Understanding the Semantic Web : bibliographic data and metadata

38 Pages·2010·2.391 MB·English

by  Karen Coyle

May/June 2011
vol. 47 / no. 4
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LIBRARY TECHNOLOGY
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Librarians’ Assessments
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of Automation Systems
Your support helps fund advocacy, awareness, and accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide.
Survey Results, 2007–2010
Marshall Breeding and
Andromeda Yelton

Library Technology
R e p o R T s
Expert Guides to Library Systems and Services
Librarians’ Assessments of
Automation Systems
Survey Results, 2007–2010
Marshall Breeding and Andromeda Yelton
alatechsource.org
American Library Association
About the Authors
Library Technology
Marshall Breeding, director for
R e p o R T s
innovative technology and research
for the Vanderbilt Uni versity
Library, is also a speaker, writer,
ALA TechSource purchases fund advocacy, awareness, and
accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide. and consultant. He is the creator
and editor of Library Tech nology
Volume 47, Number 4
Guides (www.librarytechnology
Librarians’ Assessments of Automation Systems:
.org), a columnist for Computers in
Survey Results, 2007–2010
Libraries, editor of Smart Libraries, and has authored the
ISBN: 978-0-8389-5832-2
annual “Automation Marketplace” published by Library
American Library Association Journal since 2002. He has authored nine issues of ALA’s
50 East Huron St. Library Technology Reports, and has written many other
Chicago, IL 60611-2795 USA
articles and book chapters. Marshall has edited or authored
alatechsource.org
800-545-2433, ext. 4299 six books. He regularly teaches workshops and gives pre-
312-944-6780 sentations internationally at library conferences.
312-280-5275 (fax)
Andromeda Yelton is a member
Advertising Representative
of the founding team at Gluejar.
Brian Searles, Ad Sales Manager
ALA Publishing Dept. She is a 2010 Simmons GSLIS
[email protected] graduate interested in the inter-
312-280-5282
section of people, technology, and
1-800-545-2433, ext. 5282
information.  Yelton is a 2011 ALA
Editor
Emerging Leader and a 2010 win-
Dan Freeman
ner of the LITA/Ex Libris Student
[email protected]
312-280-5413 Writing Award.
Copy Editor
Judith Lauber Abstract
Editorial Assistant
This report elaborates on the results of Marshall
Megan O’Neill
[email protected] Breeding’s 2010 survey of libraries’ satisfaction with
800-545-2433, ext. 3244 their automation products, and examines trends that
312-280-5275 (fax)
have emerged over the four years the survey has been
Production and Design conducted.  Chapter 1 details the survey methodology
Tim Clifford, Production Editor and limits, and outlines its findings.  Chapter 2 delves
Karen Sheets de Gracia, Manager of Design and Composition into respondents’ comments to explore the themes that
may be motivating libraries’ ratings of their systems. 
Library Technology Reports (ISSN 0024-2586) is published eight times a These include concerns about cost, relationships with
year (January, March, April, June, July, September, October, and Decem- consortia, and varying expectations for functionality. 
ber) by American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.
Libraries’ mixed feelings on open source options are
It is managed by ALA TechSource, a unit of the publishing department of
ALA. Periodical postage paid at Chicago, Illinois, and at additional mail- also discussed.
ing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Library Technology Chapter 3 then examines the numerical data, look-
Reports, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611.
ing at satisfaction for major ILS products and vendors. 
Trademarked names appear in the text of this journal. Rather than identify Different library types (public and academic) and sizes
or insert a trademark symbol at the appearance of each name, the authors are compared.  Respondents’ comments provide some
and the American Library Association state that the names are used for
editorial purposes exclusively, to the ultimate benefit of the owners of the context for these ratings. Chapter 3 also examines
trademarks. There is absolutely no intention of infringement on the rights trends in satisfaction and interest in open source over
of the trademark owners. time; satisfaction is flat or slightly increasing, whereas
the picture for open source is complicated. Finally, by
comparing 2007 and 2010 data, Chapter 3 finds that
libraries’ vendor loyalty ratings do indicate the future
likelihood of migration.
Chapter 4 examines in depth a few major ILS ven-
dors, which span a range of library types and satisfaction
ratings, and speculates on the reasons for these ratings.
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Copyright © 2011 American Library Association
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Contents
Chapter 1—About the Perceptions Survey 5
Goals of the Survey 5
How the Data Were Collected 5
Caveats and Limitations of the Survey Data 6
Basic Findings of the Data 7
Chapter 2—Analyzing Comments for Themes 9
Costs 9
Consortia 9
Open Source 10
Data, Software Architecture, and Functionality 10
Chapter 3—Breaking Down the Data 12
ILS Satisfaction 12
Company Satisfaction 15
Interest in Open Source 16
Company Loyalty and Migration 21
Trends over Time 23
Chapter 4—Vendor Profiles 27
Polaris Library Systems: Polaris 27
Biblionix: Apollo 28
SirsiDynix: Symphony (Unicorn), Horizon, Dynix 29
Innovative Interfaces: Millennium 31
ByWater, LibLime, and Independent Installations: Koha 32
Concluding Thoughts 32

Chapter 1
About the Perceptions Survey
Abstract
Library Technology Guides
Chapter 1 details the methodology of the Perceptions sur- www.librarytechnology.org
vey and notes its limits; readers are encouraged not to
base decisions solely on the content of this report. Chapter
1 also outlines the findings of the remaining chapters. Some libraries may refer to the results of this sur-
vey as they formulate technology strategies or even
F
or the last four years, Marshall Breeding has con- consider specific products. Libraries are urged not to
ducted an online survey to measure satisfaction base any decision solely on this report. While it reflects
with multiple aspects of the automation products the responses of a large number of libraries using these
used by libraries. The results of the four editions of products, this survey serves best as an instrument to
the survey data, along with brief interpretive narra- guide what questions a library might bring up in its
tives, have been published on Library Technology considerations. We caution libraries not to make pre-
Guides. This issue of Library Technology Reports will mature conclusions based on subjective responses.
take a deeper look at the survey data, including an Especially for libraries with more complex needs, it’s
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expansion of findings based on the 2010 iteration, an unrealistic to expect satisfaction scores at the very top ib
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examination of trends seen across the four years, and of the rankings. Large and complex libraries exercise ry
additional analysis not previously published. For this all aspects of an automation system and at any given Te
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report, the survey data have been extended with addi- time may have outstanding issues that would naturally hn
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tional fields that provide the opportunity to separate result in survey responses short of the highest marks. lo
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the findings into categories that show some interesting y
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trends not otherwise apparent. How the Data Were Collected e
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Goals of the Survey The survey instrument included six numeric ratings, ts
three yes/no responses, three short response fields, and ala
Why conduct this survey? In this time of tight budgets a text field for general comments. The numeric rating tec
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where libraries face difficult decisions regarding how fields allow responses from 0 through 9. Each scale was so
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to invest their technology resources, it’s helpful to labeled to indicate the meaning of the numeric selection. rc
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have data regarding how libraries perceive the quality Five of the numeric questions probe at the level of .o
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of their automation systems and the companies that satisfaction with and loyalty to the company or orga-
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support them. This report, based on survey responses nization that provides its current automation system:
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from more than two thousand libraries, aims to give /
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some measure of how libraries perceive their cur- • How satisfied is the library with your current n
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rent environment and to probe their inclinations for Integrated Library System? 2
0
1
the future, as well as investigating trends that have • How satisfied is the library overall with the com- 1
emerged over the four years of the Perceptions survey. pany from which you purchased your current ILS?
5
Librarians’ Assessments of Automation Systems: Survey Results, 2007–2010 Marshall Breeding and Andromeda Yelton
Chapter x
• How satisfied is this library with this company’s
customer support services? lib-web-cats Directory
• Has the customer support for your ILS gotten www.librarytechnology.org/libwebcats
better or gotten worse in the last year?
• Would your library consider working with this
company again if your library were to migrate to NGC4LIB. Invitational messages were also sent to
a new ILS in the future? many lists for specific automation systems and compa-
nies. Where contact information was available in lib-
One yes/no question asks whether the library is web-cats, an automated script produced e-mail mes-
considering migrating to a new ILS and a fill-in text sages with a direct link to the survey response form
field provides the opportunity to provide specific sys- for that library.
tems under consideration. Another yes/no question The survey limited responses to one per library,
asks whether the automation system currently in use though it allowed responses from multiple branches
was installed on schedule and according to the terms or facilities associated with a system. This restriction
of the contract. was imposed as an attempt to sway the respondents to
Given the recent interest in new search interfaces, reflect the broad perceptions of their institution rather
a third yes/no question asks, “Is this library currently than their personal opinions.
considering acquiring a discovery interface or Next- The survey instrument was created using the same
generation catalog for its collection that is separate infrastructure as the Library Technology Guides web-
from the ILS?” and provides a fill-in form to indicate site—a custom interface written in Perl using MySQL
products under consideration. to store the data, with ODBC as the connection layer.
The survey includes two questions that aim to Access to the raw responses is controlled through a
gauge interest in open source integrated library sys- user name and password available only to the author.
tems, a numerical rating that asks “How likely is it Scripts allow public access to the survey results in a
that this library would consider implementing an open way that does not expose individual responses.
source ILS?” and a fill-in text field for indicating prod- In order to provide access to the comments with-
ucts under consideration. out violating the stated agreement not to attribute indi-
The survey concludes with a text box inviting vidual responses to any given institution or individual,
comments. A copy of the survey may be viewed online. an additional field was created for edited comments.
(This version of the survey does not accept or record This field was manually populated with text selected
response data.) from the comment text provided by the respondent.
In order to correlate the responses with particular Any information that might identify the individual
automation systems and companies, the survey links to or library was edited out, with an ellipsis indicating
the removed text. Comments that only explained a
Library Automation Survey response or described the circumstances of the library
were not transferred to the edited comments field.
1 www.librarytechnology.org/lwc
1
0
2 -automation-survey-2010.pl
e Caveats and Limitations of the
n
Ju Survey Data
/
ay entries in the lib-web-cats directory of libraries. Each
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entry in lib-web-cats indicates the automation system There are several limitations to keep in mind while
g currently in use as well as data on the type of library, analyzing the survey data.
or
e. location, collection size, and other factors that might First, although the survey is quite large (at 2,000+
c
ur be of interest. In order to fill out the survey, respond- libraries), it is by no means comprehensive. There are
o
s
h ers first had to find their library in lib-web-cats and well over 57,000 libraries in lib-web-cats, which itself
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at then press a button that launched the response form. represents only a portion of the total libraries world-
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Some potential respondents indicated that they found wide, and methods used do not ensure that the survey
s
t this process complex. respondents are a random or representative sample.
or
p The link between the lib-web-cats entry and the For example, Innovative customers had a relatively
e
y R survey automatically populated fields for the library high response rate, giving Millennium prominence in
og name and current automation system and provided the survey out of proportion to its market share. Sur-
nol access to other data elements about the library as vey responses, though including many international
h
c needed. The report on survey response demographics, libraries, skew heavily toward North America; nearly
e
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y for example, relies on data from lib-web-cats. 1,700 of the respondents are from libraries in the
ar A number of methods were used to solicit responses United States. Similarly, although many library types
br
Li to the survey. E-mail messages were sent to library- are represented, public and academic libraries alone
oriented mailing lists such as WEB4LIB, PUBLIB, and comprise more than 1,700 of the responses. Therefore
6
Librarians’ Assessments of Automation Systems: Survey Results, 2007–2010 Marshall Breeding and Andromeda Yelton
Chapter x
other demographics may be underrepresented. respondents are looking for discovery layers or other
Second, it cannot be guaranteed that respondents’ next-generation catalog features—in some cases to
choices fully represented the libraries’ views. Though replace an existing product of that type, in others as a
survey instructions requested that respondents speak first system; however, comments rarely go into depth
for their institutions, the survey cannot ensure this. on libraries’ opinions of these products.
In addition, respondents sometimes commented that Although libraries’ demands on ILS functionality
they did not have direct contact with their support varied, there was general agreement that ILSes should
vendors or direct influence over their library automa- be modern, fast, and easy to use. There was also some
tion choices because those were handled through a interest in the potential simplicity and cost savings of
central IT office or consortially. It is not clear how this cloud solutions.
impacts their satisfaction ratings. In chapter 3, we move on to the numerical rat-
Third, libraries do not consistently fill out the ings for ILS, company, and customer support satisfac-
survey from year to year. While comparing results tion and examine trends by size and type of library.
over time can reveal broad trends, it is not necessar- Although there are some products used in a wide vari-
ily possible to track how individual libraries’ opinions ety of market niches, in general larger and smaller
changed, and comparisons between different years are libraries gravitate toward different ILSes. Smaller
not apples-to-apples. libraries use a wider variety of ILSes than larger ones
and tend to be more satisfied with them; Apollo,
Basic Findings of the Data OPALS, and Polaris scored particularly well. Similarly,
library type (public or academic) affects both the
Because the survey included both numeric data and ILSes used and the ratings. While Millennium, Hori-
a comment field, we were able both to gauge overall zon, and Symphony are widely used in both types of
satisfaction with various products and services and to library, public libraries also commonly use Polaris and
speculate on the reasons behind those ratings. Library•Solution, whereas academic libraries use Voy-
In chapter 2, we discuss issues frequently raised ager and Aleph. Public libraries are somewhat more
in the comments, which included cost, consortia, open satisfied with their software, vendors, and support than
source software, and ILS functionality. Comments academic libraries; this is true even for larger librar-
on cost, of course, were almost universally negative, ies, and even when comparing the same ILS. Libraries’
reflecting libraries’ concerns about limited budgets satisfaction with their software has remained roughly
and the increasing price of software. Many librar- constant or perhaps, in some cases, increased slightly
ies feel that they pay too much for their automation over the four years of the Perceptions survey, while
systems. Libraries have mixed feelings on consortia, average satisfaction with companies and customer
appreciating the savings and shared expertise they support has generally increased, along with libraries’
offer but sometimes feeling that their individual needs loyalty to their current vendor. Satisfied libraries tend
are lost in the mix. They also complain about not hav- to cite the quality of support and say that their ven-
ing a direct voice in software selection and support. dors listen to them, whereas reasons for dissatisfaction
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The survey was designed to probe perceptions vary, including concerns over software functionality, ib
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regarding open source library automation systems, support quality, and vendors’ business direction. ry
with both a numeric indicator and a corresponding We also examine interest in open source in Te
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comment. About 10 percent of libraries responding 2010 and over time and find a complicated picture. hn
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had already implemented open source systems; others Although the most common level of interest in open lo
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appeared drawn to such systems as a potential low-cost source is 0, the next most common is 9. This polariza- y
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alternative, though still others questioned whether the tion appears to have increased over time, with more e
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total cost of ownership would truly yield savings. Many libraries indicating extreme scores and fewer at most or
libraries expressed concern, however, about the func- scores between 1 and 8. The growth in high interest ts
tionality and maturity of open source products or the can be partly, but not entirely, accounted for by open ala
expertise needed to maintain them and do not think source adopters, who almost always indicate very high tec
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they are viable alternatives at this time. It is unclear levels of interest in open source. Comments indicate so
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what these concerns will mean for the future. interest in the potential affordability and flexibility of rc
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Comments on ILS functionality also varied tre- open source software, but concerns about its function- .o
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mendously. Some libraries expressed pleasure at the ality and maturity and about a lack of in-house techni-
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modern features of their ILS while others said it was cal expertise. It is not clear what this means for future
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outdated and clunky—even when they used the same trends. Historically highly interested libraries have /
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software. Some libraries are doing local develop- been much more likely to adopt open source ILSes, n
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ment or customization which places specific techni- so the growth in that category may indicate future 2
0
1
cal demands on the ILS, but many do not have the adoptions; on the other hand, it may be that libraries 1
in-house expertise to do this. Almost a quarter of that are interested but have not yet migrated to such
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Librarians’ Assessments of Automation Systems: Survey Results, 2007–2010 Marshall Breeding and Andromeda Yelton
Chapter x
products do not feel they are viable options at present. Finally, because we now have four years of Per-
Either way, there are far more libraries averse to open ceptions survey data, we look for trends over time. We
source than interested in it. find that average satisfaction with ILSes, companies,
Also in chapter 3, we examine the relationship and customer support has remained roughly constant,
between libraries’ stated loyalty and whether they are with perhaps a slight upward trend in some scores
shopping for a new ILS. Indeed, low-loyalty libraries for some products. Nonetheless, company loyalty has
are much more likely than high-loyalty ones to be in increased. It is not clear why this is. Perhaps economic
the market for a new ILS. Low-loyalty ones are also concerns make migrations less likely, so libraries are
much more likely to be considering an open source necessarily loyal to their current vendors, or perhaps
candidate, whereas high-loyalty libraries that are libraries that formerly had low loyalty have switched
nonetheless seeking a new ILS are likely to be looking vendors.
at another product line from the same company. In In chapter 4, we look closely at specific vendors
comparing 2007 Perceptions survey data to migration (Polaris, Apollo, SirsiDynix, Millennium, and several
data in lib-web-cats, we find that libraries which indi- Koha support strategies), which span a range of library
cated that they are shopping are, indeed, much more types and satisfaction ratings. By examining the com-
likely to have migrated; therefore, company loyalty ments, we look for the reasons behind those ratings.
likely impacts the chance of migration.
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Librarians’ Assessments of Automation Systems: Survey Results, 2007–2010 Marshall Breeding and Andromeda Yelton