I was at the meeting initiated by the Digital Library Federation that resulted in this post. All of the vendors that met the DLF request to comment on the ILS Discovery Initiative (ILS-DI) proposal said basically the same thing, Innovative Interfaces included: interesting project, lots of detail to be worked out, etc. Of the three alternatives we were presented for comment (endorse, oppose or abstain), most opted to endorse while saying that this endorsement was in principle only. Every response mentioned the need to work out the details, ours included.
Innovative considers its commitment of resources carefully. We abstained for what I believe to be a good reason: that without having worked out the details, we simply were not sure what we would be committing to. The participants at this meeting had greatly varying needs and expectations for what the ILS-DI would mean to them. Some, while endorsing, even went so far as to endorse “not just what is on the table”. Not to be too flip, but OCLC has endorsed this document. Does this then mean that we’ll all soon be harvesting WorldCat at our whim? Maybe not.
It’s unclear, at this point, what the endorsement of any of the participants really means or how an endorsement differs from abstention when it comes right down to it. We agreed that this is an area of interest and further discussion. As was indicated in the post’s response thread, our abstention was made with comments that said:
“We generally agree with the comments expressed by our colleagues that there is a significant amount of work involved in fully describing the details of a meaningful interoperability mechanism between ILS and discovery. At the same time, we feel that expressing a position on the proposal without the benefit of fully understanding such details is premature. As a result, we respectfully abstain from commenting on the proposal at this time.”
What was left out was our email’s closing line:
“We look forward to hearing more on this proposal in the near future.”
Abstaining was not saying “no”. Abstaining was saying that, at this point, we didn’t want to pretend to commit resources to a project that was so early in its life cycle. We are supportive of this venture, but feel an endorsement of this proposal at such an early and undefined state is not in anyone’s best interest.
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April 12th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
[…] with the exception of Innovative Interfaces, which abstained. On Friday, Betsy Graham of Innovative posted a reply on the company blog. (Good to see your post, Betsy! I hope to see you around the blogosphere in the future.) She says, […]
April 14th, 2008 at 8:52 am
I think we can all appreciate the need to allocate resources wisely, Betsy, and you make a number of good points here.
The point I think you’re missing, however, is that this is not an “area of interest” for academic libraries, it’s an area of *need*. Academic libraries need to improve their discovery systems to remain relevant in the current information landscape, and now demand the freedom to choose the best system for that purpose, whether it is developed by their ILS vendor or not.
I don’t mean to be flip either, but I don’t think anyone is surprised that Innovative is the lone hold-out on endorsing this DLF initiative. I think the other ILS vendors (OCLC was there, no doubt, representing their PICA ILS system and WorldCat Local, a potential consumer of these services) agreed to this initiative, at least in principle, because they *already* provide access to their systems in a way that Innovative does not.
Libraries running Millennium now find themselves at a distinct disadvantage. We see libraries running Ex Libris and SirsiDynix systems doing creative and innovative things using discovery platforms like Endecca and VUFind. Those libraries are able to pursue those initiatives because they have open access to their ILS systems and data. Innovative customers don’t have that level of access, and are noticeably absent from such projects!
Your academic library customers *need* you to make Millennium more open and interoperable — in conjunction with this DLF initiative or otherwise.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:26 am
“how an endorsement differs from abstention”?
I’d say it makes III look like a spectator who watches a marathon start and thinks about taking part while others have already started.
Would it be too much to expect III to show some leadership on an issue which is very important to its customers?
April 14th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Betsy, I’m glad to see you posted this. It doesn’t seem to me that there’s much, if any, difference between the group “endorsing in principle” and Innovative’s abstaining. Once the details are clearer, it will be interesting to see who makes a commitment and who doesn’t.
Brenda Clark
former ILS manager, interested in what happens next
April 15th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I want to take a moment to commend Innovative for allowing the discussion to happen on this blog posting. It would have been easy for you to delete the trackback from my blog posting or to ignore the replies in the comment form. Instead, you chose to allow comments that criticize decisions of the company to stand. For that, I applaud you.
Now, if you’ll just let us know what your intentions are regarding the movement from abstaining to affirming/rejecting the Berkeley Accord….
April 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
While I agree with David’s observation that we will simply become irrelevant if we don’t do a much better job of repurposing our data efficiently (i.e. bringing it to people where and how they need it), I found III’s participation at the meeting to be very constructive.
I think honest and open dialog is a good thing because it helps us find common ground that allows us to move forward. It also shows us what areas may prove to be more challenging.
In the matter at hand, III may look like the odd man out. However, until products that actually include the functionality are out there, it’s easy to exaggerate the significance of abstention. I wouldn’t be surprised if other vendors may have been wondering the same thing as III but lacked the courage to say so.
The fact is that at the meeting, Betsy expressed interest in harvesting. In addition, the base III system has provided stable links and allowed extraction of records in XML for years. This is a decent starting point. I am not convinced we are so far apart.