The Duke University Libraries have received a $475,700 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to design the next-generation, open-source library system that seeks to meet the changing and complex needs of 21st-century libraries and library users. The Open Library Environment (OLE) Project will develop a design document for library automation technology that fits modern library workflows. It is built on Service Oriented Architecture, and offers an alternative to commercial Integrated Library System products.
Leaders of the OLE Project, representing libraries in the US, Canada, and Australia, will involve the library community in the design process through workshops, meetings, webcasts and online discussions. Through these activities, a plan for a library technology system that breaks away from an emphasis on print-based workflows will be developed. The project website at http://oleproject.org gives detailed information about the project and includes FAQs, recommended reading, and a comment section.
The OLE Project is a collaborative, community-based venture. Individuals from other libraries will have the opportunity to participate in the project through regional and virtual meetings, discussion of plans and documents, comments via the project website and listserv and discussions at professional meetings. Lynne O'Brien, principal investigator on the project and Director of Academic Technology and Instructional Services for Perkins Library at Duke University, is joined on the OLE Project team by colleagues from Duke as well individuals from the University of Kansas, Lehigh University, the University of Pennsylvania, the National Library of Australia, Library and Archives Canada, Vanderbilt University, the Orbis Cascade Alliance, Rutgers University, the University of Florida, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, the University of Maryland and Whittier College.
In addition to its development of a design document, the OLE Project is intended to create a community of interest that could be tapped to build the planned system in a follow-on project.
