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Over the last year or so, a new term has emerged to describe a growing interest in libraries to move beyond traditional OPAC search and presentation metaphors to something more Web-oriented, relying on relevance ranking, facetted browsing, and employing some aspects of social computing such as content tagging and sharing bookmarks. The meaning of this new term - "discovery layer" - isn't precise but it does capture a desire to have library-held resources integrated with Web-based resources in an interface that speaks to a generation familiar with Google, FaceBook, flickr, and Amazon.

A number of OCUL schools have been exploring options in this area independently, some in a very preliminary way, others with money in hand and eager to move forward. Recognizing the possibilities of approaching this consortially, the OCUL directors this summer asked the University of Toronto, which had already begun an RFI process, to expand it's explorations to include all of the OCUL schools and all of the content OCUL manages collectively under the Scholars Portal umbrella.

In early July, then, an RFI was issued to over 20 different vendors, including many without traditional library IT products, to make a proposal for a new search and discovery interface for all the OCUL library catalogues and all content managed now and into the future by Scholars Portal. The vendors were asked to frame their response in terms of three different phases - adding a discovery layer to the U of T catalogue, incorporating Scholars Portal content, and then adding additional OCUL catalogues. This division of labour was set out not so much to suggest a schedule for the work but rather to help identify for planning purposes the costs of the various phases.

Responses were received at the end of July from the following vendors:

Integration New Media
Ex Libris
Coveo
IBM
MarkLogic
SirsiDynix
Bowker
Endeca
Siderean Software
Proquest
Autonomy

The official responses in electronic form along with the original RFI document are now available on the SPOT DOCS wiki. Over the next few weeks (from Aug 14 to Aug 28), each of these vendors will be coming to Toronto to make presentations on their proposals. All of these sessions will be made available to OCUL schools as web broadcasts (details to come) and will be recorded. Each school is also invited to send a single representative to the presentations. Please RSVP to Kate Davis (kate@scholarsportal.info) if you plan on attending any of these presentations as the official representative from your school.

A committee is being formed to evaluate the responses and identify the strengths of each solution. The committee will consist of a mix of SPOT staff, UTL staff, and representatives from the Public Services Advisory Group chaired by Martha Whitehead. This committee will be developing ways to solicit feedback from all of the schools on the presentations. Again, more details to come.

An RFI is a great learning opportunity and a good way for OCUL to focus its thinking on directions forward. There is great need and there will be plenty of opportunities for everyone to provide input into this process.

To access the vendor responses to the RFI you will need to log on to the Spot Docs wiki. If you don't have an account, please contact Kate who will be able to set you up with one. Please do not distribute these responses outside OCUL - the information in them is confidential and meant for local distribution only.

Schedule for vendor presentations

The presentations will take place in Robarts library. Click here for directions to the library.

Click here to view the vendor responses to the RFI

Additional Presentation by OCLC