It's true that I am one of the skeptics. I'll state that up front. But, in truth, my skepticism toward building an open source integrated library system was born in optimism that the vendors of proprietary software would be paying close attention to the landscape. Alas, I don't think they were.

Some tried
Most people have forgotten that Dynix wrote a white paper in 2003 called "Horizon Open Technology: A Vision for the Future" that was the basis of the original Horizon 8.0 (I looked all over for this white paper online and had to fall back on my own archive). The system would use Lucene and uPortal, and would support interchangeable back-end databases. The architecture was going to be open and modular. Within months of Dynix's merger with Sirsi, Lucene was replaced with FAST, and uPortal was replaced with options like Horizon Information Portal and Sirsi's Enterprise Portal System (EPS). But that's all academic now that Horizon 8.0, too, belongs to the ages.

Another key aspect of open systems is the growth in open source technology. Not all open source technology is good, but there is tremendous promise here. Operating systems (Linux), application servers (JBoss), and search engines (Lucene) are among the more powerful open source developments that Dynix believes holds great promise and which the company intends to leverage.

–excerpt from 2003 Dynix Whitepaper

VTLS continues to tout its open source components, and was one of the first vendors to repackage Fedora (an open source repository application) and brand it Vital, essentially selling some of the interfaces and support for the underlying open source architecture.

Talis, a UK-based ILS company, continues to make strides in its support of open source services. The Talis Platform is the basis for many open source add-ons, thought the company's ILS itself remains a proprietary system. Nevertheless, Talis remains nearly alone among "traditional" vendors proselytizing open source solutions.

Some finish
I've mentioned Koha and Evergreen on this blog and on the pages of American Libraries many times. LibLime has made some success of installing Koha at smaller libraries. Evergreen, the open source ILS created for the Georgia PINES consortium of public libraries, is now supported by its creators through a new company called Equinox. Roy Tennant called this "The Dawn of a New Era." I prefer to call it a potential tipping point.

The open source tipping point
Libraries and open source are like peanut butter and chocolate to many people. Our altruistic nature, penchant for openness, and shoestring budgets make libraries a virtual Petrie dish for open source experimentation. OSS4LIB has been around for nearly (over?) seven years. Many libraries are probably using open source software without even realizing it . . . things like Linux and apache, sendmail or Zotero.

So, where's the tipping point? Well, it might just be the commodity status that I mentioned in starting off this series. The authors of a book called Open Source 2.0 suggest as much. That is, when the software reaches commodity status, companies will emerge to provide services associated with that software. Redhat's Linux is a very good example of this. The question is whether the ILS has reached this point yet. It could very well be barreling in that direction.

Some paradox
Still, there is the skeptic in me. I am inclined to ask some baiting questions and point out what I think are some serious issues in the open source movement. I think there is still a "build or buy" paradox in going the open source route. While the services that support open source are bound to be cheaper than buying a proprietary ILS, libraries will have to ask themselves why they want an open source system. It could be philosophical—either in wanting to support a move toward openness, or in wanting software that supports easier local development and add-ons. It could be financial, or the idea that "good enough" is often just that. The point is to make an informed decision—one that is based on the freedom of open source and not its relative free-ness.

There is also what I call the "marketing paradox." You will hear from open source vendors that one of the benefits of using open source is that if you are unsatisfied with the associated services, you can just get them from someone else without having to change software. I don't want to downplay this benefit: It would be great to not have to migrate every time there is a bump in the road. And let's face it, there have been a lot of bumps lately. Nevertheless, this is a cultural change for libraries, but one that I think we should be open to. The good news for libraries is that the marketing of these services within this framework should naturally keep costs down, especially as more open source–supporting organizations emerge.

Finally, there is the issue of patents. MySQL's Marten Mickos called them the Achilles heel of the entire software industry (see this interesting article from last summer's internetnews.com). Practically the opposite of open source reaction, patents create a visceral response from most librarians—though I would argue that libraries are as likely to rid themselves of patented hardware and software as they are to rid themselves of copyrighted content in their stacks. How patents will impact the library software market and library software development remains to be seen. I eagerly await a thorough treatment of this topic (from a library point of view) from someone much more educated on the subject than I am.

Software is software
I have been relegated to quoting myself quoting someone else, but I first pointed this out in a column last fall. Dan Chudnov, creator of OSS4LIB, was the one who gave me this truism: [added text] software is software. This led me to think that [end of added text] it does not matter whether the software is open or proprietary; what matters is whether the software is good or bad. Those are my words, not his, but they are meant to capture [added text] what I took away from that conversation [added text] the essence of what he said to me over five years ago (some things just stick with you).

At the end of the day, the software has to work. If it doesn't work, you have to be able to make it work. If open source makes for a better path to making things work, then all the better. If competition from open source makes vendors or closed-source systems more alert and responsive, then all the better. Better is good.

Someone once called me a library provocateur. I much prefer that to rabble-rouser. Here are a few recent thoughts meant to both provoke and rouse the rabble.

Last week I asked why consolidation in the library vendor market is such a bad thing. Librarians typically don't like consolidation. It happens so much in the publisher arena that we fear one monolithic beast to whom all scholars feed the products of their labor. We fear that the beast will refuse to regurgitate on demand, instead requiring huge sums of money to let that wealth of content out again. Librarians and scholars are not the meek foes of the beast that the stereotypes create. We fight back with open access, institutional repositories, etc.

But this is not only a bit outside my area of expertise, it is an order of magnitude away from the library software arena. As I have argued on these virtual pages before, the multimillion-dollar software industry pales in comparison to the multibillion-dollar content industry. Remember that librarians' favorite whipping-beast of "evil publishers"—Elsevier—recently spit out its ILS (Endeavor) after chewing on it for over six years.

Okay, time to switch metaphors. A few years ago, I wrote an article that covers the library industry. "Dismantling the Integrated Library System" (LJ, Feb. 1, 2004) was meant to point out the fact that librarians and vendors were both beginning to distinguish the traditional ILS from the new modules that were emerging on the library automation scene. My point was that this made the legacy ILS a lot like a rental car . . . a commodity, with standard functionality that made one choice barely distinguishable from another.

So, as I got to thinking about consolidation in this market, I began to wonder "Who cares?" Who cares if I can't choose between Ford and Chevy at the Avis lot? I realize this analogy begins to break down because some of us are already driving the Ford at top speed when the rental company asks us to please step out and get in the Chevy. But I'm trying to avoid the migration issue and concentrate on the market from a broader perspective.

Marshall Breeding has an excellent vendor timeline that covers 40 years of mergers and acquisitions. From a field of over 60 vendors, we're down to just over 20. If you think the academic market lacks choice, just take a look at the school market, which has pretty much consolidated down to one large vendor (Follett) and a handful of smaller ones.

So here's the question: If the rallying cry against further consolidation of a commodity market is "choice!" then what are the choices we are trying to make? I realize there are at least three assumptions in that question and readers have at their disposal the disarming rhetorical device of not accepting the premise of the question.

"The Request for Proposal (RFP) hasn't changed to reflect the similarities among integrated systems and requires retooling to uncover the qualities that distinguish one vendor from another."

–Andrew K. Pace, from the aforementioned article

Keep in mind that we can no more fight further consolidation of this market than we can get patrons to stop using Google for research. The 20+ ILS solutions Marshall has itemized will likely narrow to a dozen or so in the next few years. So perhaps I am already rationalizing that which I feel powerless to stop. More to the point, I am questioning the impetus to make it stop at all.

Next week, Part 2: The Open Source ILS—Savior, Threat, Turning Point?

If you thought the world of Mergers & Acquisitions was hard to follow in the library systems marketplace, well buckle up for content providers.

The Thomson Corporation has sold off its assets in Thomson Learning to Apax Partners and OMERS Capital Partners, for a total of about $7.75 billion in cash. (I love seeing "in cash." . . . "Hey, can you break a trillion? I left my billions in my other wallet.") The transaction includes Thomson Gale, Wadsworth, Delmar Learning, Brooks/Cole, and South-Western, and comes as no surprise since the intent was announced last fall. Details of the plan are laid out in a very long pdf document.

What might be a surprise is the near-simultaneous announcement that Thomson has made a $17.2-billion bid to buy Reuters, a deal that still requires approval. The combination of the two companies would reportedly result in the biggest provider of news and data in professional markets.

Assuming the deal goes through, Reuters CEO Tom Glocer would become CEO of the new company. Thomson President and CEO Richard J. Harrington would retire at the completion of the transaction.

All of this has me thinking about library software valued in the tens to hundreds of millions and its comparison to all that content out there, valued in the tens to hundreds of billions. As equity firms began to gobble up the software side of the house, I kept wondering, who woke up one day and decided "libraries—that's where the money is!"? As a colleague and I were recently discussing, it's not billions they see, but an industry ripe for (continuing) consolidation. Clearly, the folks with the billions see that in the content arena as well.

It got me wondering . . . is consolidation such a bad thing? That's an only slightly rhetorical question that I plan to cover next week.

My father would have called that title two-thirds of a pun. I will let you extrapolate that one yourselves.

Ex Libris Group announced today that Robert Mercer has been appointed president of the Ex Libris Group North American subsidiary, effective immediately. Mercer was most recently a regional vice- president and general manager at SAS Institute, Inc. Mercer will replace Dan Trajman who joined Ex Libris in March 2004. Trajman will stay on in a consultative role through 2007.

"I am excited to be joining such a creative, forward-looking company with a large, active customer base," noted Mercer. "I have been impressed with the strength and clarity of the strategic direction presented by Ex Libris to continue providing the evolving library automation industry with the most effective technological solutions. I look forward to meeting our customers at the upcoming user and industry events next month."

If you're familiar with "The Triangle" (Raleigh-Durham–Chapel Hill) then you know that SAS is one of those great places to work that everyone is always talking about. I've lost a programmer or two to SAS, and it's well known that the turnover there is very low, so Ex Libris should be proud to have lured one away.

Mercer's skills in building customer relationships and satisfaction will be needed in this transitional time for Ex Libris. His experience with analytics software might be a nice addition to the library space. We are a profession that loves to count things but sometimes we have trouble making heads or tails of the numbers.

Ex Libris's announcement also stands in stark contrast to SirsiDynix's continuing search for new leadership. It's been two-and-a-half months since Patrick Sommers stepped down from the helm of the largest ILS vendor. Many would have expected for an heir to be in place, but the search (one assumes) continues.

It is nothing new to see vendor leadership emerge from outside the library industry. This has been going on for some time. I have little doubt that the library old-timers will use their status to distinguish themselves, as they have every right to do. Nevertheless, the true distinction between library automation vendors should and will be their strategic vision, the competence of their leadership, and the directions and innovations of the company. Otherwise, customer fidelity will wane.

All these announcements about changes in leadership at vendors may seem mundane or relatively inconsequential at times, but taken as a whole, they are part of the generally shifting landscape of the library automation industry. Unlike some of my more radically inclined colleagues, I refuse to predict (or even hope for) that industry's demise. Besides, it's just too darn fun to keep track of it all.

I'm a little late in posting this week, but it's been a little more hectic than usual—end of the semester, end of the fiscal year, my mother was visiting, and, oh yeah, I got the news this week that I have been elected vice-president/president-elect of LITA!

Before first running for LITA Board, I had only ever held one other elected office. I was the school treasurer in 6th grade. My elementary school had a "superior learner" program and my two opponents were both in it. I had an early lesson in the power of splitting the vote. I still have a vivid memory of being ridiculed on the playground—"Kenneth is 100 times better than you at math!" It's 6th-grade treasurer, I recall thinking. How good do you have to be to add and subtract very small numbers?

Now, I have stepped into something much more daunting than adding and subtracting, but it's something a lot more exciting too. I hope I can muster all of my passion for libraries, information technology, and my strong belief in the importance and power of ALA and its divisions to provide something meaningful to LITA. I hope I will have success in recruiting my friends and colleagues to join me in that effort. I promise not to make this blog a pulpit for that effort.

I'm humbled by the voters who supported me and I hope I can earn the confidence of those who did not. I'm humbled by the accomplishments of my very worthy opponent, Diane Bisom.

It's nice to think that I have come a long way since 6th-grade treasurer. That guy Kenneth went on to be valedictorian of my high school, graduated from Harvard Medical School, and is now head of gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital. His glory days didn't end in the 6th grade. I hope mine didn't either.