FEATURE
Library Management Systems
Libraries must meet evolving needs of
Frans van Ette, director of business development, Swets
End users want their content
on every
possible device and they want a unified discovery solution so that they can have that content at their fingertips.
Librarians have a whole host of needs, the most important of which is being able to justify their decision making. Resource management tools really need to be built with electronic resources in mind. It is also important to provide solutions to help librarians understand user behaviour. For example, our Selection Support tool gives information about usage and price and we have recently added information about impact factors too.
Having information about usage, quality and price is very important to librarians. It’s not good enough anymore to say, ‘Professor X said this content is important’. There are also wider questions about what is the role of the librarian. With these types of tools, librarians can show what their role is. When you spend as much money as librarians would like to do, this is important. We see libraries’ involvement not just with content but also in monitoring the research productivity of their institutions. That gives very important information to the institutions about which research areas
22 Research Information DEC 2012/JAN 2013
researchers and institutions
Libraries face times of change. Some of the providers of library tools reveal how library management systems can help meet the challenges ahead. Interviews by Siân Harris
they might choose to invest more into or move away from focusing on. Libraries can discover this information with the Mendeley Institutional Edition. We will be pulling more of this information into our own tools over time too.
There are trends of information being more open and of companies working together to build the best experience for customers. For example, Mendeley is set up for building applications on top of its API. We also see this with other organisations such as OCLC with its WorldShare tool. We are talking deeply with OCLC and other vendors of
‘Having information about usage, quality and price is very important to librarians. It’s not good enough anymore to say, “Professor X said this content is important’’’
library management systems about how to integrate their tools with ours.
Many library management system companies like OCLC, Ex Libris, Innovative Interfaces and others are building cloud- based systems and we want to integrate with them. It is much easier when stuff is in the cloud. For librarians it is a seamless workflow. It is a great improvement on the old EDI connections.
Our philosophy at Swets is that we want to integrate with anyone. We have particularly had this strategy since 2010 when we saw big data and APIs really emerge. We made a conscious decision not to build everything. You can’t build it all on your own. There is too much else going on that’s too valuable to discard.
However there are a lot of legacy systems out there that are not ready for a new approach and not everybody thinks the same way within companies. If people start to believe they can build one system to do everything they face a big challenge. Instead, a lot is possible if you integrate systems and allow information to flow. Open development is very fundamental in this industry. It will be a catalyst for a number of things we’ve not even dreamt of yet. However, there are many questions with
what’s going to happen and whether data is secure. These are genuine concerns and need to be well-managed. It feels like letting your child out of the house for themselves for the first time. It’s good but scary.
I see more possibilities than disruptors these days. Technology enables much more now. Disruptors might be people not always understanding library decisions, which can lead their institutions to suffer. It is hard for libraries to demonstrate their value and we need to help them show it.
In basically every industry globally you need to demonstrate what you do with money. Business information is critical. It is better if you can build a foundation of data and logic.
www.researchinformation.info
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