Moving Toward the Reintegration of Discovery

The scenario of mixing and matching different ILS products and discovery interfaces has become quite common in libraries. As the next phase of library automation plays out, the author expects to see more tightly integrated product suites. If this pattern prevails, over the course of the next decade we may see at least a partial return to a scenario where a library receives most of its automation support from a single company, which could result in better functionality between the discovery and automation environments.

Marshall Breeding, Smart Libraries, November 2011