Impressions of the new library services platforms - Part 7 - Open Skies by VTLS

(TM) VTLS
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Note:  If you haven't read the first post in this series, I'd recommend you're clicking here and doing so before reading the following post. That first post sets some definitions in place that are used in the analysis and comparison(s) that follow.

Notes of Disclosure:  As some of this blog’s readers will know, I served as the President & COO of VTLS between April of 2003 and April of 2007.  Since leaving the company they’ve done business with me in my capacity as a consultant at CARE Affiliates LLC.  With that on the record, I’ve made every attempt to provide the same critical analysis of the product and company that I’ve applied to those of the other companies in this series. 

Overview

VTLS is one of the older firms in the library automation business and is one of the very few to remain under the original leadership/management.  The company has long done business internationally, a trend that continues to represent a substantial part (82% of revenues according to the 2012 LJ Automation Marketplace survey of their business today).   Their entrant into the library services platform is tentatively being called "Open Skies" a name, which might change upon final release.

Approach

Open Skies is the very latest entrant into the library services platform arena.  The approach of VTLS has taken is similar to that seen with Innovative's Sierra in that they're repackaging their existing ILS technology (Virtua) while combining it with other existing VTLS technologies and adding in new capabilities.  VTLS has also added support for multimedia, multi-format metadata, support for mobile devices and greater interoperability with 3rd party systems through support for open application programming interfaces (API's) and service oriented architecture (SOA). They're using a unified Drupal user interface (UI) on top of Chamo and Chamo Discovery and other existing products and through that interface are making data from VITAL and Virtua available to end-users.  As we've seen with other library services platforms use of Solr is also employed in Open Skies.  The specific steps are to merge access of content from Virtua and VITAL, merge Chamo and Visualizer into a new Chamo Discovery module, create a common metadata management system for Virtua and Vital and develop enhanced displays of FRBR and RDA records.

Considerations for Libraries

Given this approach, there is no loss of existing functionality in moving from Virtua to this product, rather it is an approach that adds functionality by integrating print and digital content, adds streaming media support, allows events and activities to be supported, provides basic preservation services for digital content and e-book collection management as well as extensive support for mobile users.  Of course the functionality in Virtua, a mature product, was comprehensive for an ILS. 

I'm going to repeat many of the same things I previously said in my blog post about Sierra, because the company approaches are very similar and thus carry the same advantages and disadvantages both for the libraries selecting this option and for VTLS as a company.  

Again, let's start by looking at the logic, starting with libraries. As noted before, this approach realizes many libraries are in no hurry to re-engineer their backroom processes in light of the possible costs involved and feel that the library can get better or greater support by focusing on end-user facing improvements.  Understanding that many libraries have to make very tough choices in this environment, many will, for at least the short term, focus new investments on user-facing improvements.  Thus, investing currently in re-engineering back room processes won't be a priority for these libraries and if they're already running Virtua, they'll have a choice of simply upgrading to Open Skies with minimal disruption and yet obtain new functionality to serve out to end-users.   For those not running Virtua but yet needing to move off of an existing ILS, this choice will be tougher when it comes to Open Skies as no ILS conversion is painless and therefore the libraries will have to weigh, if they're going to go down that path, would they be better off to just go straight to a totally new, more fully integrated back end Library Service Platforms, such as those represented by WorldShare, Alma, or Intota.  That won't be an easy question to answer, but it will be one the library staff will need to ponder and decide carefully.

As noted when I discussed this approach concerning Innovative, for VTLS the logic here is that they can point out that there is no loss of existing functionality (since they aren't redeveloping it and in fact, are adding to the existing functionality), there is minimal additional training needed (which is also less demanding on company staff resources), they'll be able offer a quicker conversion of existing customers to the updated product, fewer bugs (the code isn't new), less documentation to write, less testing to be done, etc.  It's a sizeable list of advantages.  But before declaring this path an obvious winner, as with Innovative, lets consider the disadvantages for libraries and VTLS.

The risk for libraries comes in several parts. First, because this is not a true cloud-computing platform (it's a SaaS solution), and local installations are still supported, VTLS will not be able to optimize their use of company resources in supporting one version of the software.   VTLS will doubtless end up supporting many versions given the path they've chosen here. This will be translated into higher overhead costs that ultimately all VTLS customers must bear (and one which those providers offering a true cloud-computing solution will avoid).  Of course, this has to be balanced against the needs of those libraries, which due to security or availability reasons, feel they must run a local installation and for which cloud computing solutions simply won't be an option.   For them this overhead will be very worthwhile.

With regard to the software, the totally rewritten and re-engineered products (WorldShare, Intota, Alma, OLE) provide more integrated and streamlined workflows and thus are far more efficient for those libraries that are rapidly moving towards adding support for digital collections. These more efficient workflows mean you can take existing people and financial resources, and reallocate them to new user-facing services. However, if Open Skies doesn't offer these new integrated workflows it's a missed opportunity for your library.  How important this will be for your library depends on where it is in that continuum of moving towards digital collections.  The same thing I said about Sierra applies here.  It is up to you to make a determination if the work and cost of converting to the newer, more efficient systems is worth the efficiencies you'll gain?  Almost certainly, in the long run, it would be. However, many libraries need to deal with the short term first, and there the picture is not always as clear. Sometimes, this is an acceptable risk. VTLS, which reported in last years LJ Automation Marketplace survey that there are 1,798 installations using their products, has apparently decided that the majority of their customers will agree with their assessment.

As for how open the system is, Open Skies provides basic support for linked data as well as open API's that conform to Chamo structures (but note that this is not an open public specification such as Open Social,  which is used in products like OCLC's WorldShare).

Reporting capabilities and the ability to support aggregated data and analytic analysis appear to be further down the road for Open Skies.   There is no mention of these capabilities or any plan to address them, in the presentations I've seen.

Open Skies is scheduled to be released in early 2013 and should be fully demonstrable for the first time at Mid-Winter ALA in Seattle in January 2013.

Bottom Line

As mentioned at the beginning, VTLS is still under the original leadership that started the firm, Vinod Chachra.   One has to admire the ability of any CEO to survive that long in this marketplace.  It's no small feat.  Yet it also raises questions/concerns.  If you're signing up for Open Skies, you're likely doing so with the expectation that it will last anywhere from three to ten years.  In which case, as we've seen happen with all the other firms in the business, one has to wonder what happens when the day comes that the leadership and/or ownership of the firm changes?  Will it stay within the Chachra family, will it be sold and if so, to which company and/or private equity firm? Or will the Board bring in new management at that time, and if so, what will that mean for the customers and products?   All are perfectly valid questions to be put on the table in any analysis of Open Skies and the answers should be obtained and examined carefully before a library makes any commitment to this product.  

VTLS has, for some time, best succeeded in a couple of segments in the library marketplace.  As mentioned above, they've long had a strong presence in international libraries, ranging from national libraries to small, public, academic and special.   The other place they've established a strong niche is in those sites where a highly customized solution is required.   Queens Borough Public in New York City, Hong Kong Public in Hong Kong and ISSN International Centre in Paris, France are just a few of the most prominent examples.  While those customizations ultimately make it back into the main product, one has to wonder if that kind of additional specialized complexity will be of interest to libraries in North America that are facing budget restrictions and have the need to simplify and or streamline backend operations?  Even if it can be configured out of the workflow of those libraries not wishing to use it, that complexity creates overhead in the core product in terms of documentation, testing and maintenance -- all of which create costs that all VTLS customers must bear. Yet, for those libraries within the segments described above, VTLS will likely continue to be a good choice.   

An additional challenge that VTLS faces, at least in the North American market, is that they don't have a large presence.  So, for Open Skies to penetrate this key market it will place prospective buyers in the situation of having to go through an extensive conversion process and retraining of staff.  If a library is going to do that then they'll most certainly want to consider if they shouldn't just move to one of the newer, more fully re-engineered and comprehensively integrated back-end library service platforms?   While Open Skies offers some interesting capabilities, libraries will have to carefully analyze whether or not those will provide more value for end-users and administration than can be obtained by re-engineering backroom workflows so as to be able to free up staff in order to resource other entirely new services.

Of course, given the 1,798 existing installations of VTLS products and for libraries deciding new services are not as critical as the existing services, the smoother move to Open Skies from Virtua will offer a lot of benefits and new functionality.  For those libraries in particular, Open Skies may be an entirely logical step and viable option for moving forward in the next several years.  As with any of these newer offerings, library technologists considering Open Skies should perform their due diligence, understand their needs carefully and make a well informed decision.

NOTE:  This is one post in a series.  All the posts are listed below:

1. Introduction 
2. Sierra by Innovative (this post)
3. Intota by Serials Solutions
4. Worldshare by OCLC
5. OLE by Kuali
6. Alma by Ex Libris
6a. Ex Libris and Golden Gate Capital
7. Open Skies by VTLS (this post)

Impressions of the new library services platforms - Part 6a - Ex Libris & Golden Gate Capital

In light of my last blog post in this series and the news today that Golden Gate Capital has purchased the Ex Libris Group, I'm being asked; What are my thoughts on this? Especially given that I said in my last post this could happen anytime in the foreseeable future.

My previous blog post on equity investors in this market contains many of the issues that I think we as librarians need to contemplate in reviewing these kinds of deals and what they mean for us as a profession.  Certainly, this one with Ex Libris and Golden Gate Capital is already following the standard playbook to some degree, with company officials making statements like: "Customers shouldn't expect any changes".  Despite those verbal assurances, I'm expecting there WILL be changes.   It's a rare equity investment firm that thinks they don't bring new expertise, new opportunities and/or new value to the table.  In order to capitalize on those things, changes will happen.  The company will portray these as normal management processes/decisions and to some degree they'll be right. It's just that the management team now has a major new advisor at that table.  So for me, the only real question about changes is how many, how fast and where?  The answers to those questions, we'll have to wait and find out.  However, in the case of Ex Libris, as I noted in my previous post about them, they've done a very good job during the past transfers in ownership, of keeping changes to a minimum.  The company management has also largely retained control over most of the everyday decision making that shapes the company and products.  

As for the timing on this, I'll admit that even though I thought it was imminently possible, I was a bit surprised that it happened this quickly. That surprise results because the company is in the early stages of the transitioning from a revenue model based on the sales of software licenses and associated services (which brings more recognizable revenue to the table early in the contract life), to that of a service provider (where the revenue is much lower on the front end, but the recurring revenue is much higher over the multi-year life of a contract). Investors generally like to see higher recurring revenues, especially from contracts with multi-year terms.  It simply means the profitability of the firm is more assured and as a result, when the next ownership sale comes along, the firm will be valued higher.   In the case of Ex Libris, they only have a modest number of Alma sites up and running (although they do have a large number of SaaS customers which also generates solid recurring revenues).  However, the benefits of that new service model are yet to be fully realized when it comes to Alma. This will happen as Alma becomes a substantial part of the business in the future.   When that happens, the company should see its value climb substantially (given other variables stay equal).  

So why did Leeds Equity sell now?  Or course, there could be many reasons and I have no specific knowledge here.  Reasons might include thinking they've taken the company as far as they can, it's simply time, they want to move into other investment areas or, it could be one other reason.  Which is that they've done what many investors are doing at the moment.  Which is to say they are  evaluating the likelihood of a substantial increase in capital gains tax rates at the end of the year.  This hike could be as much as 10 points (ten dollars per one hundred) and that could have a real impact on profits for any asset sale planned within the near term.  If they believe that rates are going to rise (and many, many investors do, see this NY Times article for more on this) then there is some substantial incentive to aggressively complete a sale inside of this calendar year and avoid those taxes.   Given the December closing date forecast for the Golden Gate Capital/ExLibris/Leeds deal, this might be a strong indication that they are of this belief.  As a friend of mine always says: "Follow the money…".  You'll frequently find the answers you're looking for if you do that.

I'm also being frequently asked: Are equity investors good for companies in our profession?  

While I think I've answered that to some degree in my previous post on equity investment firms, I would say that within the boundaries of what equity investors do, and the criteria by which we measure them, yes, they do a good job for the companies they own. They certainly bring valuable advice and resources to these companies.  

However, in my humble opinion, the criteria by which we measure the success of these firms is entirely too narrow. (And please note this is not a criticism of equity investors as such, but of what we as a society have come to demand and expect of these types of firms).  Let me also point out (just in case you forgot) that all of these issues were reviewed in painful detail for all of us during the last United States Presidential election process.  So I won't repeat them all here again.   I would however ask you to think about what these issues say concerning us as citizens in this society?  The answer to that question is not an all together comfortable statement.  

I personally believe we as people have moved far away from assigning any real value to how well a company satisfies its customers or staff and instead we've focused far more, and somewhat exclusively, on the return on investment, i.e. how much money do they put on the bottom line and what have they done for us today?

You may not think that you personally fit into this category.  Well, ask yourself how much attention you pay when you're buying a company's products, services or stock, to issues like; how they do business, how they treat employees, customers, or the environment?  If you're one of those people that is always looking solely for the lowest price or the biggest stock dividend, or the best return on your 401K or pension and that's where you stop --  well then please realize you are helping to create the very conditions and expectations where long-term costly employees are quickly and easily discarded, where sales are driven to conclusion without very much attention to how happy the customer will ultimately be with the product(s) or where the increase in employee benefit package costs are transferred to the employees rather than borne by the company.  Of course, this list goes on and on.    Those are moves that are made to increase the profit and the bottom line value of companies.  Thus, it makes a company far more valuable on the day when it (or the stock) gets sold and the profits taken.  

Furthermore, let's remember what I said in my previous post about those profits and equity investors, which is that when dealing with these types of owners, LARGE percentages of the profit are taken OUT of our profession.  Now those profits might still be going to other great causes, like pensions or other solid investments. However, it is very unlikely it's staying directly within our profession or otherwise helping to promote the value of librarianship.  Library owned collaboratives do that.  Open source software efforts do that.  Equity investors may not.   So, is this good for us, particularly right now when our budgets are under so much pressure?  I think you'll likely have to answer that question for yourself.  Are we "valuing" the right things any more?  Certainly, in my mind, that question is totally open to debate.

The bottom line here? When people ask me will equity investment firms do well for the companies they're buying; what am I saying?    I'll say "yes".  Given the kind of criteria we as a society hold these firms to, they'll do quite well.  Now, will they do well for librarianship as a profession?  There are no easy answers to be made in response to that one.  Informed decisions that reflect our beliefs as people, as librarians and as representatives of the organizations we work for are the best we can hope to do. 

NOTE:  This is one post in a series.  All the posts are listed below:

1. Introduction 
2. Sierra by Innovative 
3. Intota by Serials Solutions
4. Worldshare by OCLC
5. OLE by Kuali
6. Alma by Ex Libris
6a. Ex Libris and Golden Gate Capital (this post)
7. Open Skies by VTLS

Impressions of the new library services platforms - Part 6 - Alma by Ex Libris

(TM) Ex Libris Group

Note:  If you haven't read the first post in this series, I'd recommend you're clicking here and doing so before reading the following post. That first post sets some definitions in place that are used in the analysis and comparison(s) that follow.

Notes of Disclosure:  As many of this blog’s readers will know, I’ve twice served as the President of Ex Libris North America with my most recent engagement ending December 31^st, 2011.  I’m still a minority shareholder in the company and since leaving the company they’ve occasionally hired me in my capacity as a consultant at CARE Affiliates LLC.  With that on the record, I’ve made every attempt to provide the same critical analysis of the product and company that I’ve applied to those of the other companies in this series. 

Overview

Ex Libris is another respected company with a long track record of providing software solutions to libraries and they also have an impressive customer base using those products.   Alma was the first library services platform announced and as such, is also a totally new, ground-up write of a product.   Ex Libris uses the phrase “unified resource management” system in describing Alma, but it essentially has the same characteristics used by others when they use the phrase “library services platform” or “Webscale”. The company has devoted a considerable amount of financial resources and dedicated, respected and talented staff to developing this product.   As noted with other products, it would appear that Ex Libris has also taken all the right steps to produce a solid product for librarians to consider when procuring a library services platform.

Approach

The overall approach of Ex Libris is to bring libraries comprehensive unified resource management.   In doing this, their intent is to avoid the duplication of effort and data required in maintaining an ILS, electronic resource manager, institutional repository, discovery and link resolution products.  The goal is for library staff to be able to work in one, consolidated environment.

Considerations for Libraries

Alma is another product earning the designation of being a true cloud-computing solution as defined in my first post of this series.  It is a true multi-tenant application and utilizes data aggregation and has the capability to support analytics.  Ex Libris has laid the groundwork for a full implementation of cloud computing by placing data centers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.  All of their data centers are independently SAS 70 certified.  There are no planned capabilities to support local installations of Alma. 

Due to this architecture, Alma will be able to offer analytics and to base them on shared data (provided customers agree) using Oracle’s analytic tools.  The result is that libraries should have comprehensive analytics across all their assets (and potentially all libraries using the “Collaborative Business Intelligence” tools).  Together, these capabilities should offer customers some powerful decision making capabilities and user-focused services in the future.

Unlike other library services platform providers, Ex Libris has focused on the functional needs of a smaller segment of the library marketplace (academic, research, national and corporate libraries being their primary markets).   This has provided the company with some advantage in that even though they’re writing an entirely new product, they’ve been able to develop more depth of functionality than competing library services platforms.  That functionality includes: selection (acquisitions and demand driven acquisitions (DDA)), print management (circulation, reserves, ILL, etc.), electronic management (licensing, tracking, etc.), digital asset management (IR functions), metadata management (cataloging, collaborative metadata management) and link resolution (OpenURL).  At the time of the demo I saw, the company was reporting a total of 40 signed contracts for Alma, representing 80 institutions.  14 of those institutions were in North America.  The numbers are likely higher at this time.

The product moves libraries from “just-in-case” to “just-in-time” collection development models.  It also features configurable workflows using a manager tool that allows tasks to be assigned to staff.  Due to the configurability of workflows, libraries can largely retain existing workflows and then consolidate and streamline them as time permits.  Of course, it must also be noted that while much functionality exists at this point, there is still functionality missing.  It’s the classic case of the software product being sold vs. the product being delivered in that there are some discrepancies between the vision and the deliverable at this point in time.  Furthermore, some of that missing functionality is fairly major including things like consortia capabilities, which will not be released until 2013.  Also planned, but not yet released is support for EAD and MODS.     

One of the new features offered, as part of Alma is the “Community Catalog” used for the sharing/storage of metadata between libraries.  Data in the Community Catalog uses the PDL open data license.  Among the data currently loaded are records from: CONSER, LC, British Library and Journal metadata records.  It is yet to be seen if this will become a truly viable alternative to other major sources of metadata records, but again, the foundations appear solid.

With regard to openness, Ex Libris is another company that has long offered open API’s on their products.  Plans for Alma also include open API’s (application programming interfaces) and support for SOA (service oriented architecture).  The company has long offered support for customers doing OSS (open source software) extensions to their products via the ELCommons website.  This site features a Wiki and a code-sharing site, which allows customers to share code, documentation and presentations about the code extensions.  There are separate sections offered for each of their major products.

Bottom Line

Because of Ex Libris’ focus on depth of functionality rather than breadth of market, Alma appears to currently offer the richest level of functionality available in the new library services platforms.  Indeed, some of the sites that have switched away from other new library services platforms have noted this as one of the very reasons for their move to Alma.  At the same time, this functionality comes at a bit of a price in that you can readily and easily see that this product has been shaped primarily by large academic libraries, i.e. the functionality is more complex.  As a result, some of the the workflows don’t appear as smooth or streamlined as those seen in the competitive offerings.  Of course, this comparison won’t be totally valid until the competing products offer the same capabilities in supporting a workflow.  Still, the Ex Libris customer base has a large number of medium-small academic libraries in it and given that most of those libraries are shedding product complexity for streamlined processes, one must wonder how suitable they’ll ultimately find Alma to be in addressing those workflows.  This profession has seen numerous examples of a product being made to work for research libraries and then thinking they can be easily adapted to smaller libraries or similarly, in making a product work for a consortium and then trying to adapt it to standalone libraries – the result is usually some major bumps in the road for those smaller customers.

Ex Libris has others factor at play that deserves some thoughtful consideration.  With Alma now at customer sites, it means they’re supporting three library systems (Aleph,Voyager and Alma), a discovery interface (Primo), link resolver (SFX), recommender (bX), ERM (Verde), preservation system (Rosetta), digital content management system (DigiTool) and a metasearch tool (MetaLib).  By any measure that’s a lot of products and a lot of overlap.  Realistically, one has to ask how long this is reasonably sustainable for the company (and thus the customers).  Although again, it should be noted, they've largely been doing just that for some time now.  

Just to add to the mix of considerations, as I’ve noted before, Ex Libris is another company owned by an equity investor firm. This adds to the list of issues to be contemplated, not the least of which is the current owners (Leeds Equity) bought the company in August 2008.   3-5 years is a very typical time frame for equity investors to sell and exit (the equity investors/owners previous to Leeds didn’t even make it two full years).  We’re at 4+ years at the time I'm writing this.  So clearly a change in ownership would seem likely within the foreseeable future.   

A new owner may or may not have the same appetite for supporting all those products and overlap.  We’ve seen other equity owners of companies in this market segment, when taking over the ownership, quickly start terminating existing products, or  putting forth an end-of-life date on maintenance availability.  This is done in order to increase profitability and theoretically, sales (it is very questionable if in the long term, that strategy actually succeeds, but that rarely stops equity investors from doing it. As an example, consider what happened at SirsiDynix).   

Depending on the course taken by new owners, existing customers may find they need to move somewhere quicker than they were planning.  Or maybe not. Ex Libris has done well so far in retaining total decision-making authority during previous ownership transitions and while they have, when purchasing companies, pushed customers to leave behind existing products, they have not terminated support for products developed by Ex Libris itself as long as customers continued to pay maintenance.   So hopefully that will continue when the next turnover in ownership occurs.  The point for you however is simple; there are some unknown variables here that you should consider in your decision making.

The flip side of equity investor ownership is that Ex Libris also has available impressive financial resources to enable the company to do big things.  For example, setting up a services like Primo Central or cloud computing environment is very expensive.  While to the best of my knowledge, Ex Libris has relied only on internal company financial resources to do this kind of work, the equity investor ownership does give them the capability to reach beyond that should it ever be needed for say another acquisition. However, as I've said before, this type of ownership needs to be balanced against the issues I’ve raised in my post about equity investor ownership of these firms.

In summary, depending on the type of library you’re working in and the needs of that organization, Alma can represent a truly modern library services platform that will carry your library forward for many years to come.  I would recommend, as always, that you understand your needs thoroughly and do your due diligence carefully before buying Alma at an early stage of its life cycle.  In the short term, if there is a good match between those needs and what will be delivered today, Alma represents a very solid choice when buying a new library services platform.  In the long run, Alma will most certainly be a major contender in the library services platform offerings.

NOTE:  This is one post in a series.  All the posts are listed below:

1. Introduction 
2. Sierra by Innovative (this post)
3. Intota by Serials Solutions
4. Worldshare by OCLC
5. OLE by Kuali
6. Alma by Ex Libris (this post)
6a. Ex Libris and Golden Gate Capital
7. Open Skies by VTLS

Impressions of the new library services platforms - Part 5 - OLE by Kuali

Note:  If you haven't read the first post in this series, I'd recommend your clicking here and doing so before reading the following post. That first post sets some definitions in place that are used in the analysis and comparison(s) that follow.

Introduction

This is the only open source software solution being offered among the new library services platforms.   Backed by Kuali, development partners and using Mellon Foundation grants, a number of academic and research libraries have banded together to build, own and govern this offering. The stated values of OLE membership include the ability to drive the product to meet the needs of member institutions, the ownership of the software as a long-term investment and the ability to meet the enterprise needs of a research library that will also work for librarians in a consortia environment.

Approach

The stated goal of the OLE project is to build a flexible, service oriented, enterprise library management system for academic and research libraries.  As such, the product is a ground-up write of a new offering.   However, where possible, some of the other Kuali OSS components (financial for example) are being utilized.

Considerations for Libraries

Currently the available functionality includes acquisitions, record loading, accounts receivable and basic reports.  Planned for future releases are circulation, cataloging, inventory, financial processing and ERM components.  In the case of circulation, it is expect that version 1.0 will have core circulation functions and this release is expected within a year from now.  The product is designed to support the range and formats of scholarly information, interoperates and integrates with other systems while providing workflow configuration capabilities.

OLE in its initial release assumes a local installation.  A SaaS offering is in the plans but either way, this is not a true cloud computing system.   Institutions wanting to use a SaaS delivery model the must select their own hosting service.  Note this may change however, as commercial partners sign on and it they elect to offer hosting services.  In any event, I would think sites shouldn't expect to see SaaS capabilities for 18 to 24 months.  This product is not written using a true multi-tenant architecture. So again, in comparison to the true cloud computing systems using multi-tenant architecture, OLE systems will miss out on the associated benefits (lower overhead costs, data aggregation/sharing and analytics).   Their method of data sharing across systems is to use the open linked data model.  Aggregated data is largely a manual operation between system silos, so in comparison to the true cloud computing systems, this is a low level approach.

OLE, like many of the new library services platforms, is at a very early development stage.   As such, things like interface design have not yet been addressed with any level of sophistication. Existing interfaces are extremely text heavy and a bit cumbersome to navigate. OLE has hired an interface designer so hopefully this issue will be addressed soon in upcoming release.

Another thing that librarians must be aware of is that it's not yet clear if OLE can acquire enough support among academic and research libraries to sustain itself over the long term.  The product is clearly being designed primarily by and for research libraries (look at the partner list).  It's an assumption that other academics will want to use the product, but I know from my own experience that medium to smaller academics are radically different environments than research libraries. They need products with less overhead, less complexity and as much back-end efficiency as possible.  It's not yet clear that OLE can do that.  If OLE can't do that soon, these libraries may get drawn in by the competitive offerings which will take them off the market for at least several years if not much longer.  By the time OLE comes back around for consideration, a lot of ground could be lost.  Furthermore, if they can't make OLE appeal to the mid-small size libraries and then they must survive solely on ARL sites and they may not find enough sites to divide the cost across in order to make the annual contribution affordable or, more importantly, a cost that is lower or at least competitive with comparable commercial systems.  It's just a huge unknown at this point.

Bottom Line

For me personally, OLE is, to borrow a phrase, "a paradox, wrapped in a riddle inside of an enigma".  The product has huge potential, it is a community good, it has solid backing and it has packages some very good ideas and components.  From that perspective OLE package has little competition among today’s library service platform offerings.  The only real exception is OCLC's WorldShare MS, which, because it is owned by the library collaborative, also has a lot of community good, but that product isn't open source, so OLE should clearly have the lead here.  Yet it doesn't appear they do.

In addition, I’m forever finding myself stumbling over things like the fact that so much of the code writing was outsourced to HTC Global Services.  Did we really have to do that?  Could we not find ALL of the necessary talent within the existing library/university communities?   If it’s an open source software project, a place where people and organizations donate their time to build the code, why was it necessary to pay a for-profit company to do this?  (Note, see the comment on this post for one participants view on why this happened). Especially when using Mellon Foundation grant money? This action seems to confirm the suspicions, or fears, that the library community of OSS developers is not large enough, or well enough resourced to support an OSS project of this size and complexity. (See my post on OCLC's WorldShare for what might be a further confirmation of this).  What should we read between the lines of these actions?  It seems to me this needs further explanation and in a very upfront way so as to position this project ahead of these questions rather than being reactive to to them.

I’m also at a loss to understand why the product continues to be marketed in ways that don’t really explain the benefit of the product in meaningful ways for the people that will make the decision to commit to it.  The focus in presentations on OLE (that I've seen) are the primarily the technically components and to some degree, the benefits of OSS, which while is important, is not as important as some other high-visibility issues.  I keep encouraging the OLE team to put themselves in the shoes of those institutions they want to have adopt the product, and particularly from an administrator's point of view, and look at OLE through their eyes.  Administrators have real problems to solve, expenses to reduce and end-users to please, all while being more efficient and effective (i.e. do more with less).   Yes, OSS will help them do that, but that is a bit more of a long-term benefit and many problems that administrators are fighting are VERY short-term.  A Director or AUL that attends an OLE presentation would leave thinking this product requires a lot of technical talent to install, run and certainly to modify in order to meet unique needs.   That same Director attending a WorldShare, Alma, Intota, Open Skies or Sierra presentation is going to see far more functionality, well designed interfaces, working examples of workflows surrounded by really very solid marketing/sales presentations.  As it stands, based on the presentations I've seen, it won’t be much of a contest.  Yet it should be and that is what is unfortunate.

As I said above, I believe OLE has huge potential.  It is a community good at a time when libraries need as many of those as they can find.  The design is not as cutting-edge as I think it should be, but it is certainly workable for the near future.  Should libraries look at it?  Yes.  But many will have needs this product won't be able to address for some time to come, if at all.  As a result, building a sufficient user base to create the needed momentum among academic and research libraries, a necessary foundation for the long-term success of OLE, remains to be seen. The key players - most notably the folks at Indiana, Duke, Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania seem determined to see it through and deliver a system that is robust, flexible and powerful. There is a large amount of interest being shown in the United States from academic libraries of various sizes. Sessions on the offering are well attended.  I'm hoping however, that the OLE team realizes some of this interest may be people just doing their due diligence so that they can report back to their authorities that they've examined the option. However, it would be overly optimistic to assume all of those attending sessions will turn into adopters.  Still, there are reportedly active conversations underway with potential partners in the UK and Europe. Obviously many European academic libraries and library groups seem quite intensely interested in community-driven infrastructure development. There could also be some potential leveraged from the relationship with JISC and the work around the Global Open Knowledge Base (GOKb) project which does have  potential (although there are many unanswered questions about GOKb).  Whether or not all of this can be translated into partner sites that will put the offering into production, we will have to wait and see.  

I wish them great luck and and even greater success.

NOTE:  This is one post in a series.  All the posts are listed below:

1. Introduction 
2. Sierra by Innovative 
3. Intota by Serials Solutions
4. Worldshare by OCLC
5. OLE by Kuali (this post)
6. Alma by Ex Libris
6a. Ex Libris and Golden Gate Capital
7. Open Skies by VTLS

Impressions of the new library services platforms - Part 4 - WorldShare Management Services by OCLC

Note:  If you haven't read the first post in this series, I'd recommend you're clicking here and doing so before reading the following post. That first post sets some definitions in place that are used in the analysis and comparison(s) that follow.

Overview

WorldShare Management Services (WMS) is a fresh start, a totally new product that rethinks and recreates management software for libraries.  Because it is a product built by OCLC, it has the potential to benefit enormously from the "common good" and collaboration that OCLC represents, and libraries should partake of in creating a path towards the future.

Approach

WMS represents a true cloud-computing solution (as defined in my opening post in this series).   There are many vendors/organizations in the field that are co-opting the phrase "cloud-computing" in describing their new systems, but very few that truly earn that designation.  OCLC's WMS is one of those that clearly does. It should be noted that this isn't the lowest cost approach for OCLC to take but it is an investment that will clearly better position libraries to be efficient, optimized and in a position to offer new services over the long term.   

The basic product premise is that libraries are more alike than different and that commonalities in management, workflows and service are as similar as library collections, clients and services. At the same time, OCLC understands WMS  must support unique needs and must adhere to principles of vendor-neutrality wherever possible.

Considerations for Libraries

The product is being designed for all types of libraries all sizes from those with millions of circulations, to millions of titles and those with less than 100 users to over a million users. This product uses all the data available in WorldCat, the WorldCat knowledge base, the WorldShare vendor information center, the WorldCat Institution Registry, and other centralized data repositories, which is a huge advantage for libraries and for OCLC (and a huge source of concern and contention with competitors).

However, as noted in the analysis of Intota, one of the consequences of trying to appeal to that many types and sizes of libraries is that the functionality can be lacking.  It really depends on your type of library and where the developer organization is focusing.  For OCLC, there is a real danger in trying to develop an entirely new product and at the same time, trying to address a very broad market. This has huge potential for creating disappointment for early-adopters.  These are enormously complex products as most of us know.  Existing ILS products, while containing limitations in serving today's digital environment, represent hundreds of person years of development, testing and documentation.  You simply can't replicate all the software to do new services in a short amount of time, even with Agile development techniques, new and more efficient programming languages, automated testing and large development teams.  As we've seen happen with other products in other fields, this approach simply stretches the developer resources too thin, across too many demands and doesn't produce enough quality or progress to keep everyone happy at the same time.  

A better way for an organization to build a totally new product is to focus on certain types of customers and as they successfully come up on the new product, to then branch out to address other types of libraries, although it should be noted that in a customer owned cooperative this can be very difficult to do.  

OCLC is doing this, but is doing so by sharing their development plan with prospective customers and asking libraries to self-select based on when functionality they need is scheduled to appear.   Of course, developments don't always appear as scheduled, sometimes librarians are not a patient lot or else they are overly optimistic about there ability to work around a missing piece of functionality.   Some are in situations where they need to move NOW for either financial reasons or because their existing system is reaching the end-of-life.   However, sites that do this can become very disappointed when they find the new, not yet complete, product doesn't meet their needs. When that happens, sometimes the librarians will bail out of the agreement as we've seen happen with a few of the early OCLC WMS customer agreements lately (see my blog post on "Questions concerning OCLC's WorldShare" and, in addition, this very recent announcement from San Juan Island which I quote: 

"The WMS system has turned out not to be an appropriate choice for a library of our size, and not as mature as an information system, in light of bugs, missing features, and the long development path required to address our concerns" 

per Library Board President Mark Madsen.   Clearly, situations like these are not good for either party nor do they leave a lot of good will behind on either side.  

OCLC needs to be clear with libraries about when their outstanding functional needs will be addressed and it is my understanding, that they do in fact put a development plan in their contracts.   Librarians need to do their due diligence carefully, be very realistic, talk with installed sites and make a clearly informed decision when considering WMS.  Then in the contract phase, they need to add in a delivery schedule for the missing functionality and establish penalties or a termination exit if those deadlines are not met.

One of the things I thought was very smart about OCLC's methodology when it came to installing was their decision to get the community of early-adopters working together.  So the implementation process becomes a group experience. Libraries hold weekly meetings with their cohorts and discuss their plans, issues and findings. They also offer the WMS User Support Center, which has a  chat feature (allowing communication between customers and/or OCLC staff), email or, of course customer service via phone during normal business hours. OCLC has developed training tutorials and recorded sessions that are available for library staff to use 24/7. Furthermore, live training sessions are available almost weekly at no additional charge to libraries. Overall, this combination appears to be a very strong support system for implementing sites.

In presentations about WMS, it is discussed that there are major plans underway to collect and use data to drive analytic-based services.   Hadoop, is an open source Apache product licensed under the Apache V2 license and is extremely powerful. The services that could result from this combination could be quite impressive but at this point much is yet to be known here.  What I will point out is that analytic driven services is a relatively new field and people with the skills to do this are in much demand and paid top dollars and they can largely pick where they want to work.   So, I think it is important for libraries to realize it will be difficult for them to have and hold this kind of expertise locally.   They should look to OCLC to use their collaborative position and to offer libraries data driven analytic services.  The collaborative approach to hiring and retaining people with these expensive skill sets makes a tremendous amount of sense.  This is the power of a collaborative and this is a place where librarians should call upon OCLC to serve them.  

In terms of openness, WMS seems to be promising on several different levels.  The overall approach here is that they want the platform seen as one that enables libraries to build on top of it and that they understand they can't do everything.   So, like many of the other platforms, they're saying WMS will offer a large number of open API's for use (again, see my post on API's to understand what you, as a librarian should be looking for here). Unlike other offerings, their approach includes development of a common framework for services (F4S). This strategy is designed to allow OCLC to build consistent API's, which is intended to translate into external developers being able to consistently develop new extensions.   Furthermore, in doing this they're using Open Social, a public specification defining a container and a set of common application programming interfaces (API's) for web-based applications. This will allow library developers an open source method for creating apps, which they can then upload directly into the WMS interface, or use externally in other Open Social Containers.  So in addition to API's, OCLC has built the entire infrastructure for F4S and Application processing, an App Gallery, and created a management interface that allows users to modify the interface by adding their own apps.  Of all the new platforms, this appears to be one of the most comprehensive approaches to providing one and one that can truly earns the designation of an "Open Platform". 

With regard to data centers, again OCLC is taking a very solid approach.  They have two data centers in the U. S. and one each in Australia, Canada and Europe. Coming within next year will be a 2nd site in Europe.   All of their data centers are certified to meet ISO 27001 and Lloyds Quality Assurance certifications.   

Bottom Line

WMS represents a well thought out approach to the needs of libraries for many years to come.  It deserves serious consideration by any library looking for a new library services platform.  

Are there limitations at this stage in the product's lifecycle?  Absolutely.  The functionality is thin in places.  Libraries should look (without rose-colored glasses) at the development timeline and not move to WMS until the functionality they really need is in place.  OCLC is also not known for being highly responsive to customer needs due to internal bureaucracy and governance overhead. However, they've backed the product with some very good people who have years of experience in the field and who truly know what they're doing.  I also think it will serve OCLC and libraries well that they moved to the new ODC-By license on data in WorldCat and have combined this with linked data announcements.  Together these will address many of the concerns librarians have had about their data being captive in an OCLC system.

Now, I'll personally admit that I frequently find myself wishing OCLC had done WMS as a community built, open source software project for many reasons.  The main reason being that collaborative process would have been a tremendous opportunity to create the buy-in of a younger, far more technical generation of librarians, in supporting OCLC.  We saw the previous generation of librarians build WorldCat and that generation continues to be strong defenders and users of OCLC, but I'm not so sure about the next generation.  But, I digress, that's a subject for a different blog post for a different day.   Clearly, for now, OCLC did not feel this approach was an option available to them.  This could be because it is difficult to point to any other OSS application of this size and complexity, and that would meet all the requirements I laid out in my first post of this series that has been developed within and by the library profession. The closest examples require one to point to OSS applications developed outside of the library profession using much, much larger and more active development communities.  I also think OCLC's continued push to find new sources of revenue probably played a role in this decision.

Finally, WMS from OCLC has tremendous potential because the library collaborative owns it.  This means it can capture continued library investment, community collaboration and good will.   Let's face it, OCLC is the largest library membership collaborative in the world. I wish more librarians would realize the power and potential they would have if they worked through this organization. Yes, of course, I know there are massive frustrations with OCLC, historically burnt ground and huge uncertainty about who will step into Jay Jordan's shoes and what direction that person will head.  All of those are valid concerns that OCLC needs to move quickly to resolve.  However, let's remember: OCLC remains the most focused and powerful collaborative available to librarians. Libraries buying WMS are making a real investment in that collaborative and given there are no equity investors to satisfy and no diversion of profit away from the profession but rather back into it, there are good reasons to consider WMS.   Andrew Pace conducted the presentation I attended and he quoted an African proverb in closing that I think is worthy of repeating here because it is a nice summary on the WorldShare approach:  "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." 

NOTE:  This is one post in a series.  All the posts are listed below:

1. Introduction 
2. Sierra by Innovative (this post)
3. Intota by Serials Solutions
4. Worldshare by OCLC
5. OLE by Kuali
6. Alma by Ex Libris
6a. Ex Libris and Golden Gate Capital
7. Open Skies by VTLS