Why Share an ILS?
Traditional library automation has evolved into a commodity service. It isn’t glamorous, compared with digital library initiatives, library Web portals, metasearch systems, and reference linking environments that have grown to capture the interest of librarians as they consider ways to use technology to maximize their presence and value to their users. Core ILS functionality remains essential to efficient library operations, yet everything must be done as inexpensively as possible, and in a way that enables a library to extend its services and engage in resource sharing arrangements with other libraries. Many factors often lead librarians to seek out opportunities to share a system rather than to operate their own. I’ll discuss a number of them in this column. Local Control. While librarians feel the need to lower automation costs, they value their autonomy and the ability to maintain control of their automation environment. While all libraries are interested in reducing costs, they re
