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