Mark, I completely agree that we should get our terminology straight. And I
think a lot of what we're talking about is NOT the OPAC to which you refer.
Why? Because it is precisely that OPAC, that public face of the ILS, that
is holding us back. In fact, your post highlights two of the primary ways
that the ILS is NOT serving libraries well: it is integrated, and the
information in it is non-standard.
You write:
> As one who
> has worked with several library systems over the years, OPAC has a very
> definite (and limited) meaning as a component of the larger Integrated
> Library System (ILS).
>
And then:
> And while some ILS content is governed by standards -- catalogers
> and serials control folks have their MARC formats and circulation staff
> now have NCIP -- big chunks such as acquisitions and fiscal control are
> totally system specific... and incredibly ugly. Indeed, these last two
> are frequently so non-standard that it is not all uncommon for ILS
> vendors to urge new customers not even to try and bother with converting
> such data to their systems.
>
In its integrated form, the ILS is too big for the vendors to manage and
develop. There are good reasons for integration, not the least of which is
seamless interoperability between component parts. However, I think that
the systems have grown so gargantuan that they've outgrown most of the
benefits of integration that may have existed before. If the systems were
broken into modular bits, each module could be built by people who had the
time and expertise to build that module really well (even if it is the
circulation module).
If the ILS were to be dis-integrated, though, everything would depend the
information and architecture being in a standard format. There's no
excusefor forcing customers to abandon huge chunks of data simply
because it is in
a proprietary format. I understand that it is a popular business model, but
I think that the era of ILS monopoly (even if it is a monopoly made up of a
handful of vendors) is on the wane. It has to be. This is not a
sustainable business model. Just my two cents, but I think that one major
push we'll have to go through in the coming years will be to come up with
the standards on which all the possible component parts of an MLS (modular
library system) can be built.
Yours,
Iris
--
Iris Jastram
The Pegasus Librarian
http://pegasuslibrarian.blogspot.com
Received on Mon Jun 19 2006 - 18:07:36 EDT