Thinking about the Future of Integrated Library Systems

 Two significant pieces regarding the current state and possible future of integrated library systems (ILS) were recently released. Taken together, these pieces show somewhat of a shift in the trajectory of ILS development. One on hand, the long trend of consolidation and shrinkage in the number of available systems continues, although at a slower rate since the major players have already consolidated. On the other hand, there are signs of cracks at the base as some libraries explore whether one integrated system can ever meet all their business and service needs and whether they want to be constrained by the development schedules of the major system vendors.

The first recent piece to discuss these trends is from Marshall Breeding. His 2023 Library Systems Report  was published on May 1. This long-running, always useful report, is a thorough documentation of the current library system marketplace and well-informed discussion about potential future developments. There are no real surprises in this year’s report. As Breeding states, proprietary systems from large vendors continue to dominate the market. But the report demonstrates that a growing number of libraries are choosing open source systems when they migrate from older systems. Currently in the U.S., approximately 10% of academic libraries and 17% of public libraries use an open source system but that number is expected to grow as the historic barriers to these systems are dismantled. Long periods of development for these systems have finally got them to a place where functionality and customization options rival those of proprietary systems. The big development in this area, as detailed in the report, is how EBSCO’s support of the development of the open source system FOLIO is finally bearing fruit as a growing number of large libraries and consortia are migrating to FOLIO hosted by EBSCO. This gives them the flexibility of an open source system without the still-costly overhead of maintaining one. 

Meanwhile, a two-part post by Andreas Mace at Scholarly Kitchen, Do Libraries Still Dream Unified Dreams, approaches the questions of ILS flexibility and customization from a different angle. It begins by posing the question, can any one system ever perfectly meet a library’s needs? For decades, the idea of one system running all functions has been the ideal that librarians and ILS vendors have tried to achieve. Lately, as demonstrated in the 2023 Library Systems Report, the focus has been on developing open source systems with flexibility and interoperability to meet that goal. What Mace describes in the second part of his post is a modular approach using a suite of integrated platforms; one for interlibrary loan, one for circulation, one for acquisitions, etc., all united seamlessly by open APIs and exchange-ready data standards. This modular approach would potentially allow libraries to more fully develop and customize the modules that are most crucial to their unique business practices without being tied to a development schedule for a larger integrated system. 

A takeaway from reading both these pieces in conjunction is that, after years of seeing ILS development dictated by the contracting number of vendors in the marketplace, change and a different approach may be on the horizon. Going forward, ILS development may depend more on the growth of open source solutions, especially smaller scale platforms that can be tied together as modules, creating the “perfect” ILS for each individual library.