring incredible harm to the library as an organization and to patrons if their personal information becomes compromised or exposed. Security concerns are more serious than ever. The internet has become increasingly hostile territory, with all systems and services that the library might operate under constant threat. No organization can responsibly operate systems connected to the internet without sophisticated layers of defense against the inevitable barrage of attacks. Libraries are not immune to these attacks. Attackers do not spare organizations with benevolent missions.
	Breeding, Marshall Future Directions in Library Technology (full text ) December 2021 The future of library technology will be shaped by the evolution of society and by the ways that libraries exist in the world of the future. To continue to make a positive impact, it will be critical for libraries to receive adequate funding from their communities and parent organizations in order to have the proper resources. Trends in publishing and changes in laws and regulations related to copyright and intellectual property may also determine how libraries will make information available to their members or communities. And finally, libraries will continue to exist within the broader context of business and consumer technologies.
	Breeding, Marshall Social Media Disconnect: Considering the Role of Social Media in Library Marketing Strategies (full text ) October 2021 Libraries naturally want to improve their impact and outreach into the communities they serve. Library marketing strategies often include establishing a presence for the library on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. However, these platforms do not necessarily align well with many key library values (such as patron privacy, community service, and objective content). Libraries that include a social media component in their marketing strategies should carefully assess expected gains in patron engagement relative to the possible intrusions into patron privacy and other negative characteristics.
	Breeding, Marshall Preparing for the Future Implementing Enduring Technology Strategies (full text ) September 2021 Computer technology forms part of the basic infrastructure that supports the work of a library, including both its physical facilities and virtual services. Architects design buildings to meet the current and future needs of the organization, not only addressing fine points of practical use, but putting things together in a way that achieves a particular aesthetic outcome. Great library buildings don't only retain their inspiring look through the decades-they also accommodate the inevitable changes in how the spaces might be used. Technology infrastructure likewise must be carefully designed to endure long-term, to support practical use, and to accommodate the evolution of library services. But unlike buildings, technology components cannot be expected to last more than a decade or so at best. Building and maintaining a solid technology infrastructure requires an ongoing process of incremental adjustments rather than a once-and-for-all effort.
	Breeding, Marshall A Technical Checkup for Web Services (full text ) May 2021 Developing web resources involves a variety of skills, such as graphic design, information architecture, and workflow analysis. A high-quality website delivers the content resources and services that are central to a library's mission. It is vital for these sites to have great visual appeal and ease of use. It takes a team of individuals spanning multiple areas of expertise to collaborate in the initial development and ongoing maintenance of a library website. This collaboration may take place entirely within the ranks of the library itself or may be accomplished with the assistance of an external firm or consultant. Here, Breeding offers tips for performing a thorough technical review of a website.
	Breeding, Marshall 10 Core Principles for Assessing Library Technologies (full text ) March 2021 Libraries, similar to most organizations today, rely on technology to sustain almost every aspect of their work. The quality and cohesion of the technology selected and implemented by a library can have a major impact on the success of the organization. Technology has great potential to propel the work of a library, but it can also be a point of frustration and impede progress. It is important to take a strategic approach that considers principles aligned with library values. Libraries benefit from such a strategic approach to build a robust and stable technical infrastructure to support their work rather than being driven by fleeting technology trends that may ultimately detract from organizational priorities. Incorporating the following 10 principles into the process of acquiring or developing new technologies can help ensure a robust and reliable technical infrastructure that's able to effectively support the library's internal work and patron services. Here 10 core principles for assessing library technologies are presented.
	Breeding, Marshall Technology at Scale: Strategic Options (full text ) December 2020 The current era of cloud computing provides opportunities for libraries and related organizations to implement technology infrastructure at massive scale, with the capability of increasing the impact of collections and services while reducing costs. In earlier phases of library technology development, limitations in computer hardware, network connectivity, and software architectures restricted the scale of system implementations in terms of the libraries served, size of collections supported, and volume of transactions possible. Current cloud-based infrastructure scales beyond almost any imaginable aggregation of library services.
	Breeding, Marshall Technology Strategies for an Uncertain Future (full text ) October 2020 Libraries depend on technology to support almost all aspects of their daily work and to convey services to their communities. It is essential to make wise investments in technology to support the demands of current activities with the flexibility to adapt to the changing realities of libraries and the communities they serve. While most libraries follow such practical planning, it is in times of crisis that these plans are put to the test. Here, Breeding examines whether the technology strategies currently in place can support abrupt changes in library services and withstand catastrophic budget scenarios.
	Breeding, Marshall The Stark Reality of COVID-19's Impact on Libraries: Technology for the New Normal (full text ) September 2020 It’s not an overstatement to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has made a profound impact on the library community. All types of libraries have implemented major changes in their operations in response to a health crisis beyond anything seen in recent history. As the virus swept through global regions, countries, and states, libraries were forced to close their physical facilities and concentrate on their digital services. The pandemic arrived quickly, at least not with the amount of lead time that would have been needed to enhance technology systems to support libraries as they carry out their work under fundamentally different operational assumptions. This crisis will inform future development efforts.
	Breeding, Marshall A Global Crisis May Reshape Library Services (full text ) May 2020 The worldwide calamity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted society beyond anything we might have imagined only months ago. It has likewise had a massive impact on libraries of all types. Libraries have implemented drastic measures to protect their workers and the general public, while still fulfilling their missions to serve their communities with reliable information and collection access to the greatest extent possible.
	Breeding, Marshall The Ongoing Challenges of Academic Library Discovery Services (full text ) Jan/Feb 2020 In the consumer sphere, search has become practically magical. Our personal devices-phones, computers, smart speakers-respond to queries and questions with remarkable precision and context. Google- whether accessed through a web browser on a computer, tablet, or phone, or through a Google Home assistant-has consistently set an enormously high bar for search, relying on its massive content indexes, ranking algorithms, AI, and other content and technology components. While Google dominates the search engine market, Microsoft's Bing likewise delivers phenomenal results. These commercial services benefit from massive engineering resources, global infrastructure, and state-of-the-art user experience expertise.
	Breeding, Marshall Working Toward More Sustainable Technology (full text ) December 2019 Libraries can make a difference in the global movement to improve sustainability by deploying technologies that reduce energy use and that favor renewable resources. Compared to some industries or other business sectors, libraries don't necessarily stand out as major energy consumers, although the cumulative impact can be substantial. Nonetheless, it is important for libraries, as prominent institutions within society, to set a positive example and work toward achieving more sustainable practices. The technology-oriented suggestions discussed below would naturally fit in a broader sustainability plan that addresses building design, power management, and utility sourcing. The energy-saving transition from hosting applications on-site to hosted services is consistent with a generally beneficial trend in library computing that has been underway for the last decade. The shift to SaaS and hosted services frees the technical personnel in the library from mundane tasks such as server administration to perform more interesting work related to creating and supporting more visible services for patrons and library operations.
	Breeding, Marshall Investing in Enhanced Digital Experience (full text ) October 2019 ibraries straddle the digital and physical worlds and aim to provide the best mix of content and services for their communities. This bicameral reality isn't specific to libraries—most other commercial and nonprofit organizations divide their efforts between their physical establishments, where they provide in-person sales or services, and their web or mobile presence, which is available from anywhere at any time.
	Breeding, Marshall The Impact of OA: Preparing for a New Cycle of Change in Scholarly Publishing (full text ) May 2019 Breeding explores the impact of open access: Preparing for a new cycle of change in scholarly publishing. Despite great efforts, subscription-based business models with paywalls blocking researchers who are not affiliated with subscribing institutions prevail. Today, OA still represents a minority of newly published scholarly articles, although it does seem that recent events may have moved the industry to the tipping point for new business models.
	Breeding, Marshall Managing Tech and the Impact of Cloud Computing on Libraries (full text ) March 2019 Managing technical infrastructure has been a mainstay of library systems departments. Back in the day, the ILS and other critical library applications were usually implemented within the library itself and managed by its own personnel, including systems librarians and systems administrators. The heyday of the ILS meant tremendous responsibility for libraries to implement and manage almost all aspects of these complex applications, such as hardware installation, network support, systems administration, data migration, configuration, and customization. Such arrangements gave libraries great control of their technical systems, but likewise required significant investments in financial and personnel resources. The age of enterprise computing that came in full force by the early 2000s brought a major reconfiguration in the technical environment of most academic campuses and municipal or county governments. General commodity systems were the first to be centralized.
	Breeding, Marshall Up in the Air: Cloud Computing and Library Systems (full text ) December 2018 In the last few years, libraries have engaged with some kind of cloud computing for most aspects of their technology infrastructure. The term cloud computing tends to be used loosely to describe almost any form of computing in which the hardware or the services provided are accessed via the internet rather than installed on a local computer or housed in the institution's own data center. Some of the more specific arrangements include vendor-hosted applications, SaaS, and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Each of these kinds of cloud computing has found extensive use in the library technology sphere. The organization developing the software should be well-positioned to provide hosting services since it would be thoroughly familiar with its resource requirements, configuration details, and other operational issues. Vendor hosting applications such as ILSs can be implemented in different ways. Some vendors opt to maintain their own data centers and directly manage the servers on which their customer's systems reside.
	Breeding, Marshall Strengthening Patron Engagement While Protecting Privacy (full text ) October 2018 Libraries always strive to strengthen their engagement with their communities, taking advantage of a wide variety of technologies, as well as daily person-to-person interactions. It's essential for library users to have a strong awareness of the materials and services available from the library and to have a positive rapport. In addition to providing routine services, it's important for the library to proactively promote itself, especially to those who may not be taking full advantage of its services. Libraries are increasingly interested in products and services that emphasize engagement, personalization, and outreach. These products include marketing services and analytics that integrate with existing library systems and tap into the usage data those systems generate. The assumptions regarding privacy seen in the commercial arena are reversed in the library context. Personal data is collected with full awareness and consent of the patron as he or she makes use of the content and services provided by the library.
	Breeding, Marshall Current Trends and Future Possibilities for Managing Digital Media Collections (full text ) July / August 2018 Here, Breeding discusses current trends and future possibilities for managing digital media collections. He has a long-standing interest in the technologies related to managing digital content. One of his most challenging roles during his tenure at the Vanderbilt University Libraries involved oversight of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive and its transformation from videotape recordings to a large-scale collection of digital video. Other major projects he worked with that were related to digital media included helping develop the Global Music Archive, particularly its Digital Collection of East African Recordings, as well as numerous collections of and interfaces for digital photographs. Today's technology scene offers a range of options for working with even the largest digital collections with more efficiency and reliability and at lower cost than ever before. Consumer technologies and social media have driven the development of global infrastructure capable of handling photos, video, and other media at incredible scale. Large-scale storage is increasingly a commodity service with diminishing costs.
	Breeding, Marshall ERM Strategies in Academic Libraries: Historical Evolution and Current Context (full text ) April 2018 Breeding discusses the challenges academic libraries faced in managing the shift from print to ejournals. Libraries of all types have seen substantially greater involvement with content delivered in digital formats during the last decades. Both popular reading and scholarly literature have had substantial transformations in the way that materials are produced and distributed. These transformations differ among the different publishing sectors. The scholarly resources have seen an almost universal transition to electronic publishing, while popular reading, arts, and literature continue to be distributed primarily in print--although ebooks and audiobooks represent additional channels of distribution. Electronic resource management has an interesting history, passing through phases of informal tools, to standalone systems, to unified platforms. It will be interesting to observe how these tools evolve and if they are able to deliver new levels of efficiency in management or more effective means of discovery and access for library users. As libraries of all types see involvement of increasing proportions with electronic and digital formats, technologies and services initially developed for academic libraries may inform products and services created to serve other types of libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall Systems Migration: Opportunities Revamp Automation Strategies (full text ) March 2018 Moving to a new automation system brings a mixture of reactions to those who are faced with the challenges of migration and implementation. Switching systems should provide new capabilities and more efficiencies than the incumbent one. Selection and procurement processes should result in identifying the product best-suited to the needs of the library. Even though each migration process comes with challenges that are unique to the library and systems involved. Here, Breeding presents some general
	Breeding, Marshall Five Key Technology Trends for 2018 (full text ) December 2017 Technology continues to rapidly advance, often at such a pace that libraries struggle to keep up. The technical and financial capacity of the commercial sector far exceeds the resources available to any single library or even the largest vendors or development initiatives. However, once user expectations and technical standards are set on the broader web, libraries have an imperative to deliver their services accordingly. Five key trends in technology that impact libraries are attention to privacy, providing personalized services, enabling easy access to mobile devices, deploying services through cloudbased infrastructure, and the increased adoption of the microservices architecture. Here, Breeding takes a closer look at these trends and suggest their implications for libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall Elevating Tech Skills for the Cloud (full text ) October 2017 Breeding cites that cloud computing stands out as one of the most important technology trends of the current era. This broad umbrella covers specific types of computer infrastructure deployment such as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), SaaS, or application-service providers. These cloud technologies share the key precept of relying on computing infrastructure housed and managed by a service provider rather than operating servers on premises. Service providers can take advantage of efficiencies of managing large data centers, allocating only the specific level of computing power needed for any given customer application. Libraries, as consumers of cloud services, will progressively move away from the need to house and manage local servers and related infrastructure. Most libraries today are in a transition phase in which they might subscribe to some aspects of their supporting technical environment via SaaS and continue to operate other applications through software running on servers they manage in-house. If the current trends persist, it seems likely that in the next 5 years few libraries will find it viable to operate local servers.
	Breeding, Marshall Practical Technologies to Foster User Engagement (full text ) July / August 2017 Breeding discusses the advantages of Library Technology Guides site as a test bed for trying out strategies that may have the applicability to libraries. The techniques implemented to increase the exposure of Library Technology Guide include optimizing the discovery of content in search engines, dissemination of content via multiple channels and use of social networks and other personalized services. Developing high quality content of interest to clientele and presenting in it a way that highlights its value, to cultivate engagement. Also noted the essential of understanding the audience for the organization's information and techniques to facilitate its discovery.
	Breeding, Marshall The Complicated Story of Ebooks in Libraries (full text ) June 2017 Digital technologies permeate almost all aspects of society. Libraries have been great beneficiaries of digital technology and have embraced its potential to amplify the impact of their services. Many aspects of library collections have shifted at least partially to electronic delivery or digital media. In the early days of this digital age, there was an almost naive view of its potential to reinvent libraries. It was easy to think of scenarios in which scholarly content and books, once digitized, could become instantly and universally available to any interested reader. The complexity of library involvement with digital content relates to a large extent to the business and legal framework surrounding content ownership and publishing. These factors require many layers of protection and restrictions of content to ensure the rights of its owners or producers. Uncontrolled access to information would disrupt the business models that remain in place.
	Breeding, Marshall Moving Forward, Letting Go (full text ) May 2017 I have been fortunate to have opportunities to work with almost all aspects of technology used by libraries. One of my main areas of interest is helping libraries identify and implement the technologies that are most able to help them succeed in their strategic missions and to perform their daily work more effectively. In that context, I have come to see technologies as falling into a spectrum of innovation, ranging from those with a cutting-edge flavor to those that are well-established with proven capabilities. Although I have always enjoyed learning about and working with new tech gadgets and services, my work with libraries has been mostly about the larger-scale strategic systems that are mostly at the other end of the spectrum.
	Breeding, Marshall Blending Innovative and Strategic Technologies (full text ) April 2017 I have been fortunate to have opportunities to work with almost all aspects of technology used by libraries. One of my main areas of interest is helping libraries identify and implement the technologies that are most able to help them succeed in their strategic missions and to perform their daily work more effectively. In that context, I have come to see technologies as falling into a spectrum of innovation, ranging from those with a cutting-edge flavor to those that are well-established with proven capabilities. Although I have always enjoyed learning about and working with new tech gadgets and services, my work with libraries has been mostly about the largerscale strategic systems that are mostly at the other end of the spectrum.
	Breeding, Marshall Meeting the Challenge of Simultaneously Managing Digital, Electronic, and Print Collections (full text ) March 2017 The management of library collections has never been more difficult than it is today. The proliferation of new formats of materials-each with its own technical, business, and legal requirements-brings the need for ever more sophisticated tools and processes for libraries to manage collections responsibly and efficiently. Library automation technologies initially emerged during an era when collections consisted only of physical materials. Today, information resources span quite a variety of physical and electronic formats, prompting major changes in the nature of the resource management and discovery services created for libraries. The proportions of involvement in each of these formats vary according to each type of library. This further complicates the picture for the organizations that create technologies for collections management and discovery.
	Breeding, Marshall Technology to Amplify the Impact of Libraries (full text ) January / February 2017 Libraries perform important work for their communities. Their collections are assembled and organized with great skill and expertise. The multitude of services and programs offered are valued by the institutions and citizens they serve. Libraries aim to provide a safe venue for their patrons to search for and receive information confidentially on any topic without judgment or harassment, whether in person or online. For all these services, technology should provide the means to amplify their impact or improve the efficiency in which they are conducted.
	Breeding, Marshall Anticipating the Next Phase of the Library-Technology Industry (full text ) December 2016 As 2016 winds down, let's review some of the major events within the library-technology industry over the past year and anticipate what might be in store for the next. 2016 has seen a series of major events that have indelibly altered the landscape of organizations and their products, offering strategic technology advantages to libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall The Power of the Platform (full text ) November 2016 A major development in the most recent phase of library technology can be seen in the emergence of library services platforms (LSP). ILSs have previously stood as the prevailing model for the technology supporting the management and access of library collections and for the automation of library operations. These two approaches continue in parallel. While LSPs have attracted great interest by academic and research libraries, the ILS persists among public, school, and special libraries. In this current phase, web-based multi-tenant platforms have been well accepted in the broader IT landscape for quite some time. Development of LSPs in this vein commenced in about 2009, with these products advancing mostly among academic libraries. Other types of libraries continue to rely on ILSs gradually evolving from functional and technical designs rooted in the previous era. In the long term, the author anticipate that the platform approach will dominate all aspects of the library-technology arena.
	Breeding, Marshall Your URL Is Your Brand (full text ) October 2016 A library's web address is a significant aspect of its identity and brand. It's hard to understate the importance of having a great URL for a library Web site that is simple, crisp, and easily remembered. The form of your library's URL conveys an impression of the library, apart from the content of the site. Naturally, the usability, content, and presentation of a Web site are paramount, but the form of its URL also warrants special consideration. It leads more visitors to a library's virtual presence than its street number directs patrons to its physical facilities. It is essential that you not even consider changing your library's URL unless it is absolutely necessary. Your library's URL is a fundamental part of its identity, which endures not only in links throughout the web, but also physically on business cards, stationary, promotional literature, and signage.
	Breeding, Marshall Better Together: Shared Technology Infrastructure for Collaboration and Resource Sharing (full text ) September 2016 Libraries embrace collaboration as a fundamental value. Working with peer institutions and colleagues can be enormously beneficial in improving the capacity of a library to enhance its services. No library today can expect to directly own all the possible resources to fulfill the needs of its clientele. Almost all libraries participate in some type of interlibrary loan or consortial lending program to fulfill requests for materials not available in their own collections. Shared technology infrastructure affords participants the opportunity to gain a number of advantages. These benefits include a greater impact of collections, savings in technology costs, and operational efficiency. Shared infrastructure can reduce technology costs. Instead of purchasing hardware and software for an independent, standalone implementation of an ILS, each participant pays a share of the collaborative environment. In addition to these direct costs, participating members
	Breeding, Marshall Divergence and Convergence: Trends in Academic and Public Libraries (full text ) July - August 2016 Public and academic libraries currently face distinctive challenges. A different set of trends can be seen in the composition of collection materials and in the services they provide to their respective clientele. To accommodate these differences, public and academic libraries have, in recent years, gravitated toward different strategies related to the technologies they employ to support their respective operations. Looking forward, people can also expect to see increasing points of commonality in libraries of all types as the production and consumption of content become increasingly digital and oriented to social platforms. Public libraries still see intense interest in physical collections by their clientele. Circulation transactions of physical materials remain strong. These libraries continue to acquire and manage print collections and require automation systems rich in features to support these tasks. The ILS, tracing its heritage to the time when libraries dealt exclusively in print, has continued to evolve, gaining more sophisticated capabilities for physical materials.
	Breeding, Marshall High Security and Flexible Privacy for Library Services (full text ) June 2016 Ensuring the privacy of patrons as they make use of library services has been a longstanding priority for the profession. Maintaining ironclad computer and network security not only makes certain that the operations of the library function without disruption, but it also forms the foundation for protecting personally identifiable information of the library’s clientele. Libraries also face conflicting issues regarding patron privacy. Some users require strict anonymity, while others prefer an approach that makes free use of personal information to form services that are more customized to their specific interests. This edition of The Systems Librarian explores a few of the issues involved in the complicated balance between security and patron privacy.
	Breeding, Marshall Disintegration to Integration and Back (full text ) March 2016 One of the most important questions in the realm of library technology concerns the composition of the systems that support the library in how it manages and provides access to its collections and services. Is it better to have one do-it-all product or to assemble a set of modules from different providers? The history of library automation has seen a general trend toward more comprehensive platforms, but are we now at a time when it makes sense to consider other possibilities?
	Breeding, Marshall Refining Digital Strategies (full text ) Jan / Feb 2016 It is a given that libraries must focus increasing efforts on delivering technology-based services in addition to the services provided within their physical premises. More and more, library collections include access to electronic resources as well as digital content. Services provided to patrons are delivered both virtually and in person. Technology-based collections and services and those provided physically compete for a finite set of resources, both in terms of funding and staffing levels. The way a library allocates its resources among various collections and services must be given careful consideration.
	Breeding, Marshall A New Era for the Library-Technology Industry (full text ) December 2015 The library-technology industry is coming into a new phase that's characterized by consolidation of companies into enterprises spanning sectors that previously operated separately. This differs from earlier consolidation phases in which companies focused primarily on a given area of activity and expanded through the acquisition of direct competitors. The current phase has not come about abruptly, but recent events have brought the trend into sharper focus: In the library-technology sector, companies are expanding their scope of involvement across diverse business activities. In this context, the acquisition of Ex Libris Group by ProQuest marks a significant change in the business landscape.
	Breeding, Marshall Serendipity: The Virtual-Library Experience (full text ) November 2015 Libraries must accommodate a variety of expectations from the patrons who visit their physical facilities or virtual offerings. One dimension of this experience relates to satisfying those with something specific in mind. These patrons may have a favorite author or topic in mind and want specific resources, which might include the next book by that author or an exhaustive set of materials in the bibliography of a research topic. The catalogs and discovery services that libraries present to their users are designed especially for these kinds of information fulfillment activities.
	Breeding, Marshall Adoption Patterns of Proprietary and Open Source ILS in U.S. Libraries (full text ) October 2015 I spend a lot of energy gathering and analyzing data describing the automation systems implemented in libraries. These data are recorded in the libraries, org database I maintain as part of Library Technology Guides. One of the interesting patterns relates to the adoption of an open source ILS versus those libraries that use proprietary products. In broad terms, proprietary products continue to dominate, but over the last decade, use of open source ILS products has grown to 12 percent in U.S. public libraries. Unique patterns apply to each sector of libraries and in each geographic region of the world. This discussion focuses primarily on public libraries in the U.S. and explores the interesting dynamics and adoption patterns between proprietary and open source ILS products.
	Breeding, Marshall A Combined Effort: Partnerships Between School and Public Libraries (full text ) September 2015 In my experience, libraries have always been organizations that are open to many forms of collaboration. They seek partnerships and opportunities to gain mutual benefit with related organizations. Collaborative initiatives may be driven by the need to make the best of scarce funding or personnel resources. Many projects aim to strengthen the impact of libraries on their communities by focusing the resources of multiple library organizations on a given problem or issue.
	Breeding, Marshall More Than a Hack: Empowering Your Library Through Coding (full text ) Jul/Aug 2015 A number of trends have converged to make it easier than ever for librarians to craft new tools and services for the benefit of their organizations. Libraries face ever-increasing challenges, especially in providing access to collections via electronic and print formats, as well as in meeting expectations for personalized and easy-to-use services. Despite the movement toward reliance on externally hosted systems, the need for libraries to create or customize services to meet the specialized requirements of their communities or to enhance the productivity of their personnel has never been greater. "Hacking" can be thought of in many ways, but I see it as making use of programming, scripting, or other creative technologies to solve problems, to improve or enhance existing applications, or to create new ones to meet specialized needs. The ethos of hacking stands to bring many benefits to libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall Perspectives on patron privacy and security (full text ) June 2015 Libraries hold fundamental the need to provide their services in ways that protect the privacy of their community members. We go to great lengths to ensure that no third party can find out what a patron checked out, what she read in the library, what questions he asked of a librarian, or what answers were given. This concern for patron privacy must be embodied in the policies and procedures of the library and by any of the technical systems involved in supporting the library's services. Since libraries depend heavily on technology for almost every aspect of their internal work and for the provision of content resources and services to their patrons, it is essential that they look closely at how these products handle any data related to patron interactions.
	Breeding, Marshall Going Mobile: How I Made My Own Site Responsive (full text ) May 2015 In order to accommodate the different categories of devices, websites need to use responsive design, which customizes the delivery of each page based on the capability of the device making the request. In some cases, responsive design may only alter the presentation elements that can be controlled in CSS, but some sites may want to present an entirely different set of functionality and structure to users with mobile devices. Responsive web design involves understanding the use patterns appropriate for each type of device and optimizing the user experience accordingly.
	Breeding, Marshall Challenges in harnessing personal and professional digital media (full text ) April 2015 Over the years, it has been interesting to watch the prevalence of rich media increase so dramatically. Digital photos and video clips have become an essential component in our daily consumption of content. It's especially conspicuous in social media and popular web destinations, but also in professional and scholarly resources. The production of digital media has become incredibly easy and accessible to almost anyone. Even within the relatively short life of social media, we've seen quite a shift: Posts without a photo or video receive scant notice. In both the personal and professional sphere, the quantity of digital media created demands better tools to store, organize, and manage it than most individuals or organizations have at their disposal.
	Breeding, Marshall Evaluating library-tech vendors (full text ) Jan Feb 2015 I have often used this column to highlight the relationship between libraries and the organizations from which they acquire technology-related products and services. Let's call them vendors. As you may already know, I consider it extremely important for this relationship--that could be thought of as a mere business transaction--to be a partnership.
	Breeding, Marshall Selection strategies for strategic library technologies (full text ) Jan Feb 2015 Libraries depend on their automation systems for almost all aspects of the work that they perform--including the automation of routine operational tasks--for managing their collections and for providing access to their patrons. Collection management includes activities related to the acquisition and description of content items, as well as the provision of their access to library patrons. The composition of library collections has evolved over the years, with electronic content and digital objects representing increasing proportions relative to print materials and other physical items. Access to these collections involves an increasingly complex set of tools for discovering items of interest among collections of growing size and complexity and providing appropriate mechanisms for access or delivery. Likewise, the automation systems used by libraries have evolved, with many different categories of products now available.
	Breeding, Marshall 2015 年图书馆技术趋势预测 (full text ) December 2014 Marshall Breeding 在 2014年12 月Computers in Libraries 中系统馆员的专栏提到2015 年图书馆技术趋势预测。技术除了指出在图书馆工作中的个人所表现出来的能量、创造力与热情之外，更代表图书馆可服务于小区并使其繁荣与展现成功服务的一个重要因素。继2014年趋势预测中预测策略性合作的趋势(Uptick in Strategic Cooperation)、图书馆服务平台及探索服务(Library Services Platforms and Discovery Services)、电子书借阅(Ebook Lending)、创新与发展模型(Models of Development and Innovation)、与消费者相关之信息技术(Consumer Technologies)后，因应全球创客空间、大数据与关连数据的开花结果，Marshall Breeding 在2014 年的年末探讨2015 年甚至是未来几年图书馆技术趋势预测(前沿)。
	Breeding, Marshall Library Technology Forecast for 2015 and Beyond (full text ) December 2014 With another year winding down, we’re pausing to review some of the accomplishments with technology in libraries and consider what might be in store. Each year seems to bring an accelerating pace of change. While libraries tend to operate at a safe distance from the cutting edge of technology, it is important to look forward in order to be aware of the movement underway. Given the pace of change, interesting opportunities may slip by unless libraries move more aggressively in the development of new applications based on current technology advancements. This month’s column gives a speculative glimpse of what might happen in the next year or so among the companies comprising the library-technology industry based on recent patterns. We also look at some specific technologies that are gaining momentum and warrant the library community’s close attention.
	Breeding, Marshall Ongoing Challenges in Digitization (full text ) November 2014 One of the key roles of libraries and cultural institutions is preserving resources for future generations. Today, librarians benefit from manuscripts, books, and other artifacts that have survived for hundreds or even thousands of years. Digital objects require considerable effort to ensure their long-term preservation. Given the fragility of digital content and the risks inherent in long-term digital access, the best path for preservation should have physical and digital alternatives whenever possible. For digitally native content, digital preservation stands as the only alternative. An increasing number of libraries have digitization departments as part of their routine operations. Digitizing a collection provides many more opportunities for access beyond what is possible with physical artifacts. Digitization makes it possible to enable global access to everyone who might have an interest in and could benefit from being able to view and study those materials. Creating or providing access to digital content represents one of the most interesting and important activities in which libraries engage.
	Breeding, Marshall Semantic Structure enhances Discovery of Library Resources (full text ) October 2014 It has been very interesting to track the ways that the online catalogs, discovery services, and other tools that libraries use to provide access have evolved during recent years. In the course of my career, I have seen a continual evolution. My earliest experience in this area involved the replacement of card catalogs with terminals associated with a mainframe running the NOTIS (Northwestern Online Integration System) library management system. Text-based online catalogs were eventually displaced by those that offered graphical interfaces running on Microsoft Windows, which then gave way to web-based catalogs. Although the interfaces evolved through many interface styles, their scope remained relatively static, addressing bibliographic and holdings records representing books and journal titles. A more recent phase saw the development of index-based or webscale discovery services that exploded the scope of discovery to individual articles, book chapters, and other content objects. While this current slate of products isn't perfect, it now seems plausible that these discovery services will be able to represent the totality of a library's collection, with diminishing gaps in coverage.
	Breeding, Marshall Data-Driven Libraries (full text ) September 2014 As organizations that typically have less than ideal levels of resources to carry out their work, libraries naturally should assemble the best possible tools to enable them to operate as intelligently and efficiently as possible. One of the distinct trends in the development of library technology products involves an increased emphasis on leveraging metrics and analytics to support more data-driven decisions, both in daily operations and in the shaping of higher-level strategies and policies. Almost all of the major library management and discovery products have been created with a strong emphasis on analytics, and a variety of stand-alone tools and services provide data collection and analysis to support some aspects of library operations. Another set of tools focuses on optimizing websites. Libraries can benefit from taking advantage of any of the diverse technology tools at their disposal to enhance and optimize their organizations as well as interact with their patrons in more meaningful ways.
	Breeding, Marshall Pack Up Your Gear: Technology for Travel (full text ) July - August 2014 This month's column offers tips related to travel. There are incredible tools and resources available these days that make travel more convenient than ever before. Most of the tools and tips that I will mention do not involve specialized gadgets, but they are available through the smartphones or tablets that have become almost ubiquitous among those in libraries who are likely to be involved in professional travel.
	Breeding, Marshall Balancing the Management of Electronic and Print Resources (full text ) June 2014 Libraries naturally strive to allocate their resources proportional with their overarching priorities. But accomplishing the proper balance is often easier said than done. While I don’t consider myself an expert in organizational matters, I am intrigued by how technology can either support or hinder the ability of an organization to carry out its work effectively. As I work with libraries of various types in all different parts of the world, I observe that many are caught in an undesirable operational state. The allocated staff time, talent, and effort has become misaligned with the character of their collections and services. Automation systems that no longer fit the operational realities contribute to the problem. The good news is, I also see lots of potential in new kinds of technology platforms that can enable libraries to be not only more flexible, but more efficient.
	Breeding, Marshall Strengthening Engagement With Virtual Visitors (full text ) May 2014 One of the most important aspects of the library's virtual presence on the web concerns building engagement with patrons. A library website must be able to do many different things simultaneously. It needs to provide all sorts of information about the library, such as its hours, programs, services, and myriad other details. It serves as a delivery vehicle for content and collections, made even more complicated as libraries become involved with electronic and digital materials in addition to their print offerings.
	Breeding, Marshall APIs Unify Library Services (full text ) April 2014 Most libraries today rely on many different software applications and content services to support their internal operations and their services to patrons. Smaller libraries may deal with a handfiil of these platforms, while larger ones tend to be involved with dozens or hundreds, often with overlapping spheres of functionality or data. Such a matrix of interrelated products and services brings considerable complexity as libraries manage each separately, while attempting to fit them into a coherent technology strategy. In dealing with these multiple and diverse services, libraries benefit from any technologies or mechanisms that can be used to make them work together effectively and to exploit their capabilities to meet local concerns. One of these mechanisms comes in the form of APIs. The increasing availability of APIs among the major applications used by libraries represents an important advancement in technology with many potential benefits.
	Breeding, Marshall Shifting to the Cloud: Reshaping Library Technology Infrastructure (full text ) March 2014 Cloud computing provides access to software applications, digital storage, and other technical resources through services that are usually accessed with only a web browser and a connection to the internet. I've covered this family of technologies in many books, articles, and essays that provide more in-depth treatment of the technical details and the specific library products and services in this realm. In broad terms, it comes as the next phase in the evolution of computing following an era that depended more on locally housed servers accessed through software installed on desktop and laptop computers. This change from local to cloud computing has interesting implications for many aspects of a library's technology strategy.
	Breeding, Marshall Shape up your Skills and Shake Up Your Library (full text ) January / February 2014 Libraries benefit from having specialists within their organization tasked to manage all the various aspects of technology with the ability to shape it to their specialized requirements. A skilled individual or team tasked and enabled to design and implement the library's technological infrastructure can mean the difference between efficiency and frustration. To handle this role effectively, those responsible need to have an in-depth knowledge of technology a keen understanding of the strategic and operational needs of the library, and the insight to ensure that technology operates in ways that respect its key principles and values. While libraries resemble service-oriented businesses in some ways and seem to be increasingly managed according to business principles, their value and efficiency cannot be measured economically, but according to how well they create meaningful collections for their clients or stakeholders, distribute or provide access to information resources, and provide effective services.
	Breeding, Marshall Library Technology Forecast for 2014 and Beyond (full text ) December 2013 Libraries continue to face enormous challenges as they continue to deal with woefully inadequate budgets at the same time that almost every aspect of their work has become more complex. In these times when search engines, social networks, and ecommerce sites set an almost unreachable bar for user experience and breadth of content, libraries have to make extraordinary efforts to impress their patrons with the information resources and services that they offer on the web while remaining true to core library values. Thus, the stage is set. I'll discuss some of the trends that I see playing out on the library technology front as we look ahead for the next couple of years.
	Breeding, Marshall Technology Alternatives for Special Collections (full text ) November 2013 In recent years, many special collections have also had to extend their efforts into the digital realm. Since the creation of content has been performed for a few decades now through some form of computer technology, it's not at all surprising that these special collections are now seeing increasing proportions of their acquisitions arriving in the digital form, and the digitization of extant materials for access and preservation has become a routine activity.
	Breeding, Marshall Library Technology: The Next Generation (full text ) October 2013 Next-generation library automation products and services have been the focus of attention in the library community for the last few years. It seems that there is tremendous interest in systems that are better aligned with the issues libraries face today. New discovery and library management platforms have emerged from research and development stages into real-world use in libraries. People are seeing intense competition among these new systems and between them and the new versions of established products. The author see them as being at a critical time in the realm of library technologies, with many organizations working to break out of established conceptual, functional, and technological bounds. Sweeping changes in libraries drive the urgency for a new generation of technology products and services to support them. The composition of library collections have changed to include higher proportions of electronic and digital materials relative to print. Some of the subsequent generational cycles were based largely on transitions in computing platforms.
	Breeding, Marshall Tech Trends and Challenges for K-12 School Libraries (full text ) September 2013 Though all libraries share some core objectives, each type of library has a distinct set of issues that shapes the nature of its collections and services, which, in turn, brings different requirements to its technology environment. In the most basic terms, academic libraries focus on the management and access to scholarly materials, public libraries foster engagement with their communities through vigorous circulation of collections of broad popular interest, and special libraries have gravitated into the realm of enterprise knowledge management. Likewise, school libraries have their own distinct concerns, which are closely tied to the support of learning and the provision of resources selected for the levels of students served. The distinctive role of school libraries has fostered the development of a variety of specialized technology products. At the same time, school libraries can benefit from close collaboration with other libraries in their communities. This month's Systems librarian column explores some of the trends underway in the school library arena, including a few interesting partnerships that have emerged to strengthen their capacity to serve their students.
	Breeding, Marshall Mining Data for Library Decision Support (full text ) June 2013 A library's technology infrastructure should be well-aligned with its broad strategic mission, providing support for its operations in ways that results in the best possible service. In today's economically challenging environment, libraries lean on technology to automate their daily activities and to accomplish as much as possible with the fewest number of people, stretching their collection funds as far as possible. Each of the layers of technology in place must also provide the strongest tools possible to yield analytical data in support of measuring the performance and efficiency of the related areas. The churn of daily activity performed on a system produces an incredible amount of data that, with the right tools and processes in place, can be exploited to refine workflows, analyze budget allocations and expenditures, or inform other operational or strategic decisions. Libraries increasingly strive to follow data-driven management of their resources as they shape their collections, deploy their personnel, and design their virtual presence.
	Breeding, Marshall Pressing Limits of Scale for Library Technology (full text ) May 2013 I see libraries in a time where it's important to question all of the assumptions that we have held regarding technology and the automation products in which we invest. Many of the current automation scenarios were informed by inherent limitations of computing of times past and models of functionality and processing workflows that may no longer apply. Some of the key issues in play today deal with the scale in which technology can be implemented to support libraries or groups of libraries and how different areas of functionality are organized within automation products.
	Breeding, Marshall Linked Data: The Next Big Wave or Another Tech Fad? (full text ) April 2013 Semantic web. Open linked data. These concepts dominate conference presentations and technology conversations almost as much as Web 2.0 did a few years ago - with the promise of taking the web beyond its current limitations of manually coded hyperlinks to a system based on exploring paths of related resources based on meaningful associations encoded in storehouses of content, lbday both on the general web and in most library environments, the discovery of resources takes place mostly through the harvesting and indexing of the content of pages. Such search and retrieval services provide very effective ways for persons to find items of interest from within very large bodies of content, such as the entirety of the web or representations of the print and electronic materials that comprise library collections. But even with the most sophisticated relevancy algorithms, index-based search and retrieval lacks the ability to lead users to the potential related content. Semantic web technologies, in conjunction with repositories of open linked data, promise to deliver significant new capabilities in exploring and exploiting information resources on the web.
	Breeding, Marshall Digital Archiving in the Age of Cloud Computing (full text ) March 2013 Whether the concern is protecting data at the personal, professional, or institutional level, digital storage services provide thorough cloud computing technologies that can deliver extraordinarily high levels of protection. The LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe; lockss.org) project initiated by Stanford University for the preservation of primarily ejournal content, operates on the basis of a distributed set of replicates across many low-cost computers and associated storage devices among participating institutions.
	Breeding, Marshall Technical Infrastructure in Libraries: To Tweak or Transform? (full text ) January/February 2013 The combination of integrated library systems, electronic resource management utilities, OpenURL link resolvere, e-resource knowledgebases, digital collection management platforms, institutional repositories, discovery services, and other library-specific and general-purpose applications represents an approach for providing technology support that has evolved somewhat haphazardly. The way that a library describes its expectations when going out to acquire its next automation system provides critical information to the development community. Electronic resource management, OpenURL link resolution, digital collections, and other essential functions have been accomplished through separate systems.
	Breeding, Marshall Tech Review and Forecast for 2013 (full text ) December 2012 The four major web-scale discovery products, WorldCat Local, EBSCO Discovery Service, Serials Solutions Summon, and Primo Central from Ex Libris, have each achieved high levels of maturity, each well past the stage of appealing mostly to early adopters, and they should be considered safe bets for most academic libraries. Innovative Interfaces, long a holdout away from founder ownership, was acquired by a pair of private equity firms, Huntsman Gay Global Capital, LLC and JMI Equity, with Jerry Kline retaining a minority stake and turning over the management of the company to new hands.
	Breeding, Marshall Preserving Library Value Through the Shifting Tides of Technology (full text ) November 2012 Shifts in technology and the context of commercial services and other factors have an enormous impact on what services remain in the purview of libraries. As content becomes less physical and more virtual, library services become more fragile and demand continuous vigilance to fill in the gaps that would otherwise remain in an environment of purely commercial activity. The technical, legal, and business context surrounding opportunities for library services seem more challenging than ever before. The core mission of libraries has always centered on making content and related services available to patrons. The form in which that content is delivered has changed continually. In recent decades, libraries have worked their way through a succession of changes in technology and in media that creates opportunities for library services that may or may not endure. This article discusses computing resources and connectivity, media lending and the challenge of e-books. Adapted from the source document.
	Breeding, Marshall Managing Mission-Critical Infrastructure (full text ) October 2012 In the library context, they depend on sophisticated business applications specifically designed to support their work. This infrastructure consists of such components as integrated library systems, their associated online catalogs or discovery services, and self-check equipment, as well as a Web site and the various online tools and services needed to manage and provide access to library resources. These systems work together to support the behind-the-scenes work, in-person services for patrons and virtual mobile and Web-based services. In this month's column, the author explores some of the layers of attention that need to be in place to ensure that technology contributes its full potential to the success of the organization. Some of these layers fall into the area of routine, but often deferred, maintenance, as well as larger-scale renovation or rebuilding projects. A stable, reliable, and well-designed technical infrastructure doesn't happen by itself. It requires that the library address the layers of routine maintenance, incremental improvements, and periodic reinvestment appropriate for such mission-critical assets.
	Breeding, Marshall Coping With Complex Collections: Managing Print and Digital (full text ) September 2012 Library collections are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of the many different formats represented, and each brings its own challenges for management and access. The cumulative process of the proliferation and electronic formats in addition to the physical materials present libraries with significant challenges in managing these heterogeneous collections; it demands a technical infrastructure that can provide appropriate tools for management and facilitate access. Libraries will have to deal with an increasingly complicated set of processes for selecting and acquiring their materials. This complicated matrix of content formats, procurement methods, and delivery methods presents enormous challenges for the technical infrastructure that a library needs to support the management and access of its collection. In this current phase of library technology development, the emerging model for academic libraries brings the management of print and electronic collection components into the same platform. Rather than having entirely separate platforms for dealing with print and electronic materials, these emerging library services platforms support many different processing workflows, metadata formats, and fulfillment policies. Adapted from the source document.
	Breeding, Marshall New Library Collections, New Technologies, New Workflows (full text ) June 2012 In the past year or so, I've been doing a lot of speaking and writing about the new wave of library automation applications. It's a topic that seems to have great interest in the library arena in many parts of the world, as I have observed during my recent travels. I have seen many libraries at the juncture where they need to develop plans relative to these new products. Do they see themselves staying with their current systems for a few more years, or will they be considering a change? In every change cycle, there are some libraries eager to be early adopters, and many more that prefer to wait a bit for the products to mature and to prove themselves. I would also suggest that libraries might look beyond the automation systems they use and the consideration of whether it's time to replace them. Perhaps it's also time to reevaluate the patterns of work that surround their automation systems and to evaluate if those systems still make sense.
	Breeding, Marshall 新馆藏，新技术：新工作流 (full text ) June 2012 Traditional library business was well aligned with integrated library system (ILS) over the past decades. However, with the changing of library collections, the library can’t separate library business based on the formats of materials. Under the promotion of the cloud computing, ILS is evolving into library services platforms which can provide opportunity to redesign workflows most suitable for its needs, and will be well re-aligned with library reality in the future.
	Breeding, Marshall From disaster recovery to digital preservation (full text ) May 2012 Over the course of my career, I've seen libraries increasingly involved in digital content. Today, hardly any aspect of what libraries do remains untouched. Collections have shifted from physical to digital forms, though not necessarily uniformly. This shift has reshaped many aspects of how libraries operate, with profound implications not only for how they provide access to materials but, especially, in how these digital collections will be preserved for future generations. Libraries face enormous challenges in finding ways to preserve their collections as they move more deeply into the digital arena.
	Breeding, Marshall Lowering the Threshold for Automation in Small Libraries (full text ) April 2012 It's striking to me that here in the U.S. - the world's wealthiest country - so many small public libraries in rural areas and small towns either rely on outdated systems or have no automation at all. We have some of the world's most technologically advanced libraries, but we also have some for which state-of-the-art technology tools remain out of reach. As I track the automation trends in libraries, I have been concerned for a long time about how many public libraries in the U.S. lag behind in automation and that these "have note" are skewed primarily toward those that support small communities. One of the outstanding challenges today is reducing the barriers that impede small libraries with very limited resources from having access to technologies that can help them deliver better services to their communities.
	Breeding, Marshall Looking Forward to the Next Generation of Discovery Services (full text ) March 2012 Discovery services have come a long way in improving the ways that libraries provide patrons with access to their collections. This genre of software has become pretty well established since its introduction almost a decade ago. Libraries are increasingly abandoning the ILS online catalog modules or relegating them to specialized use. Discovery services take a broader view of library collections, attempting not just to address the materials managed directly in the library's ILS, but also to find ways to incorporate the content available to users by virtue of subscriptions to electronic resources and to specialized collections of digitized documents, images, sound recordings, and video.
	Breeding, Marshall Library Web-Scale (full text ) January 2012 We've been hearing a lot about a web-scale" lately. It has become one of the buzzwords of the library technology arena, and it's often used rather loosely. While the term has taken on something of a marketing bent, it also characterizes some important trends and strategies for libraries to capitalize on today's large-scale technology platforms. Though web-scale is not necessarily a term that lends itself to precise définition, it represents an important shift in the way that libraries engage with technology. Within the realm of library technologies, web-scale is a concept worth exploring as one of the new alternatives on the horizon.
	Breeding, Marshall Forging Ahead Through Times of Major Transitions (full text ) December 2011 Despite many factors that present libraries and librarians with challenges of enormous concern, I continue to be optimistic that the institution and the profession will prosper well into the distant future. The siege against library funding continues. How libraries manage the shifting legal and licensing scenarios of ebooks will be a key factor in our future success. As the prevailing paradigm of technology enters a new phase favoring cloud-based technologies, the dominance of the current client/server library automation products will inevitably wane as new products enter the market and existing products evolve. The era of cloud computing brings change to the ways that libraries deploy technology and how they engage in their own development. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that we're in a time of epic transitions. In this month's column, we'll explore a few of these trends and transitions and their implications for libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall Ebook lending: asserting the value of libraries as the future of books unfolds (full text ) November 2011 A statement that I've heard lately asserts that the need for public libraries will recede in the future once ebooks become the dominant media. Its proponents suggest that online outlets such as Amazon and Apple will obviate the need for libraries. I don't necessarily question whether ebooks will eventually prevail, though I think that it will take many years before publishers abandon the printed page. Even granting that ebooks will one day become dominant, I anticipate that librarians will continue to deal with at least some proportion of printed books and other physical materials indefinitely. But even in this unfolding realm that will increasingly favor electronic distribution of published content, I believe that libraries will continue to play a vital role in our society. We must be thoughtful and strategic regarding these issues. I hope that librarians develop and employ technologies that will allow them to use ebooks to fulfill their traditional roles as the move away from print continues. Throughout my entire career, I've seen libraries steadily move toward increased involvement with electronic and digital content. The rise of ebooks is just the latest chapter in the story.
	Breeding, Marshall Library Tech Strategies: Efficiency or Innovation (full text ) October 2011 How libraries use technology to manage their work has been one of my key interests. I follow with great interest the developments of new library automation products and discovery services, especially with respect to how they help libraries operate more efficiently and to achieve their strategic goals. I’m also interested in how libraries can use technology in creative and innovative ways that enable libraries to offer new kinds of services or to revitalize an existing activity in a way that becomes more interesting and appealing to library users.
	Breeding, Marshall A Cloudy Forecast for Libraries (full text ) September 2011 This new wave of library tech products will phase in slowly. We're just now at the beginning of a product and technology cycle that will play out through the next decade. The uptake of new kinds of products can be a bit slow. Libraries tend to hold on to their automation products until the last possible moment of their usefulness. I observe only a small minority of libraries able to engage as early adopters of new technologies. The majority follow later in the product development and deployment cycle when the products have matured and pose lower thresholds of risk.
	Breeding, Marshall The Special Challenges for National Libraries (full text ) June 2011 National libraries perform some of the most interesting, important, and challenging roles and likewise are involved in some of the most fascinating uses of automation and technology. These libraries face incredibly difficult tasks associated with building, preserving, and enabling access to collections at a national level and with providing relevant services throughout a nation. While each library has its own distinct character and scope of responsibilities, there is much they have in common. For example, on the technology front, these libraries make use of some of the most sophisticated automation systems available, and this benefits all types of libraries. All libraries derive some level of benefit, either direct or indirect, from the efforts of national libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall Transformations in Academic Libraries Demand Transformed Automation Support (full text ) May 2011 A growing disconnect exists between the strategic priorities of academic libraries and the technology environments in place to support their work. Academic libraries struggle to find the most effective technologies that will help them to fulfill their missions within their larger institutions, to manage their internal operations as efficiently as possible, and to optimally deliver access to their collections and services to their users. One of the overarching concerns involves narrowing this chasm between the pressing realities of academic libraries and their supporting technologies.
	Breeding, Marshall Using Technology to Enhance a Library as Place (full text ) April 2011 Technology can play an important role in the ways that libraries make use of their physical spaces. I have seen some great examples of the ways technology can add to the vitality of a library's facilities, both in conspicuous and dazzling ways and with more subtle approaches. When I visit a library, I'm always interested to learn about how the librarians there use technology, both behind the scenes in the ways that they manage their operations or build collections and in their public spaces to enhance their patrons' experiences. Libraries today have to seek out strategies that promote stronger engagement with their users. In these times where so many public libraries face threats of budget reductions, it's important that they demonstrate vigorous use of their facilities and services and satisfy patrons who will help defend them and lend support when needed. Smart use of technology can help libraries strengthen their programs and facilities in ways that foster better services, higher patron satisfaction, and more positive perceptions.
	Breeding, Marshall Discovering Harry Potter (full text ) March 2011 In recent years, libraries have turned away from the traditional online catalog to embrace a new genre of public interfaces that go by names such as next-generation library catalogs, discovery interfaces, or discovery services. These new products aim to revitalize the stodgy online catalogs of the past to deliver to library patrons an experience of the collections and services of the library more in tune with the expectations set by the mainstream web. With increasing overlap and even competition to serve the information needs of library patrons by commercial destinations, it seems essential for libraries to offer the most compelling approaches possible for providing access to their valuable resources.
	Breeding, Marshall Preparing for the Long-Term Digital Future of Libraries (full text ) January / February 2011 Let's turn the calendar forward a decade or so and consider that libraries might face relative changes that might take place in the reading and entertainment materials that make up their collections. We can project at least some aspects of this world based on trends well underway today. Although many things could happen to impact the kinds of change and the timetables, it's important to begin thinking now about long-term library futures.
	Breeding, Marshall The Value of Libraries (full text ) December 2010 I've been fortunate to find a career in a kind of organization that makes a positive contribution to society. Of all the ways to make a living, working in a university whose mission involves teaching and research appeals to me more than other career paths. Within the university, Tve found libraries to be a great way to contribute, as well as to develop my career. The libraries of Medellin provide a powerful example of the incredible contribution that libraries can make to society.
	Breeding, Marshall Ensuring Our Digital Future (full text ) November 2010 I observe that the unique and special collections in the custody of libraries receive excellent attention and will last long into the future through both physical conservation and ever-improving digital preservation processes and infrastructure. Libraries increasingly have access to trusted digital repositories that implement the best practices available to ensure that digital materials will survive into the distant future, migrating digital content forward through continuous cycles of technology. While the current state of the art in digital preservation falls short of an ideal system that guarantees permanent survival, much has been done to address the vulnerabilities inherent in digital content.
	Breeding, Marshall Architecting New Library Frameworks (full text ) October 2010 We live in an era of social, enterprise-oriented, and increasingly cloud-based technology; a dramatic shift away from stand-alone isolated silos that previously dominated. Computing systems can flourish today only when built to easily exchange data and services. An application that stands alone may provide practical functionality but may not live up to the full needs of organizations, such as libraries, involved with complex computer needs. Most libraries today operate in partnership with a variety of other organizations, including their parent institutions such as universities, colleges, agencies, or local government; other peer libraries; and suppliers of all varieties. More importantly, library users access our services with an ever-broader array of devices - some with desktops, laptops, smartphones, or tablets and others through some intervening application such as their academic courseware system, corporate intranet, or even social networking sites such as Facebook. This reality of interconnectedness should shape the way that libraries adopt technologies as well as guide those who create software for libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall Taking the Social Web to the Next Level (full text ) September 2010 One of the ideas that I have been cultivating for the last few years involves taking the investment that libraries have made in social networking and other Web 2.0 technologies to a more sophisticated and mature stage. It's clear that social network concepts have taken strong hold throughout so many aspects of our world. Facebook and Twitter have propelled far beyond their narrow niche of tech- or mediasawy enthusiasts to the mainstream of society. From its early beginnings as a service for students from a few ivy-league universities, today, Facebook finds use by more than 400 million individuals, spanning all generations (www.facebook.com/press/info.php7statistics). Twitter claims about one-fourth as many users and pervades a wide range of interests from popular culture to big business. Linkedln and hundreds of web destinations likewise bring together communities of individuals with common interests. Social networking isn't a passing fad - it now ranks as a fundamental characteristic of successful technologies. We're at a time when libraries need to move beyond ad hoc and informal uses of social technologies and make them an essential element of the way that libraries implement technology.
	Breeding, Marshall A Time of Opportunity for the Library Programmer (full text ) June 2010 One of the most rewarding aspects of working with technology in a library involves finding ways to solve day-to-day problems and to shape its computing environment to best meet the needs of its staff and users. It’s great to find ways to support the organization in ways not necessarily possible with the out-of-the-box automation systems that comprise its official technical infrastructure. For a library to be able to extend and enhance its technical environment, it’s helpful to have one or more staff members with the ability to write or modify scripts and programs.
	Breeding, Marshall Professional Development for the Library Technologist (full text ) May 2010 The last couple of months have marked several personal milestones. I’ve had my 25year anniversary of employment at Vanderbilt University, I will soon attend my 25th Computers in Libraries conference, and I’ve been involved with this column for slightly more than 10 years. The passing of these dates calls to mind some of the strategies I have found important to building a career focused on technology in the library profession. For others either considering a career in library technology or those already in the field thinking about their next steps, I will reflect on some of the phases of my own career and offer some thoughts on what I view as helpful strategies. While I write mostly in regard to building a tech-focused career in libraries, these ideas may also apply more generally.
	Breeding, Marshall Leveraging Technology for Success in a Challenging Economy (full text ) April 2010 The global economic crisis of the past 2 years has brought harsh circumstances to most libraries, calling into question many of the ways that we allocate resources. Lean budgets force us to devise strategies that make the very most of the resources available. Many libraries face the reality of doing more with less, often much less. It seems like each week brings news of libraries forced to close branches, reduce hours, trim their work force, or reduce or eliminate new collections acquisitions. Even in the best of times it seems that libraries find themselves making due with fewer resources than optimal. I’ve rarely encountered libraries flush with generous levels of funding such that they don’t have to make painful choices among competing priorities. In recent times, this pain has been extreme. This context of libraries struggling through the economic downturn makes it necessary to consider the ways that technology can be used not only to reduce costs but, hopefully, to strengthen libraries’ standing relative to more prosperous times.
	Breeding, Marshall Can We Future-Proof Library Automation? (full text ) March 2010 Librarians today find themselves dealing with collections of ever larger proportions of electronic content. The degree to which that shift has already taken place varies from one type of library to another. Some organizations, especially those involved with specializations in biomedical, scientific, or business, may already handle electronic content almost exclusively. Each component of the collections of academic libraries may vary according to discipline. Public libraries today continue to manage printed materials in very high proportions. In the public library sector, the circulation of physical materials continues as a key activity, supplemented by increased involvement with the delivery of electronic information to users in most of the forms seen in academic libraries. Public libraries have long been in the business of providing access to ebooks, audiobooks, and other digital versions of long-form monographs. While I don’t have precise projections for the proportions of formats that will constitute public libraries in the future, I am confident in a growing shift toward electronic content while maintaining significant holdings in print for the foreseeable future. But more than anything else, I’m sure that the wheels of change we see today will turn ever faster as the years move on.
	Breeding, Marshall State of the Art in Library Discovery 2010 (full text ) January / February 2010 Resource discovery tops the charts as the foremost issue within the realm of library automation. As a new year commences, I see a more pressing need to accelerate the pace with which libraries deliver content and services in ways that our users will find compelling, relevant, and convenient. The evolution of the web advances relentlessly, and librarians have to work hard to ensure that our offerings stay reasonably competitive among the wares of the many information providers on the web. In this month’s edition of The Systems Librarian, well review the current state of discovery tools for library content and consider some of the challenges that need to be addressed this year
	Breeding, Marshall The Advance of Computing From the Ground to the Cloud (full text ) November / December 2009 A trend toward the abstraction of computing platforms that has been developing in the broader IT arena over the last few years is just beginning to make inroads into the library technology scene. Cloud computing offers for libraries many interesting possibilities that may help reduce technology costs and increase capacity, reliability, and performance for some types of automation activities. Cloud computing has made strong inroads into other commercial sectors and is now beginning to find more traction in the library technology sector.
	Breeding, Marshall Social Networking Strategies for Professionals (full text ) October 2009 Social networking brings a new dimension to the professional lives of those involved with libraries, collapsing the latency of information exchange from months or years to almost instantaneous impact. Yet it’s also hard to imagine keeping up with current trends and technologies without the continual infusion of up-to-the-second information possible through social networking sites.
	Breeding, Marshall The Elusive Cost of Library Software (full text ) September 2009 A question that I’m often asked involves how much a library should expect to pay for automation software. As much as I try to understand all the various aspects of the library automation industry, I have never been able to discover a great deal of data describing what libraries actually pay for their automation products. While I have an informal sense of initial license payment and annual support fees paid by libraries of various types and sizes, it’s based only on sketchy information.
	Breeding, Marshall Libraries Thrive Through Enterprise Computing (full text ) June 2009 Enterprise computing ranks as one of the most firmly established trends in IT over the last decade. This approach involves building a single technical infrastructure, designed as an organic whole, that spans an organization. Enterprise networks address each aspect of computing with a single industrial-strength solution, rather than having individual units within the organization each solve the same problem. Libraries gain many benefits as they shift from self-contained silos to full partners within the enterprise networks of their parent organization.
	Breeding, Marshall Moving Forward Through Tech Cycles (full text ) May 2009 It’s a given that technology changes continually. Fve been working with automation in libraries long enough to have experienced a number of major changes in technology. I started in the days of mainframe computers, which gave way to midrange systems, which were later replaced by client/server systems. Today, the preferred technology platforms involve web-based systems, service-oriented architecture, and cloud computing. These preferences in technology shall also pass and will be replaced by new approaches to computing not yet invented
	Breeding, Marshall Maximizing the Impact of Digital Collections (full text ) April 2009 Libraries have been increasingly involved in the creation of digital library collections and other content repositories. It’s not unusual at all for libraries to be involved in digitizing collections of manuscripts, photographs, newspapers, postcards, or multimedia content such as audio recordings and radio or television programming. Academic libraries have become increasingly active in building repositories of content produced within their institutions and in other aspects of publishing scholarly content as well. While books and journals - both the print and electronic variety - stand as the mainstays of library content offerings, it’s the collections of rare, historic, or local material that provide the greatest opportunity to increase the impact that the library makes on its community. These collections of nontraditional content provide the best jewels of the library, and delivering them digitally can amplify their impact tremendously.
	Breeding, Marshall Library automation in a Difficult Ecomomy (full text ) March 2009 The downturn in the economy has taken its toll on libraries. Even in the best of times, most libraries have to work with budgets that are barely adequate to support their essential activities. In these recent months, the recession has subtracted significant funds from the parent organizations of many libraries: city, county, and state governments; public and private colleges and universities; schools; and corporations. In the sphere of libraries with which I’ve interacted, some have faced drastic budget cuts, including givebacks in their current fiscal cycle; others have been more lightly touched, facing only a year or so of zero-growth budgets. I’ve not heard from any libraries that expect increases in funding on the order of what they had a year ago.
	Breeding, Marshall Opening up library automation software (full text ) February 2009 One of the major themes that I’ve observed in the recent era of the library involves the demand for more openness in all aspects of the technology infrastructure. Libraries often articulate frustration at automation systems that fail to offer adequate access to the data and functionality of their automation systems. Libraries increasingly resist rigidly closed automation products that do not provide flexible access to the data and provide ways to connect to other products. Today’s library automation environment favors systems that can deliver, in one way or another, products that break away from closed, proprietary systems to allow libraries more liberal access to their data. Open source software has caught on in a big way within the library automation arena, but we’ll see that this is not the only approach possible as libraries seek options to gain more access and control over their data and other aspects of their technology environment.
	Breeding, Marshall The growing trend toward larger-scale cooperative library automation (full text ) January 2009 As I follow the library automation arena, one of the trends that I notice involves the movement toward more libraries cooperating to share automation systems. Libraries have a long history of cooperating in order to provide improved services to their users and to reduce their costs. In my area of interest - library automation - consortia and other cooperative arrangements provide opportunities to deliver access to broader collections to library users at lower costs to participating libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall Library Technology International (full text ) November / December 2008 I’ve been extremely fortunate over the last few years to have had the opportunity to travel to many different parts of the world and speak and work with librarians in many countries. It has been great to have the chance to see firsthand some incredible libraries that demonstrate creative approaches to library services, innovative uses of technology, expansive resource sharing, and pragmatic approaches to library automation. Let me give you a quick tour.
	Breeding, Marshall Digitizing Brings New Life to Video Collections (full text ) October 2008 For the last 5 years, the Vanderbilt Television News Archve has been working to digitize its collection of national news broadcasts. In 2002, the National Science Foundation funded a 1-year project to explore technologies and methodologies that could be applied to begin recording newscasts digitally and to digitize our existing videotape collection. The Archive won two sebsequent grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize its collections of evening news and special news broadcasts.
	Breeding, Marshall Managing Resources Comprehensively (full text ) September 2008 Breeding considers some of the broader issues at play in the way that libraries manage and provide access to electronic resources versus how they manage their print collections.
	Breeding, Marshall Winning the competition for attention on the Web (full text ) June 2008 Those involved in developing library Web sites can consider a number of measures to ensure that their own site runs counter to this trend and sees increased use over time.Some helpful techniques include search engine optimization to ensure the best possible exposure in the search engines and the highest rate of delivery of users from search engine results to your Web site, help out the Search Engines through XML Sitemaps, make good use of meta tags in Web page headers, leverage social bookmarking, and use RSS to draw users to your site. But more then anything else, the key to increasing interesting your library’s Web presence involves offering compelling and interesting content. Design your site to enhance, promote, and deliver access to the library’s collections and services
	Breeding, Marshall Beyond the current generation of next-generation library interfaces: deeper search (full text ) May 2008 One of the top issues in the library automation arena in the last couple of years involves the development of a new generation of interfaces to replace online catalogs that have fallen behind the expectation of Web savvy library users. This aspect of library automation currently attracts incredible interest—almost all libraries are giving consideration to how they can bring the search tools they offer for their collections and their overall Web presence up to the level expected on the Web today. Even in this early point in the adoption cycle of new library interfaces, it’s time to press onward toward even more effective and powerful search tools. In this month’s column I’m especially interested in exploring the expansion of metadata-based search into deep search based on the full content of digitized materials.
	Breeding, Marshall Content, Community and Visibility: a winning combination (full text ) April 2008 Today’s libraries operate in a dual existence, divided between in-person and online services. In the business realm it’s not at all unusual to have brick-and-mortar establishments and to offer ecommerce on the web. Library-asplace and the delivery of excellent service to patrons visiting in person remains the heart of most libraries. I think the need to deliver the library’s content and services both physically and virtually is just part of our reality. The online presence of a library is increasingly important and demands the same degree of creative thinking and planning as that devoted to its physical facilities and activities. This month’s column explores some issues related to attracting a growing and engaged community of patrons surrounding the library’s web presence.
	Breeding, Marshall Making a Business Case for Open Source ILS (full text ) March 2008 We’re living in a phase of library automation characterized by an increased interest in open source-not just in back-end infrastructure components but also in the mission-critical business applications such as the integrated library system. Open source library automation systems, including Koha and Evergreen, have been propelled into the limelight. Recent survey data fails to corroborate broad interest that libraries are ready to adopt open source ILS. The success of early adopters of open source ILS now serve as a catalyst for others. Paths now exist with more mature systems and professional support options. As the open source movement matures, these system will need to compete on their own merits and not solely on a philosophical preference.
	Breeding, Marshall Circulation Technologies From Past to Future (full text ) February 2008 Breeding examines the circulation function of library automation, first taking a look at technologies used in the past, and then looking at some of the technologies that find use today. He discusses the interoperability available through protocols such as SIP2 and NCIP, the benefits offered through the use of RFID technologies, and how some libraries can gain efficiences through automated material handling systems. Moving in to the future, libraries need to reconceptualize this aspect of automation, looking toward solutions less compartmentalized then those in use today.
	Breeding, Marshall An analytical approach to assessing the effictiveness of Web-based resources (full text ) January 2008 In order to determine whether a site’s new service or design change has a positive or negative impact, it’s important to have a good understanding of what constitutes normal patterns of use. Sources of this data might include web server logs or the logs and statistical reports from applications such as online catalogs, search engines, federated search tools, or any other applications with interfaces that the public uses. Some of the other patterns that I look for include the average time for a user session, which individual pages get the most use, the number of items viewed per session, which pages are most used to enter the site, and which pages are common exit points. After some investigation, I eventually realized that no personally identifiable information was being recorded or transmitted and that utilizing this tool did not violate the privacy of the site’s users. For search-oriented applications such as online catalogs and digital repositories, you can study the percentage of searches that produce no results and the ones that return too many.
	Breeding, Marshall It's Time to Break the Mold of the Original ILS (full text ) November / December 2007 Breeding anticipates that the next cycle of library automation developments will focus more on the ILS, but hopefully in a completely redefined form. The basic structure of today’s ILS was cast more than 20 years ago. The next generation of library automation systems needs to be designed to match the workflows of today’s libraries, which manage both digital and print resources. In order to provide efficient and effective support, the software needs to be designed around the processes and tasks that meet the goals of the organization. The current slate of ILS products works on many assumptions about library workflows that have long since changed. The next generation would benefit from a thorough re-examination of the day-to-day work that takes place inside libraries.
	Breeding, Marshall The Birth of a New Generation of Library Interfaces (full text ) October 2007 A new vision of library interfaces has emerged, and it’s more in tune with current Web technologies and user expectations. It’s broader in scope, takes advantage of search technologies and techniques that are closer to the state-of-the-art, and offers more dynamic interactions with library users. A new genre of software is being defined, and it may displace the traditional online public access catalog. Today’s environment of diverse resources demands a library interface that spans many different sources and types of content.
	Breeding, Marshall Librarians face online social networks (full text ) September 2007 Breeding provides an introduction to onine social networking using Facebook as an example that my be of interest to libraries. Facebook.com, originally established as a site for college students, has recently burst beyond its roots and captured broad interest. In academic libraries, Facebook plays a part in the lives of almost all of our student clientele. The more that library professionals use social networking environments like Facebook, the more that they will discover good ways to use it to improve library services and to expand their outreach.
	Breeding, Marshall The sun sets on Horizon (full text ) June 2007 SirsiDynix announced that it had discontinued development of Horizon and would consolidate its future ILS efforts on Unicorn. Events such as SirsiDynix’s decision to consolidate to a single product cause a great deal of uncertainty and disruption for libraries and detract from the trust that’s necessary for a successful relationship between a library and its automation products supplier. SirsiDynix faces a large challenge in shoring up the trust with the Dynix/Horizon half of its customer base. The prompt delivery of truly outstanding replacement products is the only salve that will heal the wound.
	Breeding, Marshall We Need to Go Beyond Web 2.0 (full text ) May 2007 Web 2.0 risks hampering the true potential of the Web by casting a particular approach or subset of technologies as preferred and neglecting others that may have higher strategic value. While the technologies branded as Web 2.0 represent a positive step in the evolution of the Web, they are but an incremental shift in a much larger continuum of progress. Web 2.0 has become a trendy marketing concept. The emerging generation of interfaces sports much-needed improvements such as relevancy ranking, faceted navigation, visual search, user tagging, and results delivered through RSS. It’s even more important to go beyond superficial user interface features and to develop library automation technologies that fully embrace the architecture associated with Web 2.0 and beyond, that of Web services and the service-oriented architecture.
	Breeding, Marshall Thinking About Your Next OPAC (full text ) April 2007 We’re seeing a tremendous amount of effort being put toward creating new library interfaces, both by the commercial automation vendors and in the open source arena. Each of these endeavors focuses on a different set of assumptions, features, and functions related to the ideal library Web environment, but each of them advances the state of the catalog far beyond what we’ve seen in the previous round of offerings. Characteristics of the new generation of library interfaces include: relevance ranking, faceted navigation, search result clustering, breadcrumb trails, and a faster, more comprehensive search environment.
	Breeding, Marshall An Update on Open Source ILS (full text ) March 2007 While open source software has flourished for a number of years for infrastructure-level components, it has not gained a stronghold in the library automation arena. The overwhelming majority of library automaton software is offered through commercial companies as propriety, closed-source software. Though that continues to be true, in the last few years some viable open source integrated library systems have emerged to challenge the commercial offerings. While Breeding still doesn’t expect open source to become the dominant model for library automation software anytime in the near future, he expects the numbers to continue to increase much faster than we’ve seen in the past.
	Breeding, Marshall Working toward transparency in library automation (full text ) February 2007 Breeding asserts the need for transparency with regard to the automation systems used in libraries. Librarians need to have access to information about the financial interests of the companies they do business with. As librarians make decisions regarding automation software and services, they should have convenient access to information about how other libraries have done in similar circumstances. The library automation arena stands at the cusp of several important changes. Industry consolidation, strategic acquisitions by major private equity firms, and breakthroughs in open source library automation stand to effect significant changes over the next few years. Now is the time to gather data and to closely track the trends so that librarians will be well informed and better prepared to deal with the changes that lie ahead.
	Breeding, Marshall Spam Wars: the battle of the formbots (full text ) January 2007 There seems to be no end to spam, phishing, viruses, worms, and other malicious activity. Much of the spam out there relates to phishing and identity theft, which causes economic and personal damage to its victims. Fill-in Web forms have become the favorite targets of spammers for the last year or so. It’s often necessary to implement a captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing) in order to deterring formbots. The battle against the purveyors of spam and other forms of attack on the Internet continues. While we’ve looked at some small tricks that help in the current round, we can be sure that it’s good only for the short term. The main point is to stay vigilant, monitor the threats of the day, and implement the appropriate security responses. While time and resources for library systems always seem to be stretched too thin, we can’t afford to neglect important security issues.
	Breeding, Marshall Technology for the next generation (full text ) November / December 2006 It’s important for libraries to understand how persons from the millennial generation deal with information if we are to succeed in delivering our services to them. To appeal to millennials, library interfaces need to have: more intuitive library interfaces, relevancy ranking, improved search models, more digital content, and better coherency. Millennials have less of a tolerance for slow, nonintuitive, and unattractive Web sites and will quickly turn to other sources if the library’s doesn’t meet their expectations.
	Breeding, Marshall Knitting systems together (full text ) October 2006 While the specifics vary from one library to another, these systems and their associated databases serve as an example of the intricacy of managing and providing access to complex collections with both physical and digital components. In contrast to the earlier, more monolithic approach, the various applications in the modern library environment operate in a loosely coupled, often nonintegrated way. The functionality involved in managing electronic resources has been addressed by the development of separate products rather than as evolutionary extensions to the existing ILS architecture. The library’s environment must be seamless and simple for patrons to navigate. When implementing the multiple components necessary for managing and delivering both print and electronic content, it is important to avoid redundant work and counterproductive work flows. The modern environment of complex collections and the multiple products to manage and provide access to those collections place the librarian in the role of systems integrator. We have to select, configure, and administer a number of applications to create an environment that meets user expectations.
	Breeding, Marshall High-Tech, low power: how to reduce computer-related energy costs (full text ) September 2006 Breeding offer suggestions on ways to reduce the amount of energy consumed by library computers. Reducing energy consumption not only makes sense from the environmental perspective, but it’s increasingly a major budget concern. In order to save power, PCs need to be off when not in active use. That’s no longer in question. This practice reduces energy consumption, saves money, and extends computer and monitor life. While the benefit for a single PC may be small, the aggregate effect among all the computers in an organization can yield measurable, even significant, savings.
	Breeding, Marshall Comprehensive cost planning yields successful tech projects (full text ) June 2006 It is important to consider all the cost components of a technology project. At least some of the costs may be hidden, and it’s easy to overlook them. Trying to anticipate all the cost implications of a technology-related project is common sense. The total cost of ownership model can be applied to library technology projects. TCO just reminds us to think broadly and long-term. You don’t have to be an economist to incorporate this broader view into the budget projections of a library technology project proposal.
	Breeding, Marshall Web 2.0? Let's get to Web 1.0 first (full text ) May 2006 It seems that everyone is talking about Web 2.0. This new vision of the Web enables greater interactivity, more user control of information, radical personalization, the development of online communities, and more democratic management of information. Supporting technologies include blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, tagging, XML, and Web services. Today, there’s an uneven deployment of Web technologies in libraries. On the one hand, I see many well-designed Web sites that deliver library services to users. Lots of these sites already embrace many aspects of Web 2.0.1 also see a large number of libraries that either have no Web site at all or that try to get by with a site that’s underdeveloped and not able to meet the expectations of the current generation of Web users.
	Breeding, Marshall How we funneled searchers from Google to our collections by catering to Web crawlers (full text ) April 2006 To reach more potential users, we needed to expose the content of our database to the open Web and allow Google and other crawlers to harvest and index it. The goal was to seed as much information into Google as possible and to design a path that would lead users through the front door of our Web site. To achieve this, The Vanderbilt Television News Archive implemented an automated system to facilitate the harvesting and indexing of its metadata in a controlled way in order to increase the number of visitors to its Web site funnelled through Google and the other search engines.
	Breeding, Marshall Musings on the state of the ILS in 2006 (full text ) March 2006 While librarians may quibble about how any given piece of functionality works, one cannot deny the extensive capabilities of the major ILS products, especially for the treatment of traditional library materials. [Editor’s Note: see the Nov./Dec. 2005 issue of CIL for our Helping You Buy installment on ERM.] These systems provide a specialized application for managing electronic subscriptions, which involve a number of additional complexities not applicable to print content. Marshall Breeding is the library technology officer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and a consultant, speaker, and writer in the field of library automation.
	Breeding, Marshall Addicted to Data (full text ) February 2006 All of these, including a directory of the companies that produce library automation software, a bibliographic database of literature of the field, and a full-text archive of news releases and announcements from all the automation companies, are related to library automation in some way. lib-web-cats functions as a standalone directory of libraries, but its primary purpose is to help me track the automation systems used in libraries throughout the world. The NCES listings come with basic information, such as the library’s name, organization, and address, but they lack the info I track in lib-web-cats, such as the URLs of the libraries’ Web sites and online catalogs and various details regarding their library automation environments.
	Breeding, Marshall Designing Web sites for distributed content (full text ) January 2006 Library Technology Guides, a Web site that I created and maintain to provide access to information related to library automation, and Abzu, a guide to information on the Web related to the study of the ancient Near East, offer quite different types of information, but they share a similar technology platform-a content management system that I have been developing over the course of the last 6 or 7 years. From the perspective of layered technical components, the search options specified in the link are passed to the Web server through the standard CGI (common gateway interface) as name/ value pairs, which are parsed by a Perl script and translated into a database query statement expressed in SQL.
	Breeding, Marshall Unconventional and innovative: the Open Croquet Project (full text ) November/December 2005 Although computer technology appears to advance quickly, it seems that most of the progress lies in speeding up or adding features to existing hardware or software components. Here, Breeding describes the unconventional and innovative Open Croquet Project.
	Breeding, Marshall Analyzing Web server logs to improve a site's usage (full text ) October 2005 With his involvement as systems librarian with Vanderbilt University’s Television News Archive, Breeding says that the effectiveness of the TV News Archive’s Web site can ultimately be measured in the number of successful searches that are performed and the quantity of videotape requests that are placed. He discusses the methods of analysis available to study the usage of the site, which are necessary to identify any problems and to make improvements to its use and visibility.
	Breeding, Marshall The new landscape of the automation business (full text ) September 2005 The Big news that broke just before this year’s ALA Annual Conference, which was held June 25-28 in Chicago, was the acquisition of Dynix by rival Sirsi. The combined company, Sirsi-Dynix, is by far the largest in the library automation industry. Here, Breeding discusses the new landscape of the automation business.
	Breeding, Marshall Building trust through secure Web sites (full text ) June 2005 Electronic commerce transactions that require the exchange of money and/or sensitive information require a very high level of trust between the consumer and the company that is offering its services on the Web. Here, Breeding discusses some basic components that one can employ to strengthen one’s sites security to help one earns one’s patrons’ trust.
	Breeding, Marshall Looking toward the future of library technology (full text ) May 2005 Breeding makes some forecasts about what might play out in the next few years as he observes the current state of the art in library automation. One could argue that library automation cannot and should not exist as an independent endeavor. Rather, it needs to be tightly integrated with the other business systems of an organization.
	Breeding, Marshall Reflecting on 20 Years of Library Technology (full text ) April 2005 Breeding relates that his career in the Vanderbilt University Libraries that span 20 years has taught him a few successful strategies. Here, he shares a few lessons that he learned including seeing the big picture by maintaining a broad awareness of the key trends and the latest hardware and software developments.
	Breeding, Marshall Implementing wireless networks without compromising security (full text ) Mar 2005 Breeding examines the details underlying each of the basic networking concepts and understanding the security issues involved with wireless networks (Wi-Fi). Among other things, Wi-Fi offers great benefits to which library users increasingly have the interest and the means to take advantage of this technology.
	Breeding, Marshall Plotting a new course for metasearch (full text ) Feb 2005 Breeding discusses the limitations of distributed search and the advantages of centralized search, which are the competing approaches of metasearch. He also weighs on what approach should library-oriented metasearch products rely on.
	Breeding, Marshall Re-Integrating the integrated library system (full text ) Jan 2005 Breeding discusses the integration and cohesiveness of the automation environment that enable librarians to deal with the better and new world of Web-based electronic content. Among others, he also stresses the historical roots of the integrated library system.
	Breeding, Marshall Now that it's all digital, where do I put it? exploring data storage technologies (full text ) Nov/Dec 2004 Breeding explores data storage technologies. Among other things, optical storage solutions include optical discs that have taken over as the preferred media for portable storage.
	Breeding, Marshall Wireless networks connect libraries to a mobile society (full text ) October 2004 Today, mobile wireless computing seems to be expanding quickly beyond the domain of the professional business class; it’s being adopted by computer users of all kinds, from geeks to grandmothers. In an era where the entire service industry seems to be Web-based, it’s becoming increasingly inconvenient to be disconnected.
	Breeding, Marshall Custom applications that power the Vanderbilt Television News Archive (full text ) Sept 2004 Building a customized application lies in selecting the right technical components for the project and using a modular programming technique. Here, Breeding relates how he has performed his responsibility in Vanderbilt Television News Archive and shares some tips in building customized applications in news archiving.
	Breeding, Marshall Platform evolution: from dumb terminals to PCs to the Web and beyond (full text ) Jun 2004 The advancements in computing power and communications speed are impressive, it is even more amazing to consider the enormous expansion of information that libraries make available to their users relative to earlier times. Here, Breeding shares that twenty years ago, libraries struggle to provide a basic online catalog to their users, but now the key automation issues revolve around dealing with information overload and providing users with tools to effectively search a vast array of information.
	Breeding, Marshall The trend toward outsourcing the ILS: recognizing the benefits of shared systems (full text ) May 2004 Breeding talks about the lib-web-cats directory, which does not only offer the general public an easy way to find libraries on the Web, but also provides trend data for studying library automation. The database tracks each library’s current automation system, any previous ones, and the years in which these systems were implemented. It also records whether the library implements its own automation system, gains access through a consortium, or relies on its automation vendor to host its system.
	Breeding, Marshall Protecting personal information (full text ) April 2004 Libraries are confronting new challenges and privacy concerns regarding protecting the privacy of users and staff. Breeding shares his personal perspectives on the need for librarians and other library personnel to simultaneously preserve patron privacy, protect networks against security threats, and defend users from spam, scams, and identity theft. He says that it takes a proactive effort to ensure that the technical operation of various systems within the library’s environment is consistent with the library’s policies and expectations regarding patron privacy.
	Breeding, Marshall The challenge of integration (full text ) March 2004 Breeding comments that using the Web should be easy and libraries should offer simple information-retrieval interface so that users will not transfer elsewhere. He also adds that providing consistency among the basic pages of the libraries Web site and the pages generated by each library application will create a unified Web Presence for the library.
	Breeding, Marshall Essential elements of a library Web site (full text ) February 2004 In today’s world, a library’s presence on the Web ranks only slightly behind its building in shaping its user’s impressions. Library Web sites do an impressive job of representing the library in a positive and effective way. Breeding offers some of his observations and tips on issues that strike as essential elements of a library Web site.
	Breeding, Marshall The many facets of managing electronic resources (full text ) January 2004 As libraries build ever-larger collections of electronic resources, finding ways to manage them efficiently becomes a major challenge. Managing these electronic resources involves providing the library’s user with convenient ways to find and access them and providing staff with tools to keep track of them. Two fundamental aspects in managing electronic resources: back-end acquisition functions and front-end content delivery, are discussed.
	Breeding, Marshall Instant messaging: it's not just for kids anymore (full text ) November / December 2003 Breeding discusses the significance of instant messaging (IM) in communication today. By anyone’s definition, IM counts as "hip technology" and although it rides on technological components, IM is really about an interactive style of electronic conversations, replete with its own linguistic conventions.
	Breeding, Marshall The right technology: no-tech, low-tech, or high-tech (full text ) October 2003 Breeding discusses the importance of considering the right technology as a solution to problems encountered by the systems librarian. He cites that technology is not always the answer to all problems, and that less is usually better and simplicity wins over complexity.
	Breeding, Marshall ILS update from ALA/CLA 2003 (full text ) September 2003 The American Library Association Annual Conference usually provides the best opportunity to gather comprehensive information about the library automation industry. This year’s ALA/Canadian Library Association joint conference suffered from bad luck, with many potential attendees kept away because of concerns related to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
	Breeding, Marshall Building a digital library of television news (full text ) June 2003 Breeding comments on his latest project, the creation of a large-scale digital collection of video content from the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. He shares the different phases of his project and offers the various costs and challenges during the development.
	Breeding, Marshall Defending your ILS against security threats (full text ) May 2003 Breeding discusses how to defend a library’s integrated library system (ILS) against security threats. A list of top 10-server security tips designed to protect ILS is offered.
	Breeding, Marshall Ramblings on the current library automation scene (full text ) April 2003 Breeding discusses the corporate trends in the library automation industry, as well as the level of functionality available in the major automation systems. Library computer systems upgrades are opted to avail of the improved and user-friendly Web searching features. The standards of meta-searching capabilities of online topical searching have to be enhanced and a dynamic link using the OpenURL specification has to be developed.
	Breeding, Marshall Benchmarking technology: A theory of penultimacy (full text ) March 2003 Breeding discusses the theory of penultimacy, the principle of choosing "second to the last" technologies. Buying a notch down from the top computer equipments could provide best possible technology for libraries at the lowest cost, though, thorough study of available options is still important. The cycle of technology development is described.
	Breeding, Marshall Protecting your library's data (full text ) February 2003 As long as Breeding has been managing technology in libraries, one of his main concerns has always been ensuring that libraries manage their data well. In his experience, the only effective way to manage library data involves using network servers.
	Breeding, Marshall What you can expect from The Systems Librarian (full text ) January 2003 Breeding discusses the job description and requirements of a systems librarian. A systems librarian may not always be a true librarian, they can also be network managers or automation specialists.
	Breeding, Marshall Know your users: monitoring the use of your website (full text ) December 2002
	Breeding, Marshall Using the lib-web-cats directory (full text ) November 2002 The lib-web-cats directory is mainly used by the general public to find libraries and their catalogs on the Web, but it also serves as a tool for tracking automation systems. The newly redesigned site (www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats) is a completely voluntary, nonprofit endeavor, maintained to support the author’s interest in library automation and to provide a service to those who find it useful. As an academic discipline, library automation has few devotees lately. It is more of a practical interest that comes to the fore when one gets involved in selecting a new system. That is when a tool like lib-web-cats is especially helpful.
	Breeding, Marshall An update on Open Source ILS (full text ) October 2002
	Breeding, Marshall The never-ending battle against spam (full text ) October 2002 The spam problem threatens the overall usefulness of e-mail. When one has to spend large amounts of time browsing through hundreds of worthless, unwanted, and even offensive messages just to find the few that are important, the efficiency of e-mail is significantly compromised. Some tips on how to avoid spam are presented, such as keeping e-mail addresses away from spammers’ sight and offer only the essential information when conducting online transactions.
	Breeding, Marshall The challenges of converting to digital video (full text ) July / August 2002
	Breeding, Marshall The benefits of library partnerships (full text ) June 2002
	Breeding, Marshall Digital preservation: building digital collections that will outlast current technologies (full text ) May 2002
	Breeding, Marshall The Open Archives Initiative (full text ) April 2002 One of the most interesting recent developments in the digital library arena involves the Open Archives Initiative (OAI). Developed only within the last few years, many of the major players in digital libraries and scholarly communications have lent strong support to this new approach to information discovery, search, and retrieval. While still in the early phases of its deployment, we can see this initiative gaining significant momentum, and will likely be a key piece of the future digital library landscape.
	Breeding, Marshall The Benefits of Wireless Technologies (full text ) March 2002 Marshall Breeding presents an overview of wireless applications and discusses some of their library-specific uses
	Breeding, Marshall Expanding the systems librarian's toolkit (full text ) January 2002 Marshall Breeding gives a backgrounder on Perl and suggests that librarians who are interested in developing their technical skills might want to learn this language to gain programming experience.
	Breeding, Marshall OCLC announces the demise of SiteSearch (full text ) July/August 2001 Marshall Breeding discusses OCLC’s impending discontinuation of the SiteSearch suite of products and speculates on the implications for its users
	Breeding, Marshall Offering remote access to restricted resources (full text ) May 2001 Authentication, authorization, and proxy are the keys to success.
	Breeding, Marshall Perking up library applications (full text ) December 2000 Marshall Breeding gives a crash course on Java and explains what it is, what it does, and how it works in the library environment.
	Breeding, Marshall Need information about libraries? (full text ) July / August 2000 Marshall Breeding describes how he created lib-web-cats, a database of libraries, for his university’s library system.
	Breeding, Marshall The battle for bandwidth (full text ) May 2000 THE SYSTEMS LIBRARIAN column discusses the lack of adequate bandwidth to support library applications, and some recent developments that exacerbate the problem. Says that there is a need for libraries to have sufficient Internet bandwidth to support the information services they provide to their users. Notes that most libraries have become increasingly dependent on the Internet, and it is strategically important to provide sufficient bandwidth for these services. Describes bandwidth-hungry applications, including those that distribute MP3 files. Relates that networks have used filters to block them, and users have become more aggressive in defying these efforts. Advises libraries to plan their acquisitions of Internet-based resources in coordination with proportional increases in bandwidth, and to be prepared to lobby for increased bandwidth to support the library’s operation.
	Breeding, Marshall Helping us keep track of it all (full text ) March 2000 See how Web-enabled databases can make for smarter work~THE SYSTEMS LIBRARIAN column focuses on a project that might be of practical use to a systems librarian or to someone managing a systems office. Says that author chose this project to write about because it involves exciting technology - Web-enabled databases - and practical experience the author has gained by providing support for the Vanderbilt University libraries. Explains how the library technology team developed a Web-based problem-tracking system (PTS) and the features needed to make it effective. Notes that the technical portion of PTS consists of a database that holds information about each task, Web forms for retrieving information, Perl scripts that process the requests, and a piece of middleware that allows information in the database to be presented on the Web. Says that the project is just one example that demonstrates how useful Web-enabled databases can be.
	Breeding, Marshall epixtech: a new beginning for ALS (full text ) January 2000 Ameritech Library Services (ALS) has been sold. It has undergone a major transition from being a subsidiary of Ameritech—a large telecommunications corporation—to that of a privately owned company. On November 5, Ameritech announced the sale of its ALS division to a pair of investment companies, the 21st Century Group, LLC, and Green Leaf Ridge Co., LLC.

Maintained by Marshall Breeding

Copyright 1994-2024