2
Feb

Low investment – a serious force for change in library automation?

Posted by admin

The Libraries Agency’s David Lindley was kind enough to allow me to attend the Manchester leg of his travelling road show to see what’s hot and what’s not in the world of library technology. He even invited me to say a few words about RFID (as if I might be able to confine myself to a few words!) following Intellident’s presentation.

A series of half hour talks included one from Nicky Parker – now tasked with transforming rather more than Manchester’s Library Service.

Nicky’s presentation included an obvious enthusiasm for what Danish libraries have achieved with RFID that was both heartening but also a little worrying. I have heard other UK librarians talk excitedly about what the Danes can do with RFID technology, only for them then to discover that it isn’t so much the technology that makes the difference. It’s the way Danish libraries worked together. Her other message – that librarians need to start thinking corporately – was received and well understood by the audience.

Even though I missed the chance to speak to Nicky – one of my reasons for going to Manchester- I’m really glad I attended the event.  It made me realise how fast things are changing – especially in that slightly uneasy space where RFID and LMS meet.

The two presentations that made the most impact on me featured Civica and Intellident. Although both strongly affirmed their partnership it is becoming clear that there is considerable overlap in their ambitions for libraries.

First up were Civica. Simon Parkes told us, Obama like, that “change is coming” and that we must begin to “think the unthinkable”. The “unthinkable” seems, in part at least, to involve Civica quite a bit. Spurning the opportunity to tell us much about “one of the world’s leading library products” he elected instead to focus on the changing role of the public library.

He’s not wrong of course – and probably wise to concentrate on the “libraries as a service hub” idea. In this model the library will become a delivery point for other council services as well as fulfilling their traditional role as purveyors of knowledge, wit and learning. Some of these services might even be provided by Civica…

This is not really new – in terms of the buildings at least – but now it’s also about the systems. And that’s where it starts to get really quite exciting.

Civica laid great emphasis on the lack of service integration within most local authorities. In a Civica enabled authority everything links up. What it doesn’t do though is link up with any library not using Spydus. The wider world sacrificed for local convenience/needs. Not the vision for libraries that the SCL has been voicing.

Both Civica and Intellident also appear to share aspirations to deliver “one-stop shop” facilities to their mutual clients – kiosks that can deliver all council services at a single service point. Intellident announced a new Smart Kiosk that will also link with e-media providers (like Overdrive – also on the programme) as well as dispensing CDs and DVDs. They are also talking to Bowker about using  bibliographic data to enhance their user “interface”. (Another word for catalogue perhaps?)

Intellident also revealed some of their thinking on using iPhone technology. The vision is for borrowers to identify all their library’s holdings on a particular subject and download that data to their phone. In conjunction with Smart Blade shelves (keeping constant track of the use of every item the library holds) your phone will guide you to the location of each item identified.

Heady stuff.

Don’t get me wrong. I know I am often misunderstood and frequently (mostly by suppliers) misrepresented as a Luddite – opposed to change of any kind – but I’m all for this vision of the future. I want the world that Civica promises me will deliver “joined up” services across a consortium like SELMS. That’s what the North West wants, what London wants, what the government wants, that’s what we all want.

But we mustn’t let ourselves be entirely swept away by visions. It just might take a little more time..

For instance…

The SELMS consortium delivers exactly what it says on the tin. A proper joined up library service in which all the institutions can share resources with each other – but only if you have Civica and Intellident. There’s no way for anyone else to join in –yet.

And what about that iPhone idea? I think it’s brilliant, so it will seem churlish to point out that all RFID enabled phones currently don’t support the frequency used by libraries. And that downloaded data? Where does that come from?

Currently the horsepower needed to drive data from live RFID shelves to an LMS isn’t available so Intellident have had to build a new database to handle the traffic. This will periodically (I didn’t have the heart to ask how periodically) update the LMS database. But why bother? The LMS database is probably inaccurate anyway.

Intellident are I think, whether by design or by accident, slowly but surely re-designing library management around RFID. Their e-media and CD dispensers will have no requirement for RFID – like their counterparts in Holland, Italy and Singapore – prompting me to ask them if they still see themselves as an RFID company. (They do, of course). They are however increasingly establishing their credibility in terms of all library operations – a long way from self-service now.

In a complementary way Civica established their RFID credentials by referencing the close work they have done with the RFID market in SE Asia and Australia. But many of these sites use UHF technology  a frequency that – for the moment – cannot support the newly established (by the RFID Alliance) UK  data model. It seems a pity to throw away the considerable effort made by RFID companies and others to create a level playing field for RFID operations – only to have an LMS company persuade Local Government to invest in something that will prevent them from delivering the central government agenda.

So who’s driving now? The LMS? – as exemplified today by Civica – or the RFID supplier? (today that was Intellident but other suppliers are available).

And how does the poor librarian decide what to do? Deprived of almost all IT expertise most public libraries now live in the same misery as they did in the 1970s. No wonder so many of them rely on their suppliers for expert advice.

The future sounds fantastic – and it is – but there will be some casualties as well as triumphs along the way as the juggernaut rolls along. I had never previously seen scarcity as a driver for change but it seems clear to me that library suppliers – from whatever area of expertise they may come – are now engaged in a desperate struggle to win whatever business they can.

As Simon pointed out – right at the start of the day – there’s very little business out there at the moment. We had better fasten our seatbelts – change is coming!

Category : Library Management Systems/Integrated Library Systems / Standards

2 Responses to “Low investment – a serious force for change in library automation?”


Mark February 2, 2010

Interesting report – many thank Mick & keep up to good work of getting this info out to the wider audience.

I think we’re almost at the point of a ‘perfect storm’ in terms of the LMS market in the UK & elsewhere…

1) There is quite a sense of dissatisfaction amongst many librarians with the functionality – it is perceived by many that the systems are driving what libraries *can* do, while it should be librarians driving what *they want* their systems to do to deliver services.
2) Into this mix add an increasingly stale LMS market – the current generation of systems is pretty much un-differentiated in terms of functionality, with ‘add ons’ adding value. Some vendors are moving forward (EL Libris’ URM for example, or OCLC’s possible move into the LMS market), but where’s the innovation from others?
3) ..then throw in the Open Source angle – gaining increasing popularity elsewhere, and a very attractive option both in terms of being able to drive your own development, and in terms of capital cost (support is another matter…). Project OLE when it comes to fruition could be a real ‘game changer’ here as well.
4) Add to that the RFID vendors move towards recreating the scope of the LMS as you mention Intellident talking about today – though there’s plenty of gaps in the detail there, but there’s good ideas driving things.
5) ..and take that all in context of an IT and e-media environment in which libraries operate moving far faster than current systems development.
6) Top that all off with a context of resource pressure and a real need to show / produce increased value for money while improving services at the same time.

..it doesn’t paint a pretty picture for the incumbent market suppliers of LMS’, though a bit of a rosier picture for RFID, and of course libraries who should benefit from the increased competition.

Libraries are going to need to think very carefully about how they deal with all this (especially in light of the lack of in-house IT expertise in many sectors) – potentially we could make some great leaps forward here, but the potential to slip up and make costly mistakes or fragment an already quite diverse set of services beyond many hopes of possible high level integration (national LMS in the context of a couple of years of the above? tricky prospect!).

Interesting times, and quite an exciting one to be working in I feel!

..too cheeky to post more on someone else’s blog, I think I need to get one of my own sorted to throw a few more thoughts on this out there..

Oleg February 3, 2010

Mick, we encounter the “[librarians]…now live in the same misery as they did in the 1970s. ” that you mentioned nearly everyday in the marketplace, which makes the very essence of innovation very hard to promote. Library decision makers are simply overwhelmed and have largely lost trust in their traditional vendors of the past. It is this “outside the box” thinking that is needed to move the library operations to the next century.

For example, our CD/DVD self-check/dispensing system (http://www.allCIRC.com) is a revolutionary market-altering concept, yet even-though many libraries accept the idea (as is witnessed by 100’s of installs) still many others are in the “waiting” mode until some of the traditional vendors have it. We think this is a “safety valve” to make the decision that is safe one’s career and not necesarily good for the library. Until this type of thinking is changed, we will always have resistance to anything new.