OLE now a Kuali Foundation Project 2009 November 20
On November 16′th the Kuali Foundation announced that a group of academic libraries are partnering to create the Kuali Open Library Environment (OLE) (pronounced Oh-LAY). Although I knew this announcement like this was coming, I find it welcome news. While I am a strong supporter of Evergreen and Koha Open Source integrated library systems (ILS), I think the OLE Project will bring something new to the table that neither of these other two projects currently do. Koha and Evergreen, while successful, are more replacements for existing ILSs such as those currently offered by SirsiDynix, III, and Ex Libris. Depending on your point of view, these may be better options than the existing proprietary ILS vendors offerings, or they may be more limited. However, even if one takes the position that they are better, offer more return on investment, and are a better fit for the philosophy of libraries, they still are not breakthroughs in terms of the type of functionality offered.
OLE, on the other hand, is being designed to “create a next-generation library system that breaks away from print-based workflows and reflects the changing nature of library materials and new approaches to scholarly work.” In this way, unlike Koha or Evergreen, OLE’s competition is Ex Libris’ URM that is currently being developed and not the more traditional ILS offerings such as Ex Libris’s Aleph or Voyager, SirsiDynix’s Symphony or Unicorn, or III’s Millennium ILS.
Will OLE be successful? I think they will be, at least some degree. They have some heavy-weight academic research libraries behind them as Founding Partners including Indiana University, a Florida Consortium lead by University of Florida, Lehigh University, Duke University, North Carolina State University, University of Chicago, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania. Not only that, between the schools and the Mellon Foundation, almost $5 million dollars has been committed to the project over the next two years.
What will this mean for Ex Libris’ URM? I think that this is actually a welcome development for Ex Libris. If they were the only organization (commercial or non-profit) attempting to create something like the URM, I think many libraries would be more skeptical of the concept. They also will have something to judge themselves against (and for customers to judge them against) besides a traditional ILS. This may make it easier for some libraries to convince the provost or other purse string holders on campus to open up for the next generation of library systems. If Ex Libris can offer a better product, with better support, at comparable costs as implementing OLE would be, they will be successful with the URM. At this stage it is hard to know what will be better and what pricing will be, but my guess is that there will be room for both OLE and URM to be successful in this market as long as neither of them lose focus.
I have some thoughts on Evergreen and Koha apropos innovation, functionality breakthroughs, etc.
There’s nothing precluding innovation in free and open source software, but the bulk of the directed work is definitely reactive, which in my opinion is a good thing.
We’re not trying to “play catch-up” (and indeed, in some areas we’re “ahead”, albeit in evolutionary rather than revolutionary ways), and we’re not trying to be all things to all people. We’re just trying to meet the evolving needs of our existing communities.
If these communities want topic maps instead of MARC records, or greater abstractions of and affordances for certain resources (print versus electronic versus people, etc.), then these things will come, and you know why? Because we’re working with software where anyone is free to scratch these itches, or take their flashes of inspiration and give them life.
In the case of Evergreen, we first developed a truly service oriented architecture (something that both OLE and URM harp on) because we really had no idea what folks would want to do in the long term, so we wanted to make things as flexible and as scalable as possible. We hope to get a lot of mileage out of this technology, whichever direction the community leads us (which I’m sure will include some of the same directions OLE is heading).
I hope OLE is successful, and I’m very glad they’re committed to being open source (or even community source). We’ll happily learn from their experiences, and either integrate with their tech or be inspired by it. Heck, I hope folks honestly investigate using OpenSRF and/or Evergreen as a base for OLE. But I’m not one of those folks who think there should be one true way, or that “duplicate” effort is wasted effort. The more the merrier.
With free and open source software, the beauty of that “We” I mentioned earlier is that it’s very flexible. As software, Evergreen and Koha are tools, but it’s the tool makers and tool users that you should look toward for cool things (the communities). Luckily, these folks are still improving their tools, and I hope that remains true for a long long time.
My apologies if this ramble is disjoint and incoherent. I just don’t want anyone to have the impression that Evergreen and Koha are somehow pigeonholed into the “legacy software” category, just because the majority of the folks using them still have to address today’s needs. It’s the promise of flexibility with development that is giving them hope for tomorrow. I think OLE can only but help inform that development.
– Jason
Jason,
Thank you for your comments. I hope my post didn’t make many readers (do I even have many readers?) think I was implying that “Evergreen and Koha are somehow pigeonholed into the ‘legacy software’ category” – that was not my intention at all. I think they are offering what the users of the software wants, and from what I can tell both of them are quickly gaining added functionality that is coming directly from users of the software (whether they are developing it them selves or paying someone else to develop it).
At some point I wonder if OLE and URM are offering something most libraries don’t need, want, or desire. Sure, they sound great on paper, and I am sure *some* libraries (such as large academic research libraries) will benefit but will smaller public and college libraries find the new workflows and features useful? I don’t know and I don’t think we can know until the products are released.