The simple truth is that library tools and systems don’t function in a vacuum, but are becoming much more connected and integrated. Within the library ILS space, this has given rise to a host of application programming interfaces (API) designed to give tool developers that ability to interact directly with the underlying data in the libraries metadata management system. This level of integration is a very new occurrence within the library community and is still very much a work in progress. Anticipating new opportunities for integration and the potential to update old workflows, an ILS mediation layer was built into MarcEdit. This mediation layer was designed to facilitate the interactions between MarcEdit and an ILS systems API, handling issues related to authentication, sessioning, searching, data conversion, and error handling. As new library management systems expose their underlying APIs, users will find that MarcEdit is ready to work with them.
In Fall 2012, MarcEdit developed the first proof of concept around this notion of direct ILS integration. Working with the open source Koha system, a small code library was developed to encapsulate the Koha API for use within the MarcEdit application. Once created, the library was made available to the library community and embedded into MarcEdit. The result is a dramatic shift in workflows. When enabled, the direct ILS integration allows users to directly search for individual or batches of records and automatically pull that data into MarcEdit for editing. In the Koha example, the API exposed the ability to create and modify bibliographic content, as well as the ability to create and modify holdings information for a bibliographic record. So, using the API, users never had to export, or make, or break any bibliographic data. Rather, the information is directly pulled into the MarcEditor where it can be edited, validated, and then pushed back to the catalog. At the time of writing, the direct ILS integration features are limited to the Koha ILS system. While other ILS system vendors are currently developing or testing API access to their systems, they have yet to become publicly available.
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[attr style=”width:90px”],”As ILS vendors open their API’s, it will be up to the MarcEdit community to help build the relationships that will allow the development of direct integration to other ILS systems.”
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The ILS integration settings provide the information MarcEdit needs to configure direct access to an ILS system using MarcEdit’s mediation layer. MarcEdit provides the systems compatible with the ILS integration function in the Select System listing. Users need only to highlight a specific ILS system and fill in the required information related to the systems HostName, authentication information, and if Z39.50 should be utilized to search the resource.
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[attr style=”width:90px”],”If you don’t see your ILS in the Select System list and you know your system provides an API that supports record management tasks, contact your vendor and tell them you want them to work with MarcEdit.”
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