As another year draws to a close, its time to reflect on the trends in play related to library technologies and

attempt to anticipate their trajectory going forward. We are in an incredibly interesting period in the realm of
library technologies. Rather than just refining and rebuilding products on models of functionality that have
been in place since the early decades of library automation, many efforts are under way to break free from
well-established historical approaches and create new products better aligned with the multifaceted realities of
libraries in their collections and services and that embrace current technology architectures. Other threads of
activity include the ongoing enhancement and redevelopment of existing products. The library tech scene has
historically been one of evolution, but the current cycle includes some uncharacteristically revolutionary tracks.

Strategic Technology for a Lean Economy

The library economy has not necessarily achieved full recovery from the recent downturn. Nevertheless, I
expect that investments in technology will expand next year. Im not, however, especially optimistic about the
library budgets in general. Many will never fully be restored to levels in place prior to the economic downturn.
Even though the economic climate isnt ideal, I anticipate that the spending on technology will increase at a
modest level.
Many libraries that have put technology upgrades on hold will move forward with technologies that can help
them maintain their strategic position. Cuts in library budgets have hit both collections and operations
especially personnel. As libraries have fewer staff members, they will invest in technology solutions that enable
more efficient operations and improved services to their clientele. I see this as relatively good news for some of
the strategic technology products that I follow, including discovery services, integrated library systems and
library services platforms, and those technologies related to self-service or automated materials handling.

Discovery Services Continue to Mature

For the past few years, libraries have invested most heavily on products and services with direct end-user
impact. Discovery services have represented a large proportion of the revenues in the library automation
economy as sales of new products for management of behind-the-scenes operations generally have been on a
downward slope. The four major web-scale discovery products, WorldCat Local, EBSCO Discovery Service,
Serials Solutions Summon, and Primo Central from Ex Libris, have each achieved high levels of maturity, each
well past the stage of appealing mostly to early adopters, and they should be considered safe bets for most
academic libraries. They have expanded the quantity and quality of content represented within their indexes,
continue to refine their interfaces, enable greater interoperability with the librarys ILS, and continue to
improve the algorithms for calculating the relevancy ordering of search results.
Innovative Interfaces, Inc.s Encore Synergy differs from the other competitors in this group, providing access
to article-level material without the construction of a central index but through real-time connections with
selected content resources. Innovative has joined the index-based discovery league, through a deal with
EBSCO to integrate results from EBSCO Discovery Service into Encore. EBSCO has formed similar
arrangements with SirsiDynix and OCLC.
In the coming year, I expect to see further advancements in the realm of library discovery services. Even
though each of the index-based discovery products now addresses a critical mass of the resources that
comprise a librarys collection, none can claim complete comprehensive coverage. Gaps remain, primarily due
to some publishers not yet being willing to make their resources available to the discovery service providers for
indexing. I remain ever hopeful that these gaps will continue to narrow. As the number of libraries
implementing these discovery services reaches a critical mass, participation by content providers will be
increasingly important to libraries. If use of a given resource declines due to its absence in their discovery
service, libraries may reconsider renewal and subscribe instead to alternative content products. An even more
effective strategy would involve libraries including terms in their licenses for content products that require
content providers to participate in discovery services.
The basic model of web-scale discovery involves publishers of primary materials and aggregated content
packages providers making the content available to the creators of discovery services for the inclusion in their
indexes. The content providers require a high level of trust that their contributed materials will not be
redistributed, but used only for the benefit of the libraries with current subscriptions. The discovery service
ecosystem currently is complicated by the fact that some of the major publishers of electronic resources also
offer discovery services but do not necessarily contribute content to competing discovery products. Other
publishers continue to hold back their content from discovery services providers out of other concerns. The

realization of the vision of comprehensive resource discovery spanning the entire spectrum of library collections
will not be realized without universal participation of content providers with the creators of discovery services.
The Open Discovery Initiative (ODI), a work group of the National Information Standards Organization, aims to
create a set of recommended practices in the realm of discovery services that will lower the barriers that
prevent publisher participation and provide more transparency, giving libraries the means to better assess the
level of participation of publishers with the discovery services. This initiative was launched in 2012 and is
scheduled to complete its work by about April 2013. If successful, the ODI should result in some additional
clarity and transparency in the discovery services ecosystem, including content providers, discovery service
creators, and libraries that might expand publisher participation and close the gaps in coverage.
(See http://niso.org/workrooms/odi.)
I expect that many more libraries will adopt discovery services in the coming year. Especially for academic
libraries that have made large investments in scholarly electronic resources, its becoming essential to deploy
services that provide easier and more efficient ways for patrons to make use of these materials. As these
products have become more mature and approach more comprehensive coverage, libraries that have, until
now, put off investments in these tools will take the plunge.

Library Services Platforms

This year has also seen a great deal of activity on the rollout of a new slate of what I call library services
platforms, a new generation of products with advancements beyond the traditional integrated library systems
(ILSs).These products are designed to manage both print and digital content, tend to be deployed using cloud
computing technologies, and make more use of knowledgebases for more efficient resource management.
Three of these library services platforms have seen their initial general release, with libraries now using them
in production. Ex Libris has completed the first version of Alma, its new platform based on the concepts of
unified resource management. This effort came to fruition with several libraries, including those at Boston
College, Fort Hays State University, and Virginia Commonwealth University among the libraries successfully
placing the software into production in 2012. OCLC launched the initial version of its WorldShare Management
Services in 2010 for early adopters. Through the course of 2012, many additional libraries shifted away from
traditional ILS products in favor of relying on OCLCs cloud-based services for the automation of their
operations. Innovative Interfaces launched its new Sierra Services Platform in April 2011; about a year later,
the Westerville Public Library in Ohio became the first to place it into production. Innovative is now busy
bringing up additional installations of Sierra. A record 238 libraries signed contracts for this product in 2011,
not to mention more sales made in early 2012.
Other entrants in the library services platform genre remain in development. Serials Solutions, the company
that launched the web-scale discovery genre with the introduction of Summon in 2009, has also begun the
development of Intota, a new product that will expand beyond the companys established capabilities in the
management of electronic materials to a comprehensive approach that also includes print. The year 2012 has
been a year of intense development for Intota, with involvement of partner libraries, but production use of
Intota isnt expected until 2014. Kuali OLE, the project developing a community-source, enterprise-oriented
library services platform, will complete its initial version by late this year, with some migrations expected in
2013.
I believe there is considerable pent-up demand for better tools to help manage library collections and
operations. In reviewing my database of libraries and ILS implementations, it seems to reflect an inordinate
number of automation systems in major libraries that have been in place since the mid-1990s. The era of
discovery services allowed libraries to defer replacing their integrated library systems, but the time will soon
come where continuing to operate obsolete products will impede strategic progress.
I anticipate that next year will be one of intense activity for these new library services platforms. The
companies that have completed these products will aim to capitalize on that advantage.
Early success will help build library confidence and momentum for new procurement. Likewise, if these systems
dont fully deliver on the new vision and promise, libraries may choose to wait until the new systems become
more mature. The products still in development will likely elevate their visibility, hoping to convince
procrastinating libraries to wait a bit longer until their offerings are ready.

Mobile Technologies
Its beyond obvious that mobile technologies have become pervasive. Smartphones, tablets, and e-readers are
making rapid gains over notebook and desktop computers. Most major web destinations now have a specially
designed mobile version of their sites or offer an app for each mobile platform or device. Libraries continue to
struggle in this area and, it seems to me, lag behind the sophistication seen in the broader techno sphere. By
now, most of the ILS and discovery products offer mobile capabilities, with at least some subset of the
functionality seen in their full web-based products. A few libraries have built quite impressive mobile sites, but
most havent. I expect that 2013 will see a great surge of activity in the mobile arena, where libraries realize a
sense of urgency to respond to the dramatic shift in the way that patrons expect to access library services.

New Procurement Patterns

In the coming years, I expect that libraries will acquire fewer automation components la carte, but they will
rather shift to more comprehensive product suites. It is increasingly less attractive to acquire link resolvers,
electronic resource management tools, and discovery tools from different vendors given their increasing
interdependencies. These products are increasingly tied to a knowledgebase of e-resource holdings, which
bring together products that may have previously been acquired individually into a more tightly knit suite of
functionality.
In some cases, the end of an era has arrived. Take, for example, the acquisition of link resolvers as a separate
product. Link resolvers now constitute a key infrastructural component of the broader tasks of discovery or
electronic resource management. Going forward, libraries will acquire link resolvers mostly as part of more
strategic projects, such as through the implementation of a discovery service or library services platform. Link
resolvers inherently depend on knowledgebases of the titles and coverage held within the many content
products to which libraries subscribe. These knowledgebases are now deeply integrated into the discovery and
automation products, making it difficult to mix and match among components from competing vendors.
I also see an increased affinity between discovery services and the library services platforms offered by each of
the vendors. Again, its the knowledgebase that provides the glue. The new models of automation depend more
on the same knowledgebases associated with the discovery services. While it will be technically possible to mix
and match discovery services from one vendor with library services platforms from another, the work involved
to integrate them and synchronize knowledgebases will be worthwhile only in special circumstances.
I also believe that we have arrived at the end of the line for electronic resource management tools as a
discrete product category. The genre of library automation software dedicated to the management of electronic
resources has proven largely unsuccessful. Despite the near-complete transition of academic libraries acquiring
scholarly articles from print to electronic subscriptions, the products specialized in the management of these
resources as a discrete activity never gained significant traction. After almost a decade on the market, the
numbers of installations of these products remains only in the hundreds, compared to tens or even hundreds of
thousands of ILS implementations. Going forward, the functionality of electronic resource management will be
integrated within library services platforms rather than as separate products. Each of the current electronic
resource management products, including Verde from Ex Libris, Innovative Interfaces Electronic Resource
Management, and 360 Resource Manager from Serials Solutions, has been absorbed within their new, more
comprehensive products.

Open Source Alternatives

Although interest in open source library automation products continues to represent a significant component of
the industry, interest seems to have plateaued. This represents a more mature approach as libraries routinely
consider automation products offered under either proprietary or open source licenses. Libraries with a strong
philosophical preference for open source may have made this move in recent years, with all products now
competing more on their merits of functionality, alignment with strategic priorities, quality of service, and
economic value. That said, the proportion of open source integrated library systems in the U.S. will continue to
be substantial, representing about 12% of new public library ILS contracts in 2011. I anticipate similar levels
when the numbers are final for 2012. When open source ILS products entered the U.S. library automation
scene in earnest about 2005, I watched with great interest to see if the adoption rates would spike upward or
follow a more gentle slope. It turned out to be a fairly aggressive rise initially, which has moderated a bit
subsequently. Today I see an interesting competition among the products offered with open source or
proprietary licenses, competing primarily on the quality of service and breadth of functionality.

Business Transitions
We can anticipate ongoing activity related to investments in and ownership of the major companies involved in
providing technology products and services to libraries. Private equity firms now control a significant proportion
of the larger companies in the industry. The business strategies executed by these owing investors are a major
factor in shaping the overall industry.
This has been an interesting year in the mergers and acquisitions arena. It saw a major consolidation in the
radio-frequency identification component of the industry, with a private equity firm bringing together three
companies with regional impact into a single global enterprise. Innovative Interfaces, long a holdout away from
founder ownership, was acquired by a pair of private equity firms, Huntsman Gay Global Capital, LLC and JMI
Equity, with Jerry Kline retaining a minority stake and turning over the management of the company to new
hands. Under the direction of the newly constituted board, a new executive team, led by CEO Kim Massana,
now directs the company. Other changes in ownership of major companies are anticipated in the remainder of
2012, with some of the existing investors ready for the next handoff. For the next year or so, I do expect some
ongoing shifts in the ownership of the companies involved in this industry. I think that there is only an outside
chance that any upcoming business transitions will lead to further consolidation.
While the major companies involved in proprietary products have seen consolidation over the years, the open
source support arena is currently fractured, with several small companies offering overlapping services for a
limited set of market opportunities. Firms in the U.S. and Canada providing support for Koha include PTFS
LibLime, ByWater Solutions, Amigos, and Equinox Software; those with business interests in Evergreen include
Equinox Software, Lyrasis, and PALS. Just as in the broader industry, it will be difficult to sustain a number of
smaller organizations each with limited resources, supporting a finite pool of potential library clients adopting
open source library management products. In the longer term, I expect that the open source arena will
likewise see a transition to a smaller number of larger players with more resources to provide the development
and support resources needed to sustain this segment of the industry.