Every once in a while, I read something that just grabs me by the throat. If I'm lucky, it stimulates my thinking, makes me laugh, and prompts me to actually do something.

I recently had such an experience when my boss forwarded a reprint of an article by Maurice Line, whom I am now ashamed to admit I had never heard of. He worked for the British Library and was a consultant before he retired in 2005. "Librarianship as it is practiced: a failure of intellect, imagination and initiative” was reprinted in Interlending & Document Supply (33/2, 2005, pp. 109-113).

He paints a somewhat sorry state for libraries in terms that we can probably all relate to.

"Trying to hold on to unused publications that libraries no longer have room to house, having theological arguments about the contents of catalogue records, and indulging in the numerous other irrelevant, inappropriate or trivial activities of which librarians are so fond, with their unerring eye for the inessential."

OK. So nothing real surprising there, but I was saving the punchline. This reprinted article is from an address that Line gave in 1983. Since I got it, I've read the article at least three times. I am moderately fixated.

I've been to two speaking sessions since I read it, and it has become the lens with which I have viewed all discussion—in both positive and negative ways. Negative, because it raises my blood pressure when someone says we are at some sort of turning point. Line seems like a prescient scholar, but very few can telegraph a problem 25 years ahead of time. It makes me want to scream: "The sky isn't falling, people, it has already fallen."

"It is criminal to stand by rigid cataloguing codes (even if they were soundly based) if this means the existence and even growth of a backlog of books awaiting processing. If such a stand is made for long enough, it may well prove to be 'Cutter’s last stand'." —Maurice Line

On the other hand, Line's poignant criticism gives me hope because I think we are the midst of a library era of imagination and initiative led by a cadre of intelligent librarians and technologists. To end with Line's own words, "We have nothing to lose but our mental laziness, our spiritual dullness, our introspection and our inhibitions."

Every time I look, metasearch is still with us. Part of me keeps hoping it will go away, but nope, it's still there. And thank goodness that there are enough people and companies out there still trying to make it better.

Index Data announced Monday that they have created IRSpy, a registry of information retrieval targets that support Z39.50 and SRW/SRU. "Each registry entry consists of both database level information, such as the indexes supported for searching and the record syntax and schemas supported for retrieval, and record level metadata such as titles, authors, and descriptions." Such a registry has long been needed by the metasearch industry. It could even fulfill another need—the creation of a list of targets that adhere to standards, thus distinguishing themselves from those that still require screen-scraping, HTML parsing, and other technical hoops that continue to support a metasearch middleware industry.

Regardless, the middleware industry continues, and continues to improve its software. Most vendors have implemented some sort of clustered or faceted browsing into their interfaces. Those that haven't have plans in the works: WebFeat announced several new product offerings at ALA this year, including more robust administrative tools, a proxy server for single sign-on, and an upgrade (version 3.0) to WebFeat Express.

Not to be outdone by the open source ILS industry, two projects continue to get traction in the open metasearch environment. IRSpy, mentioned above, is a nice complement to Index Data's re-engineered MasterKey. LibraryFind, which includes features like an OpenURL resolver and the ability to index local collections, is another option from the Oregon State University Libraries. LibraryFind was developed using Ruby on Rails, which has become quite popular among open source developers.

Lest we forget, there is still a large contingent of people who hope that the need for metasearch will one day be obviated. Google Scholar is still moving (though hardly hurtling) toward that goal with the recent inclusion of ScienceDirect content. Rather than repeat it, I will simply point to Peter Brantley's nice commentary. What will become of Scopus? If we're hurtling toward anything, it might just be one of the first viable pay-by-the-drink models for scholarly content. As if library collection budgets weren't difficult enough.

As OCLC Openly's Eric Hellman once commented at a NISO meeting on metasearch standards, "Metasearch will work perfectly when all the data is in one database." Until then, we struggle onward.

Seems like a guy can barely put a print column to bed before there's another change in the library automation landscape. Back (and exhausted) from ALA, I gleefully submitted my column copy for the August issue of the magazine (during the day even, and not the few minutes before midnight on the day of my deadline as usual) when what should appear but another press release from OCLC. With this much e-mail, Bob Murphy should be on my buddy list!

OCLC has just purchased the remaining shares of OCLC PICA, the European arm of the library cooperative. OCLC PICA was formed as an organization in 2002, two years after OCLC acquired a majority of shares (60%) in PICA. Cooperation between the two entities was already decades old when that deal was struck. This deal, the value of which is unreported (but which is likely forthcoming), gives OCLC the remaining 40%.

Rein van Charldorp will continue as managing director at PICA. OCLC recently reorganized its management structure "to achieve global integration of services and to establish teams comprised of staff from various geographic locations." Clearly there is more to internationalization than North America and Europe, but OCLC is on its way to establishing a truly global strategy.

This latest step will not be without controversy, though. PICA has been a main instrument for acquiring pieces of a large library automation picture that make some question the cooperative's not-for-profit status. Talis's Paul Miller already blogged on that subject today.

Just when you thought things could not get more interesting . . .