Librarians and their vendors have created a tougher world for themselves, with interoperability the only solution No one intended to dismantle the integrated library system (ILS). For 25 years, the ILS proved a trusty tool for solving everyday library problems. First loosely integrated, then more fully so, it finally arrived at a plateau of innovation, until the early 1990s, when librarians cautiously embraced the web as their new gateway to information. Inevitably, the old technology of the ILS clashed with new web technologies. The web creates opportunities, challenges, and expectations that are fueling the changes in the ILS. Librarians are dismantling systems, and creating new modules, out of frustration with the inflexible and nonextensible technology of their proprietary systems. Vendors are also creating standalone products both to harness newer technologies and capture or invent new market shares. In the newly dismantled library system, many expect that new modules will communicate with old ones, products from different vendors will work together, and a suite of existing standards will make distributed systems seem transparently whole. But in an ironic twist, most of the touted interoperability is between a vendor's own modules (sometimes) or between a library's homegrown solutions and its own ILS (sometimes). Today, interoperability in library automation is more myth than reality. Some of us wonder if we may lose more than we gain in this newly dismantled world.

More alike than not

Choosing a new ILS is a lot like choosing a rental car. Like the ubiquitous four-door sedan, any ILS is going to get you where you need to go. Vendors wish that greater recognition of this even playing field would result in easier selection processes. The Request for Proposal (RFP) hasn't changed to reflect the similarities among integrated systems and requires retooling to uncover the qualities that distinguish one vendor from another, such as new products and alliances. As Patrick Sommers, CEO of Sirsi Corporation, says, "If we can be competitive with our ILS offerings and then truly differentiate ourselves through excellent customer service, new products, and a powerful vision, we win." To maintain a competitive advantage takes work, as is evidenced by continuing ILS software upgrades and fierce competition for new name sales. Larger ILS vendors restructure monolithic software code to attempt to meet customer demand. Sometimes this means layering new interfaces on top of existing database structures, like a relational database management system (RDBMS) on top of software code. Endeavor Information Systems took the research library world by storm in the mid-1990s with its Voyager system that worked with the Oracle RDBMS. Before long, Oracle was in almost every academic RFP. Jerry Kline, president and CEO of Innovative Interfaces, argues that achieving the "same intellectual logic" that went into older systems is the key. This was the strategy behind Innovative's new Millennium system, a Java-based front end to Innovative's ILS. This approach leveraged new technology while not leaving behind users of Innovative's text-based system, INNOPAC. Innovative's approach makes sense when you think of any ILS - even a new one - as a legacy system. If the core functionality of the traditional ILS has not changed, then there is little sense in rebuilding the business logic and workflow. If the vendor can rebuild using the same business logic, while simultaneously allowing either more interoperability or tighter integration with third-party products, then so much the better.

Starting over

Whenever one tinkers with either the back or front end of such a sophisticated system, there is a temptation to start from scratch. This can be daunting, even crippling. DRA's Taos, a large-scale attempt to rewrite an integrated system, ultimately failed. Bought by the Sirsi Corporation in 2001, it was discontinued in favor of Sirsi's longstanding Unicorn system. Not only is creating a completely new ILS unrealistic, but Roland Dietz, Endeavor's president and CEO, suggests that even "incremental functionality improvements [to existing systems] are more and more expensive." Moreover, libraries no longer want to search myriad information silos but desire one-stop search and retrieval. They no longer serve 300 - 400 users in a controlled environment but thousands of users over the web. "Scalability is not a trivial thing," Dietz adds. Nevertheless, some companies have reinvented themselves with new software. Bill Schickling, president and CEO of GIS Information Systems, Inc., (formerly Gaylord Information Systems), states that "we did start over with the latest technology to meet the changing needs of libraries." GIS has been successful in offering public libraries tightly integrated core functionality in its Polaris product.

Beyond status quo

Some librarians and vendors may be comfortable with the plateau of ILS features and functionality. Other librarians have decided that these systems don't satisfy Internet-savvy end users, while other vendors have decided that reliance on maintenance revenue alone is a short-sighted business model. Librarians are also motivated to seek solutions because of healthy competition with peers and disparate information resources. When libraries try to meet new needs with technology, such as federated searching, their ILS can rarely answer the call. Libraries are forced to look at new technology and create a solution themselves or purchase a standalone product. "Innovation will have to come via integration with new technology," insists Trevor Dykstra, manager of operations for InfoVision's AmLib. Without exception, every ILS vendor says that new products - whether standalone or loosely integrated through interoperability - respond to newer and better technologies. While incremental changes to the traditional ILS continue, new products and services now drive vendor development and wow librarians at trade shows. Portals, metasearch tools, reference linking software, radio frequency identification tags (RFIDs), and digital asset management systems now dominate the world of library automation. Automation vendors have their own strong motivations to create products outside of the ILS: new revenue streams. With new standalone modules, such as reference linking or electronic resource management (ERM) systems, vendors can market their products to new customers. Finally, some products, such as portal software and digital asset management systems, can be sold to nontraditional customers, such as municipal government agencies, museums, or corporations. Libraries will benefit from these new solutions, and many will choose to purchase the products from their ILS vendor, with whom there is often a strong relationship. But standalone products bring with them a host of new issues, especially price and interoperability (see "The Chicken and the Egg," below).

Better costs more

When you think of programmer hours as dollars, even the open source community would agree that better costs more. A dismantled system can lead to sticker shock. Built on newer - and, thus, more expensive - technologies, the pricing for standalone modules is as divorced from the cost structure of the traditional ILS as it is from the ILS's aging technology. Products for statistical analysis, reference linking and metasearch, ERM, or digital asset management are priced both to generate their own maintenance revenue and pay off the partners that provide the bulk of the technology. These alliances with third-party software and service vendors are now so commonplace in the industry that Sirsi's Sommers contends "they are critical to the success of this business." But alliances reduce profit margins. Libraries don't pay enough for their ILS. Compared with fees for other technologies - relational database management systems, server hardware and software, desktop replacement cycles - ILS maintenance fees are cheap. However, librarians' resistance to paying for development is often cited for the lack of technological advancement within the traditional ILS. Today, the bargain is over. Many librarians have already accepted this financial sea change - whether purchasing new standalone modules with more modern pricing and maintenance costs or building and supporting their own technology - even if few acknowledge it.

Innovator's irony

Several well-intentioned research libraries attempted over the past decade to build web-based solutions to the problems ILS didn't satisfy. Their efforts, like those of their vendors, rely on new technology. Examples of new services are numerous: course management systems, MyLibrary portal interfaces, subject guides, dynamic web page generation of electronic resources, PC management systems, journal lists, licensing databases, and accounting systems. Hardly any of these systems completely integrate with the legacy system. Libraries are forced to take these standalone products they have created or bought and hack access to the main system through use of APIs, clever Perl scripting, and scheduled server jobs that only mimic true interoperability. This frustration has driven some vendors to reassess their core business model. In January, Dynix Corporation released a new vision document that attempts to reposition its Horizon system as a "platform" for library automation applications. "The vendor should not limit what customers can do with new products based on technical constraints of the standard ILS," document author and VP for global marketing Mark Calkins says. By redefining the ILS as an applications platform, Dynix hopes to offer better integration with third-party systems while simultaneously giving librarians better interoperability tools. Some of the best ideas in online library services have come not from vendors but from librarians themselves (see "Home-Grown Solutions," below). Open source software (OSS) has offered libraries the freedom to experiment with, develop, and offer innovative services. Nonetheless, a full-scale OSS library system that would work for the largest institutions has yet to emerge. Efforts like Koha have success with only the most basic functionality. Even a full-blown open source ILS would only get libraries back to where they started in functionality. The dollars saved would need to be invested in technical support and documentation. The new system may need to be dismantled again to attain interoperability with commercial modules. Libraries are not strategically placed to maintain developmental alliances with other automation vendors to reintegrate their disparate systems.

Interoperable library systems

However impractical as a complete solution, the open source movement has demonstrated the value of open standards and protocols. Through XML, web services, OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting), librarians believe they can create interoperability among systems, whether vendors' or their own. Before interoperability can rescue libraries, however, the vendors need to redirect their efforts. Not only has ILS technology reached its plateau, but the market itself is almost completely saturated. The glory days of new name sales in the 1990s have ended. Moreover, with smaller standalone modules, the profit margins are smaller. "We spend too much time fighting over small market share points, bludgeoning each other only to result in no significant profit and certainly a loss of opportunity to move the profession forward," says Carl Grant, president of VTLS. "Vendors and librarians together must recognize this." Our future, like our past, lies in integration. Maintaining standalone modules with loosely integrated or moderately interoperable functions is too expensive for libraries. This is why libraries sought integrated systems in the first place. XML, web services, OpenURL, OAI-PMH, and the rapid development and approval of new standards are the true hope for the ILS. Perhaps we'll come to call them interoperable library systems, or even integrated library services. Grant calls them "intelligent library services." Vendors are already using standards and protocols to build logical relationships with course management vendors (Blackboard and WebCT), accounting and HR systems (PeopleSoft), and authentication tools (LDAP, EZProxy, and Shibboleth). If vendors can build interoperability with these systems, then they can become interoperable with each other and with local library systems. Library vendors have two choices. They can continue to maintain large systems that use proprietary methods of interoperability and promise tight integration of services for their customers. Or, they can choose to dismantle their modules in such a way that librarians can reintegrate their systems through web services and standards, combining new with the old modules as well as the new with each other. "Library systems are changing because library assets are changing," argues Verne Coppi, Endeavor's VP for development. But as he also suggests, this does not mean that several standalone modules represent a long-term solution. "Reintegration is inevitable," he says. In the end, it may be necessary for librarians and vendors to dismantle the ILS in order to rebuild it.

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Andrew K. Pace (andrew_pace@ncsu.edu) is Head, Systems, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh