Meeting

Considering the ILS

worldcat local

  • not a silver bullet, may meet some public access concerns
  • discovery layer, for your data and all oclc data
  • attractive search & results, perhaps marriage with contentdm data, clean, google-like
  • bridge to buy time for figuring out backend (purchasing, inventory)
  • think of the ils as a backend, we wouldn’t look at it as much
  • fun to teach, no need to wade through problematic interface
  • questions about how to interface with consortial request system, may tie to illiad
  • at a decision point similar to first online system, consider options, take risks, worldcat local can buy time

  • faceted browsing, though your holdings come up first, then consortium, then requests, then the world (& ill)

  • recommender systems

Open source systems…

contentdm

  • holding thousands of digital images (300k at csbsju)
  • a different sense of searching than we have with “books”
  • yes, we do want the power of a tool that connects history to images, allowing people to make these connections
  • students interested in material beyond “book”
  • social networking
  • visual content mapping
  • credo
  • facebook
  • tagging local uses
  • hooking to google

what do we currently have that is frustrating

  • pollution of certain information (like hearings from govdocs)
  • multiple lists, going to three different places, guides
  • students could use more guidance to the systems
  • spelling (suggestions that are not in the database)
  • getting reporting we want (classes of user by discipline, finer grain reports, call number, financial data, conflicting numbers)
  • getting an enhancement from vendors takes a long time (once a year enhancements don’t cut it)
  • slow fixing of bugs (our responsibility)
  • no good software out there
  • interdependencies of our big black box, hard to hook into, hard to share with systems on campus
  • meeting business expectations on campus, interoperability
  • frustrations with implementation at local level
  • never know that our results are accurate
  • getting from call number to shelves can be confusing for students
  • enhancing user experience
  • current system does not work for us, user based solutions needed

Falling behind

  • some are doing very innovative things with catalogs, usually they have dollars
  • user expectations of the net
  • GA and pines, the whole open source
  • the WALDO, new your
  • low expectations because our cat is so poor (Marquette has more stuff)
  • limited IT staffing forces us to consider what others can do for us

What can we do

  • take our data (circ, etc.) to these systems to raise their profile

Monolithic/shared axis as well

Open source costs for backend

  • people to manage hardware and software
  • spiderman: great power great responsibility, caution
  • IT backing off of open source customization
  • focus on the core instead
  • customizations cost real money (staff)
  • learning from blackboard to moodle
  • customizations are possible in OSS, may be impractical
  • data migration costs
  • integration with campus possible, takes time
  • promises are easy to make, vendors optimistic
  • sharing costs of enhancements easier

Exposing our information to google, worldcat, etc

  • backend fixes to make it possible
  • still need a backend with data present
  • customers will want what they find, which may be hard to get
  • low additional cost to what you are already paying for
  • branding, how do we not get lost in the mix
  • can we lose funding when they think we’ve disappeared
  • still a cost of guidance and presentation, access to help
  • challenges of working with campus IT partners