Kuali Community Workshop

OLE Board Meeting

Neil Block, Harry Kaplanian, EBSCO

Assumptions

• Next-gen ILS landscape: room for a strong entrant focused on academic libraries

• Open Source resonates with academic libraries

• Market will embrace an additional next-gen ILS: OLE - that is open source

• The OLE community needs to grow to remain sustainable

• Synergies exist between OLE and EBSCO offerings

EBSCO Vision• Support OLE as open source ILS• Contribute actively to the development of OLE software• Integration between OLE and EBSCO/YBP services

EBSCO Vision• Support OLE as open source ILS• Contribute actively to the development of OLE software• Integration between OLE and EBSCO/YBP services

Why?

EBSCO Vision• Support OLE as open source ILS• Contribute actively to the development of OLE software• Integration between OLE and EBSCO/YBP services

Why?

• Vendor-provided ILS are not giving libraries choice• We provide complementary services to OLE• No intentions to build an ILS• Potential for business model providing services for OLE

EBSCO: OLE Review Team

• EBSCO Project Team– Harry Kaplanian – Product Management– Neil Block – Market view and ILS functionality– Vincent Bareau - Architect– Tamir Borensztajn - Marketing– Jacqui Pazzanese – Project Management– Oliver Pesch – EBSCO Strategy

• Weekly status meetings• Project Plan underway• Monthly meeting with key stakeholders / executives• Peri and Patty Mescher – valuable resources – Thanks!

EBSCO: OLE Project Status• Phase 0: Legal review – confirm no licensing issues – (Complete)• Phase 1: Join OLE Board membership & participate (Complete)• Phase 2: Project Kickoff - (Complete)• Phase 3: OLE detailed analysis and test assumptions

• Functional gap analysis – (April 29 – In Process) • Architecture review & update/recommendations - (April 29 – In Process)

• Rice and UI• Consortia friendliness• Multi-tenancy• Integration points• Other key areas

• Market research – (April 30 – In Process)• Phase 4: EBSCO Team formation - PM, CustSat, Technology (May – July)• Phase 5: Define objectives and develop plan, announce participation, actively assist to

help grow OLE community (July - )

EBSCO: OLE Project Status• Phase 0: Legal review – confirm no licensing issues – (Complete)• Phase 1: Join OLE Board membership & participate (Complete)• Phase 2: Project Kickoff - (Complete)

• Phase 3: OLE detailed analysis and test assumptions• Functional gap analysis – (April 29 – In Process) • Architecture review & update/recommendations - (April 29 – In

Process)• Rice and UI• Consortia friendliness• Multi-tenancy• Integration points• Other key areas

• Market research – (April 30 – In Process)• Phase 4: EBSCO Team formation - PM, CustSat, Technology (May – July)• Phase 5: Define objectives and develop plan, announce participation, actively assist to

help grow OLE community (July - )

Other EBSCO Activities

• Participation in OLE Board, Functional Council and Technical Council calls

• OLE software installed on AWS cloud service

• Visits to University of Chicago and Lehigh University

• Completed agreement with GoKB to provide EBSCO metadata

• Market research study to validate assumptions

EBSCO Market Research• Retained a third-party research firm to test open source

ILS market assumptions

• Survey of 20 U.S. academic libraries (varying sizes, public and private institutions) on:– Awareness of next-gen ILS market– Knowledge of open source ILS software options– Perception of open source v. vended ILS system

• Costs• Functionality• Viability

• Market study began last week

Market Research: Initial Findings

• Are you a believer in open source systems?– 95%-Agree

• Is there room in this market for an open source ILS to compete with a vendor-provided ILS?– 100%-Agree

• Have you heard of Kuali OLE?– 70%-No

• Have you heard of Koha– 75%-Yes

Market Research: Initial Findings

• Are these ILS systems / suppliers forward-thinking, progressive and capable for academic libraries?

• Ex Libris Alma / OCLC WMS: high percentage agree• III Sierra / SirsiDynix BLUEcloud / ProQuest Intota:

slightly lower percent agree• Kuali OLE: 75% not sure• Koha: 40% no; 40% not sure

Market Research: Initial Findings

• Given the option between an open source ILS and a vendor-provided ILS, which would you choose? – Open source-30%– Vendor-provided-65%

• Open-Ended Questions– What would have to change for an open source ILS tool to

become an option you would consider?

– What advantages do you believe open source systems provide over closed source systems?

OLE Architectural Review

Update

Harry Kaplanian, EBSCO

Kuali OLE Architecture Evaluation (ongoing)

• Stood up AWS instance of Kuali OLE– Deployment, setup and maintenance – very

manual process, needs automation– Evaluation of feature set – sometimes

challenging– Evaluation of user interface and user

experience– Upgraded from 1.5.8 to 1.6 – process not

clearly defined– Difficulty in setting up a working test library

Architecture Evaluation (ongoing)

• General Observations– Document and workflow underpinnings are not hidden

by UI layer

• Rice– Deeply embedded, making challenging to disentangle

• Use of Service Bus should allow Rice replacement at the module level. But may require compatibility layer

– Still a version (or two) behind. – Transition from KNS to KRAD is not complete. Making

any transition to another framework more complicated– If Rice is to be replaced, does there need to be a

fundamental re-evaluation of the document / workflow approach?

Architecture Evaluation (ongoing)

• Multi-tenancy– Rice does not support multi-tenancy– OLE layer does not support multi-tenancy– Need to further evaluate exclusive database storage for

persistence

• Considering 3 modes of configuration1. Baseline: individual library instances (current)2. Application Pool: shared application layer; dedicated

database layer; would require consolidating all persistence to DB layer; requires new tenant management layer

3. Full SaaS: requires full multi-tenant support; requires much development

Architecture Evaluation Next Steps

• Finish Rice Analysis– Dependencies in OLE and integration points– High level understanding of Rice future development plans– Can Rice be replaced in parts over time (e.g. UI)

• Finish OLE-specific analysis– Dependencies on third-party components

• Evaluate possible open integration points for EBSCO/YBP services

Feature ComparisonOLE EBSCO ExLibris (Alma) OCLC PQ (Intota)

Discovery

Shared KB GoKB

Community KB updates GoKB

Local catalog updates MARC updates

Print holdings

eContent holdings

Circulation

Acquisitions

LinkResolver

Usage & Analytics

Cataloging

IR Fedora Rosetta ContentDM

ERM

ILL OCLC OCLC OCLC

Selection Order API

Workflow Management Order integration

Existing feature Planned feature

Feature ComparisonOLE + EBSCO ExLibris (Alma) OCLC PQ (Intota)

Discovery

Shared KB

Community KB updates G GoKB

Local catalog updates

Print holdings

eContent holdings

Circulation

Acquisitions

LinkResolver

Usage & Analytics

Cataloging

IR Fedora Rosetta ContentDM

ERM

ILL OCLC OCLC OCLC

Selection Order API

Workflow Management

Existing feature Planned feature

GoKB

EBSCO: Next Steps

• Complete Market Research Analysis – Early May

• Complete OLE functional gap analysis and architectural review – mid-May

• HW Wilson foundation funding request – mid May

• Results of Foundation funding inquiries – mid-May

• Decision on how to move forward: late May

• EBSCO team formation (if decision is positive): June–

• Define objectives, develop plan, announce participation, help grow OLE community: Late June-

Questions?