Ed.—This post is the second in a series on OhioLINK topics in recognition of Ohio Library Snapshot Day (any day in November). During November 2013, libraries across Ohio are encouraged to pick a day to collect photographs, stories, information, and comments to show what takes place in the library on a typical day. For others in this series, follow the snapshot tag.
The Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) was born in the early 1990s as a mechanism to share physical resources (books, audiovisual materials and other physical items) between college and university libraries in the state. To automate this process, OhioLINK formed a partnership with a leading library software vendor, Innovative Interfaces, Inc. (III or “triple-I”), to develop a set of software tools. What was created was a statewide system of institution-based integrated library systems with a central system at its core.
The institutional systems served two purposes. One was to provide all functionality that individual libraries needed to run their library. Second was to share with the central system the institutional metadata about library holdings (i.e. what a single library ‘owns’ or ‘holds’). The central system would then gather all the data from the institution systems, de-duplicate it and provide a searchable user interface.
Today, there are 62 institution systems supporting 90 member libraries. All new or updated metadata from a single library flows to the central system in real time so that the records in the central system are as current as they are at the individual library level. Users rely on this functionality as they search the central system looking for books and other resources to support their research. Once an item is located, the user can simply hit a request button and have the resource sent to his local library for pickup. This software has become the model for other consortia across the globe.
OhioLINK supports two other III software systems centrally. One system supports our electronic journal check-in system. This system tracks OhioLINK’s 10,000 electronic journal subscriptions, records the titles, volumes and issues that are received and notes any missing content that then can be claimed from the publishers. This system is to be updated soon to include a full cataloging module so that OhioLINK staff can create catalog records directly to the central system for new electronic content, instead of relying on metadata streams from individual institutions.
The third library system that OhioLINK administers is the Ohio Depository system, a full-blown integrated library system (similar to the institution systems) that supports three of the five state-funded Ohio print depositories (the other two do not contribute their records to this shared catalog, but do load them to their local library systems). The print depositories contain books and other items that despite their low use, however, are important to retain for the benefit of current and future researchers and students. These materials come from the collections of all the public universities in Ohio. The depository materials are housed in high-density storage modules and are managed by designated OhioLINK member institutions.
OhioLINK’s central system is now more than 20 years old. Though it has been enhanced over the years, the system architecture is essentially the same as it was in 1992. It is important that OhioLINK explore the marketplace to keep abreast with the newest in next-generation library software. There still are only limited options for consortium-based software with the resource-sharing component that OhioLINK requires in the current library software marketplace. An exciting and very different approach is being implemented by the Orbis/Cascade Consortium in the Oregon/Washington area.
Orbis/Cascade’s implementation differs from OhioLINK’s current software architecture. Instead of individual systems running at each library with a central system that supports a resource-sharing function, there is instead one central system segmented into institution components. Libraries share one central database, yet the segmented institutional components serve unique functions each library needs.
If OhioLINK switched to this model, instead of having 62 institution systems and one central system running all the library software, there would only be one central system with all the functionality needed to run both the institution library and also provide the resource-sharing component. However, this sort of shift in architecture would have major implications for workflow and application management at OhioLINK’s member institutions.
In addition, much of our end-user activity has shifted to digital content in the form of databases, electronic journals and now e-books. Managing shared access to those items that are purchased and provided at the individual campus level has presented different challenges to the consortium and the development of the central system than does sharing and shipping physical items. Digital Rights Management that prohibits sharing of e-books between institutions, levels of searchability and access within a digital item, and the rise of “discovery layers” (full-text Google-like search applications across different library resources) are some of the challenges and opportunities OhioLINK and its member institutions face in order to deliver the best possible access and delivery systems to our students, faculty and staff.
