[Web4lib] An Analysis Of Open Source ILS Market Penetration

[Marshall Breeding]

Since this has come up, I'll mention that one can view the ILS 
market share for US Public libraries fairly easily through 
lib-web-cats.  Currently this information is based on simple 
counts, one by library organization, and secondly a count that 
includes branches.   As you will see, one of the problems is that 
there
are significant percentages for "Unknown" as the ILS.  I believe 
that a large percentage of the ones for which I have no data have 
no automation system.

The following page:
<http://www.librarytechnology.org/us-marketshare-reports.pl>

Allows one to see the ILS distribution for all the US, or to select 
each state.

Interested in Academic libraries? try:
<http://www.librarytechnology.org/us-marketshare-reports.pl?Type=Academic>

All this data is derived from lib-web-cats:
  <http://www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats>

I'm in the process of overlaying data related to population served, 
collection counts, and annual circulation stats from the NCES data 
sets to make more sophisticated reports possible as well.

As far as I know, lib-web-cats is the most comprehensive source for 
data on ILS deployments.  I'd urge list members to verify that I 
have the correct information about their library so that I can 
reduce the troublesome "unknown" category and improve the accuracy 
of the rest.

Finally, I'm still gathering data for the automation survey that I 
have mentioned previously on this list.  I have about 1,000 
responses so far, but I would like to at least double that number 
if possible.  This survey attempts to measure both satisfaction 
with the library's current ILS as well as their openness to open 
source alternatives.  An introduction to the survey is here:
 <http://www.librarytechnology.org/lwc-survey-2007.pl>

-marshall



--On Tuesday, October 16, 2007 9:19 AM -0500 Bob Molyneux 
<drdata at molyneux.com> wrote:

>
> Rick Mason smoked me out. Yep, I worked for SirsiDynix as its
> Chief Statistician--up until May 9, 2007 when I was laid off. But
> before being evil vendor-scum, I had a life in the library world
> he has somehow completely missed in his expert searching. For 20+
> years, I have compiled and analyzed library data as well as
> having a life in IT. I suggest my book, Internet Under the Hood
> as a good (albeit a bit dated) introduction to networking and the
> Internet for LIS students. A bit more checking might find that
> many of the library data series I have worked on are available on
> the Internet for folks to use. There was a reason Sirsi hired me.
>
> My library data work has largely involved compiling longitudinal
> data and analyzing them. It is something I do. A sensible person
> might exclaim in horror: "Why would anyone do THAT?" To look at
> trends. Trends start somewhere and it is a fact that we often
> don't know when things start in the library world and that makes
> subsequent analysis untidy. I submit we now have a begin data on
> objectively studying the impact of open source ILSs--although a
> better one will follow in a bit when the NCES updates the public
> and academic library data. The LISNews post is the beta. I hope
> to make this report a regular...say every six months. In five
> years the barge may have picked up some steam.
>
> When I was still at SirsiDynix, I talked to Marshall Breeding,
> whose great work at lib-web-cats I have relied on for this
> analysis, about doing a similar analysis tracing all ILS vendors
> using not just counts but some other measures such as
> circulations, population served (which public librarians seem to
> prefer), or maybe expenditures--like I did here. This kind of
> analysis would give a different view than counts because of the
> skewed nature of library distributions, simple counts don't give
> the whole picture. I thought it would make a helpful addition to
> his work. In any case, I have asked Marshall again for data from
> lib-web-cats that would enable me to do that relatively rapidly
> and on a regular basis. He measures which library has which ILS
> differently from the way I did, of course, but I think that is
> addressable.
>
> I have written to Dan Scott separately to apologize for including
> Laurentian as having a "relationship" with Equinox. I
> misinterpreted it and I regret it.
>
> "This isn't to suggest that any of his data is suspect." Well,
> thank you. They are, I believe, correct but errare humanum est. I
> have citations for you to check and if you can't do the math, I
> can send spreadsheets. All sources are available on the Web. If
> there are errors, I want to know about them so I can correct them.
>
>
> Bob Molyneux
> drdata at molyneux.com
> XyWrite forever!
> 0x 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
> _______________________________________________
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> Web4lib at webjunction.org
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Marshall Breeding
Director for Innovative Technologies and Research
Vanderbilt University Library
615-343-6094