OLE Project Gains Support of Kuali Foundation
Open source ILS alternative aimed at research libraries
Josh Hadro -- Library Journal, 11/19/2009
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- OLE Project to become Kuali OLE
- Software and administrative synergies
- Better position from which to address criticisms?
The Open Library Environment (OLE) project, a fledging effort to build an open source ILS alternative for research libraries, has a new home at the Kuali Foundation. The attachment of this project to an enterprise higher education software group carries with it a boost in both support and legitimacy.
OLE, aimed to appeal to research and academic libraries, will now be known as Kuali OLE as it enters the second "build" phase of development. This follows a one-year period in which some 125 institutions collaborated to draft a "planning document" describing the workflows and software components necessary to a 21st century academic library software system (see LJAN's take on the OLE Project's draft final report for more details).
The Mellon Foundation provided $475,000 in start-up funds; in the "planning document," an association with a foundation like Kuali was listed as a top priority before project leaders go back to Mellon for $2.4 million to fund development over the next two years. Another $2.5 million will come from partner institutions; a list is available on the Kuali OLE site.
Core benefits
Perhaps foremost, as an official Kuali project, OLE will make substantial use of the middleware, or software backbone, Kuali has developed, and will employ software architecture allowing it to work with Kuali's other offerings.
Kuali also maintains a financial system, a research administration system, and student services package, and has recently taken on a continuity planning tool developed by the University of California, Berkeley. (For more Kuali's broader efforts in higher education enterprise software, see the Chronicle of Higher Education's recent coverage, as well as From the Bell Tower columnist Steven Bell's take on community source software projects).
New synergies
Part of the strategy is to make all or part of the Kuali suite more attractive to higher education institutions. If they're planning to make an investment to support and develop one Kuali product, the argument goes, why not consider more?
Regarding that strategy, associate dean for library technologies at Indiana University Robert H. McDonald told LJ, “[OLE is] one step on that bridge between academic computing and the rest of the enterprise systems in higher education.”
“Penn is especially eager to be part of Kuali OLE,” said Penn vice provost and director of libraries, Carton Rogers. “This project will improve the efficiency of library operations, but more important, it will make us far more nimble at deploying new services; it will fundamentally change the way our strategic aspirations relate to technology; and it will create new opportunities for creative interaction with other libraries.”
Indeed, McDonald noted that Kuali OLE could help libraries pressed for funds collaborate in areas like technical services and acquisitions. Even if they remained dedicated to separate core ILS's, OLE could potentially be used to handle the cross-library workflows.
In addition, the non-profit Kuali Foundation's agreement to support OLE will result in significant savings, as staff hours can be allocated toward development rather than administration. Up to 25% of the project's budget could have gone to overhead, McDonald said.
Position of strength?
Finally, however, Kuali support also provides something of a more intangible boost. Among other things, the project's long-term viability has been questioned by critics such as Carl Grant, president of Ex Libris North America, whose company is developing its own Unified Resource Management product, a likely competitor to Kuali OLE.
Now rooted in the context of the Kuali Foundation's other software efforts, OLE may be seen as more somewhat more secure. Still, as yet others have pointed out, Kauli OLE must deliver the software components during the upcoming two-year funding period before success can be measured.
Contact the author: josh.hadro@reedbusiness.com
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