Library ILS Lecture

1. Watch the MediaSite video of the lecture on “Library ILS” and post your thoughts on your blog.

NOTE: ILS stands for Integrated Library System

Open Source ILS vs. Proprietary ILS

It was nice to *see* some other SLIS students and get an idea of what a classroom looks like and how the lectures are recorded.

I like listening to the comments from the students and how Dr. Roland is eager for input about things he didn’t know about such as the WorldCat link that takes users to a website where they can buy the book they were looking for. It is unreasonable to expect anyone to have up-to-date knowledge of features that come and go so quickly and it is through these discussions that we all can gain insight.

If I were setting up an ILS at our library from the beginning, i.e., if we were just now moving away from cards and written ledgers, I would pursue using an open source ILS such as Evergreen or Koha. As we already have an OPAC, I’m not sure I would change due to the convenience of continuing with what we have. Our current OPAC, Follett Destiny, certainly has some positive aspects and seems to work very well for school libraries. I do have some issues with Destiny and since it is proprietary, I am extremely limited with what I can do to acquire the features I desire. Typically, all I can do is wait for an update and hope it has what I want. I am not yet privy to our budget but when and if that time comes, I will still keep an open mind about open source ILSs especially if we feel a need to redirect funds. In that case, the time and trouble spent to convert to a new ILS may be worth the cost savings.

Although I have some nitpicks with Destiny, it does seem like a “good enough” solution for our library. I have come to believe that some of what I perceived as weaknesses are actually due to inadequate cataloging related to what a modern OPAC can do for patrons. Many of our materials are cataloged to a bare minimum necessary find the item’s call number if you already know the title or author but they lack rich subject tags or the proper entries required to allow the OPAC to actively link to all of the materials written by a specific author. Furthermore, many records do not use the correct authority file so it further makes materials difficult to link together. Fixing these catalog entries is very labor intensive and the relative benefit is small so it is difficult to justify spending much time but it is important to realize that some collocation issues we face may be less related to our OPAC software itself and more related to our catalog records themselves.

One Search

I am very interested in the list included in the following slide. I think that each of these points would be of great benefit to me as a library user and surely I am not alone.

In our OPAC, we have a feature called One Search and it does go partway towards #1 in the slide although it only searches databases or encyclopedias that we have already set up to work with it so it doesn’t search *everything* and *everywhere*. However, I think this is mostly good for our students. They tend to need help narrowing down from broad Google searches to narrower and more reliable information sources and these partially curated One Search results are useful to them.

Google search already does all of the things in the list from the slide. I truly do have concerns about Google or any company maintaining so much personal information but it seems that Google will be an important part of the future and although their ultimate goal is to make money, so far they have done a wonderful service to the world in making increasing amounts of data and information available to people who want to find it. At this point I’m much more concerned about what governments do and will do with my information than I am with what Google does and will do with my information.