World library community helps design the future

A draft of the final report on the Open Library Environment (OLE)project is now available to view on the website at:

Final Report

The project has involved some 400 participants from libraries around the world, who answered the call for the international library community to assist in designing an alternative to the current standard model of the integrated library system (ILS).

The stated goal was to ‘produce a design document to inform open source library system development efforts, to guide future library system implementations, and to influence current ILS vendor products.’

The National Library of Australia was one of the 14 leading project partners in OLE, and the only one based outside the US. In addition, library people from Europe, Asia and Africa took part in workshops and webcasts.

Australian institutions involved in the process included the University and State Library of Tasmania; Deakin, La Trobe and Swinburne Universities and the Chisholm Institute, in Victoria; the Australian Digital Futures Institute, at the University of Southern Queensland; the State Library of NSW and the Murdoch University, WA.

The partners in the project are in discussions with potential investors to
use the findings of the report to develop a new library technology platform.