[WEB4LIB] Re: Do We Still Need Online Catalog Vendors?

[Kevil, L H.]

I would like to add my tuppence ha'penny to this discussion.

IMHO the problem does not lie exclusively with the ILS vendors, but at least
as much with the requirements libraries have demanded of ILS vendors. To my
knowledge the major ILS systems are automated card catalogues, not
databases. This is deliberate on the part of libraries, as the cataloguing
code appears to mandate a kind of interoperability or compatibility between
automated systems and card systems. Libraries appear to be exclusively
concerned with human users to the extent that machine users and processing
are poorly supported, if at all. The resulting ILS cannot be considered
databases, as they violate the usual rules defining relational and other
modern databases.  Among other things, they are full of redundant data,
which is mandated by the MARC standard, have no or unhelpful keys, and are
even designed so that human beings can go in and manipulate the indexes. (It
may be that many of these ILS use contemporary database technology, but it
is crippled because it can only mimic the working of an automated card
catalogue.) 

Furthermore, the standards for ISBN and ISSN are deliberately designed to
identify a particular manifestation of a work, rather than the work itself.
Thus when the title of a periodical is deemed by library cataloguers to have
changed, the publisher is supposed to get a new ISSN. The same journal can
have multiple ISSN's. ISBN has similar problems. There is no standard
article number for ILL free of these problems. Thus there is no standard ID
for works, which makes sharing of bibliographic, holding, and other data
very difficult. This applies to z39.50 users as much as to human users of
card catalogues. Finding serials can still be very difficult for people and
impossible for machines. Put another way, there is a definite limit to how
far an ILS can go in sharing data and presenting it to the user and
consequently no or little penalty for proprietary, non-open systems. Our
legacy systems are in a secure position at the moment because we librarians
have made the task of automation much more complex than it needs to be.

If the library and information community does create reasonable ILS
standards designed to work with relational or object-relational database
technology _and_ decides to promote publically accessible databases of work
ID's, the option of the home-grown system will become much more feasible. In
these circumstances ILS vendors would surely consider offering plug-ins or
easily customizable modules, so that individual libraries could satisfy
special requirements.

I invite discussion of these hastily written-up points, particularly by
those of you who may disagree.


L. Hunter Kevil,
Collection Development Librarian,
176 Ellis Library,
University of Missouri-Columbia,
Columbia, MO 65201
Voice:  573-884-8760
Fax:    573-882-6034
E-mail: KevilL at missouri.edu 

-----Original Message-----
From: Franklin, Alethia [mailto:afranklin at willkie.com]
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 10:32 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: Do We Still Need Online Catalog Vendors?


We need the vendors and they will stay as long as they keep up with the pace
of information delivery.  Debbie is most definitely correct in the fact that
the complexities are the reason for these vendors in the first place.  And
why should we reinvent the wheel.   There are some vendors that have already
taken steps to move our catalogs, integrating all functions, into the one
web interface.  If anyone is  interested they should visit the following
site, http://www.opentext.com/techlib/.  Open Text recently acquired the
company Information Dimensions which has targeted the special libraries
market for the past 12 years and their product has always been on the
forefront of technology.  They are using current technologies, such as ASP
and ODBC to allow your catalog to talk to your legacy databases and present
the results in the most common interface of today, the browser.  This not
only includes the catalog, but circulation, acquisitions, serials checkin,
the whole works.  Other vendors are starting out more slowly, with the
catalog presented in a web browser, but the ability to access other
databases through links.  SydneyPlus another vendor for special libraries
has this functionality,   http://www.ils.ca .  Our goal at Willkie, when we
implement our intranet is to have a seamless interface for all of our
databases, and with the assistance of vendors we won't have to do so much of
the work on our own.  

Alethia Franklin
Library Systems Administrator
Willkie Farr & Gallagher