InfoTech

In a move with strong implications for the growth and development of the popular Koha integrated library system (ILS), systems integration and digitization services company Progressive Technology Federal Systems (PTFS) will acquire LibLime, the dominant firm providing Koha development and support services, for an undisclosed sum.

PTFS will take the reigns as the dominant player in the commercial support of Koha, assuming responsibility for service to a large number of libraries and gaining control of an arsenal of assets surrounding Koha and other products developed by LibLime.

It also steps into a stew of controversy; PTFS will face challenges owing to tensions among LibLime, other firms involved with Koha, and libraries using Koha both within and beyond LibLime's direct customer base.

As LibLime has grown, it has also lost staff, producing a difficult business environment. For PTFS, the acquisition presents the opportunity to leverage the momentum of open source library automation with the virtues of LibLime to create a sustainable business unit. PTFS sees Koha as a key component of its strategy to deliver an integrated suite of comprehensive library automation products.

The coming months will tell whether the community of libraries that use Koha will see this transition as a positive move. PTFS faces enormous challenges as it seeks to build on the success of LibLime as well as calm the waters of discord that have been stirred.

Details of the acquisition

PTFS has been involved in different aspects of library automation since its founding in 1995. In September 2008, PTFS began providing commercial services for Koha and has attracted 12 customers representing 140 libraries.

PTFS will maintain the LibLime brand and operate its Koha support business under that name. The business assets span a wide variety of intellectual property, marketing, and operational resources but not exclusive control of the software.

PTFS has been working to blend both restricted and open source components, including ArchivalWare, its proprietary content management and digital library product, and Koha, to manage physical collections, into a new platform it calls the Digital Library System (DLS).

According to John Yokley, PTFS cofounder and CEO, the company plans to commit significant resources to extend and enhance Koha to include services such as electronic resource management and document delivery that have not yet been addressed.

Controversy and impact

The development of LibLime Enterprise Koha (LLEK) caused considerable friction among those in the open source community (see InfoTech, LJ 10/15/09, p. 16). LLEK includes many enhancements and bug fixes not yet contributed to the main codebase of Koha—a strategy that has been characterized as a fork in the Koha codebase, negating the principles of cooperative development inherent in open source projects.

Still, LibLime has amassed a relatively large customer base, with 108 active contracts representing over 500 libraries reliant on LibLime for support services.

These libraries have a strong interest in the development of the software, and many have made large investments. PTFS assumes responsibility for an extensive slate of software development commitments that libraries contracted with LibLime to fulfill. For the full story and background on the companies involved, see bit.ly/PTFSLibLime.—Marshall Breeding

The Top Tech Trends (TTT) Committee of the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) has decided on a new tack for 2010. In anticipation of the Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association (ALA), the committee took the opportunity to feature new panelists who have never been on a TTT panel, according to Gregg Silvis, assistant director for library computing systems at the University of Delaware Library and committee chair.

Only academic librarians were slated for the Boston panel, however: Amanda Etches-Johnson, user experience librarian at McMaster University, Ont.; Jason Griffey, head of library information technology at University of Tennessee, Chattanooga; Joe Murphy, science librarian, Yale University; Lauren Pressley, instructional design librarian, Wake Forest University, NC; and David Walker, web services librarian, California State University System.

TTT veteran Roy Tennant, senior program officer at OCLC Research and LJ Digital Libraries blogger, has made comments at recent sessions about the need for new blood. “Time for some of us who have been on the forefront of technology issues for the last couple decades to let some new talent get more attention,” he told LJ.

Regarding the lack of public librarians on the panel, Tennant noted that those ALA members most active on the technology side tended to come from academic institutions, adding, “[t]his is not to ignore the public library technologists (e.g., Joan Frye Williams and Sarah Houghton-Jan) who are well known and active, but they tend to be in the minority.”

Public library technology issues aren't being dismissed, however. According to Silvis, LITA will present a TTT panel at the Public Library Association (PLA) 2010 National Conference in Portland, OR, this March.

For coverage of TTT and other Midwinter news, go to libraryjournal.com/ALAMidwinter2010.

ProQuest's Serials Solutions unit has cut a deal to provide “the first ERAMS-based LibGuides integration” through a partnership with LibGuides maker Springshare, Inc. The result will enable “common subscribers to create LibGuides A-to-Z lists powered by the authoritative e-resources data of Serials Solutions KnowledgeWorks Knowledgebase,” the vendor reports. Springshare already uses the KnowlegeWorks XML API to incorporate authoritative e-resource information into LibGuides so that librarians can share their resource data through a web 2.0 user interface.

As part of the process, the two vendors formed a partnership with a handful of academic facilities, including SUNY– Westchester Community College; Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI; Palm Beach Atlantic University, FL; and Mississippi State University, which beta tested the integration of KnowledgeWorks into LibGuides.

Serials Solutions said that the minimum requirement to enable this feature is subscriptions to LibGuides and either its own 360 or Summon service, which include the KnowledgeWorks knowledgebase. There are no additional costs. LibGuides customers also will enjoy the benefits of Serials Solutions KnowledgeWorks Certified Publisher Program, which ensures “that users are receiving the best possible information,” according to the vendor.—Michael Rogers

Ex Libris Group has announced version 2.0 of the Rosetta digital preservation system, which is beta testing at the National Library of New Zealand, with a spring 2010 rollout. Rosetta enables institutions to manage, safeguard, and provide access in perpetuity to institutional documents, research output in digital formats, digital images, web sites, and other digitally born and digitized materials.

It supports the acquisition, validation, storage, preservation, and dissemination of digital objects from many sources and formats and keeps this information secure while allowing institutions to implement multiple policies and strategies. Complying with the Open Archival Information System standard, the module enables institutions to manage and mitigate risks related to digital formats and perform a variety of preservation actions.—Michael Rogers

In a year-end guest column for LJ's Academic Newswire, University of California, Berkeley, e-learning librarian Char Booth designated 2009 the year of Twitter and the Visual Dataverse, describing how social media finally brought data visualization to the fore:

“Graphical representation of abstract data is nothing new. What is new is that visualization apps are now the universally conspicuous remora clinging to social media sites. What started with the simple folksonomic word cloud has become something resembling a hurricane—from hilarious online dating analytics on OKCupid to textual visualizers like Wordle to en suite graphical tools in Digg and Delicious, visualization has finally gone viral. Social sites thrive on large, complicated data sets like the daily millions of up-to-the-second Twitter @s, trends, and mentions. Like Google, Flickr, Facebook, and countless others, Twitter's creators made their API public, so that anyone with the requisite skills can create programs to mash, translate, and regurgitate tweets, user information, and location data. By mining and charting movements across large swaths of information, its user-creators can gain insight into human trends that might otherwise be obscured....

“Visualization is fast becoming an integral aspect of information fluency, and is by no means limited to social media. As average web users interact more frequently with graphical information displays, their ability to interpret and critique similar representations should improve as well. As visualization tools proliferate, many [users] will become more skilled at rapidly making sense of charts and graphics, meaning that their expectation to search and sort results by visual means—not to mention their skill at creating similar visualizations—is likely to increase proportionally.” For the full column, go to bit.ly/BoothVisualData.

New York Public Library (NYPL) has launched its new Drupal-based web site, which offers much staff content, direct access to reference librarians (Ask NYPL) from nearly every page, and a new design with integration of multimedia.

Given that 25 percent of all searches of the site seek basic information about the library, NYPL created a “Using the Library” section as one of eight core navigation items at the top of each page. The search function was improved, so searchers need not choose among categories before they drill down.

For each of the 89 branch libraries in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, local staffers will now develop and manage web content. For example, the 96th Street Branch page highlights a podcast series by its teen users.

Given the use of open source Drupal, NYPL's digital team can now write code to update the web site and also draw on the Drupal community.

“Until now, the library's web site has gone through a cycle of major redesigns,” said Paul LeClerc, NYPL president. “This launch lays the groundwork for a philosophy of ongoing evolution and expansion of nypl.org with new features and improvements being made continually.”

NYPL issued a note with its press release: “As we move through the process of reconfiguring our site, please excuse any temporary difficulty in the connection between the site and pages on the legacy site or third-party sites.” That seemed a reference to the transition difficulties experienced by NYPL users briefly when a new catalog interface was introduced last July.—Norman Oder