Lehigh joins with leading universities to develop next-generation library system

A $475,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the Duke University Libraries and its multi-national project partners—including Lehigh University—will lead to the design of a next-generation, open-source library system.
The goal of the project, known as Open Library Environment (OLE) Project, is to develop a service-oriented architecture (SOA) design document for library automation technology that will be able to meet the needs of 21st-century libraries and their users.
Open source is becoming increasingly important in the academic world, says Bruce M. Taggart, vice provost for Library and Technology Services.
“This is a very significant project in terms of the service and management of the emerging electronic library,” says Bruce M. Taggart, vice provost for Library and Technology Services. “It also constitutes recognition, at an international level, of Lehigh University’s library—in terms of both the quality of its staff and its vision for the future.”
It’s exciting, he adds, for Lehigh to be among a select group of institutions to be a part of the original design group.
In addition to Duke and Lehigh, other core partner institutions include Vanderbilt University, the University of Kansas, University of Pennsylvania, the National Library of Australia, and the Library and Archives of Canada. Other advisory partner institutions include the Orbis Cascade Alliance, Rutgers University, the University of Florida, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, the University of Maryland and Whittier College.
Project leaders at Lehigh will be LTS Senior Systems Specialist Timothy McGeary ’99, ’06G, and Doreen Herold, catalog librarian.
Concurrent with the development of a design document, the OLE Project intends to create a community of interest that could be tapped to build the planned system in a follow-on project. More information about these projects can be found here.
--Linda Harbrecht