ENSURING THAT THE LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY THRIVES AT THE NETWORK LEVELTerry Reese

Gray Family Chair for Innovative Library Services

terry.reese@oregonstate.edu

OPEN SOURCE?

Often times, I find that when people talk about the library development community, they often equate Library Code => Open Source As a consequence, Open Source development,

discussions tend to dominate the landscape

But the question I want to ask: Which is more important in the long run for the library community --- Open Source or Open Data?

OPEN DATA

WHY OPEN DATA?

Library Software development is all building bridges between data silos for our patrons

Purposes of research and innovation Libraries and librarians are researchers – open

data facilitates this research

Because libraries are about connecting people with information regardless of use

OPEN DATA AND LIBRARIANSHIP

In many respects, securing Open Data represents the library communities next big challenge. Immediate challenges:

Institutional Repository development Digital collection development Establishing institutional/consortia identities

Creation of portable identities Sharing institutional holdings and usage statistics to

promote shared collection development Establishing real-time, unmediated borrowing of

electronic materials

BUILDING THE WEB THROUGH DATA

Open data is the corner-stone of the next generation internet

Data is the engine behind the dynamic nature of Web 2.0, and the underpinnings of the semantic web.

Development of the Mobile Web requires the presence of Open Data I-Phone, Android – most applications act as data

mediators for users.

BUILDING THE WEB THROUGH DATA

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/145732819&referer=brief_results

BUILDING THE WEB THROUGH DATA

BUILDING THE WEB THROUGH DATA

Mobile Web IPhone and Android (Google) phone market

places are littered with applications developed around the repackaging of Open Data

CURRENT TRENDS

Interesting trends

Library workflows are being moved to the network level Including collection development and acquisitions by

players like: OCLC EBSCOHost Proquest Etc.

CURRENT TRENDS

Content providers are consolidating Fewer data providers

Services outside the library community are beginning to exert a much larger influence Google (Books & Scholar) Open Library (Internet Archive)

WHY SHOULD WE CARE?

I want to ask and answer two question: Do we still need a thriving library development

community? And what would it mean for this community to no

longer exist?

Does this group still serve a role within the current landscape?

WHY SHOULD WE CARE? Do we still need a thriving library development

community?

Why ask this question? Two of the library communities most visible open source projects support a dying model – the ILS.

Can we have a thriving library development community when all data moves to the network level?

WHY THE LIBRARY NEEDS A DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY

Not for software development…but to push for innovations that are primarily good for libraries…

And to advocate for open standards Examples: Digital Library Federations two most

successful projects:1. ERM specification2. DLF ILS Specification

CONSOLIDATION….

And the rise of the McLibrary Data consolidation and network level services

homogenizing the library

On the one hand, homogenization is good Allows patrons to easily move between organizations

easily

On the other hand, it limits research and innovation as many treasured aspects of library science (patron interaction, usability studies, service development) shifts away from library and to the network provider.

GROWING OUTSIDE INFLUENCES

The Google “Lockbox”

Tools that have become interested in libraries because of their rich content, but are finding ways of locking that content up. Google Books Google Scholar

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR VENDORS

1. New business models

Shift away from a model in which data is locked up in specific tools or workflows & move to a more services oriented mode

Difficulty of building open source acquisitions systems because:

Current Acquisition systems use localized workflows

Moving from one workflow to another is often not intuitive

Lack of standardized acquisitions data for movement of data between systems

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR VENDORS

1. New business models

Value of a product should shift from valuing data to valuing services

The library development community isn’t looking to re-build existing tools, but looking for ways to take existing tools and make them better

Biggest barrier -- data

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR VENDORS

1. New business models

Likewise, data needs to be made available without restrictions related to use.

This is a hard one, because vendors want to protect R&D effort on services they create

And many people in the library community have a problem with metadata that they develop being utilized in for profit venues

Historically, business models have always been developed around data and the control of that data

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY?

1. Community needs to strive to become partners with the library vendor community

How? Working with vendors to develop and support open

standards Example: DLF ILS

By being data consumers By giving data back

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY?

2. Community needs to take a proactive approach in how we license resources

Negotiating for both access to content and data Working collaboratively as a community to

encourage open data for everyone – not just specific institutions

Find ways to promote the use of open data sources to the library’s user community

Encourage user community to remix and build new services

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY?

3. Library Development community needs to become more organized.

Focus less on rebuilding the wheel and more on community development

Become advocates for not just Open Source, but Open Data

Application Programming Interfaces (API) make developers giddy but an API with overly restrictive usage terms severely limit its us

QUESTIONS