Take our comments earlier about checking if a book is available. There is no API, at least in our system, that we could use to say “Hey, is this book with ID currently on the shelf?”. We’d have to check the database, and hope that between releases they didn’t change anything like the database schema or database access details.

The issue of APIs or the lack thereof, I think, are going to be the biggest problem for Libraries that want to start doing more interesting things with the ILS / ILMS. Simply because up until now we haven’t argued for the APIs, standards compliance and other aspects that would make it easy. These things haven’t been necessary because up until now the vendor provided everything we wanted.

With the current shake-up of the ILS / ILMS sector, and all of the new things we want to do like Library2.0 etc., the next couple of years are going to be rather interesting.

That’s an interesting question. I would have thought it would be very important to the user to know if the book is in the shelf, on loan etc.

The uncoupling from circulation doesn’t necessarily mean you lose this type of information. For example if the API was rich enough you could extend a system such as Fish with a mechanism to check the status of the book.

The whole idea of uncoupling parts of the ILMS hangs on the issue of APIs. If it isn’t possible to make the different components work together and behave nicely, it won’t be possible to successfully move away from the vendor based ILMS.

This, I think, is where these open source solutions come into their own. Because, as far as I can see so far, they’re all based around industry standards, communication protocols and frameworks. Can we say the same about our bought ILMS package?

The find interface looks simple to use and uncluttered.

It’s called OpenSourceWA. Here’s more about it, and a page about Open Source Software from the Department of Premier and Cabinet.

Corey – Many government agencies tender for custom software solutions, sometimes Open Source. Here’s a guide to Open Source Software for government agencies – http://www.agimo.gov.au/_sourceit/sourceit/oss

I wonder if a case could be put for the government to fund development of ILS software for libraries, in a similar way to Greenstone with UNESCO for libraries in developing countries?

I am encouraged though that other people are beginning to wonder about why we put up with the software that we do, and that other libraries are using open source development. The future for ILS and ILMS packages may not be so bleak after all.