We are open to integrations with both large vendors and small innovators and are proud to champion interoperability and an ecosystem of choice for libraries. We believe that libraries should be able to choose a combination of systems that work together to best suit them. Our suite of technologies work across publisher platforms to streamline access for your patrons. Find out how we stay publisher-neutral below.
Who decides which publishers are integrated with Technology from Sage products?
Whenever a library requests a particular publisher integration, we will do everything we can to make it work. We don’t need to wait until a library requests a particular integration though and are happy to respond to publisher requests to integrate. We are confident that these integrations can be turned around quickly, with the capabilities and resources we have. If that changes at any point, we will be transparent about how we prioritise particular integrations. We would take a customer-centric approach here and prioritise according to customer demand.
Who decides which content integrations are available to library users?
Whether the integration has been made available via direct integration with the publisher, or unilaterally by the library, which integrations are made available to library users is entirely at the library’s discretion.
Talis Aspire
We are happy to have a conversation with any publisher or vendor to help establish whether integration will be possible and the best method to use. Our usual requirements are:
- That we can search an index of Local Control Numbers
- That we can search an index of ISBNs
- That we can search an index of ISSNs
- That these searches will return bibliographic data. Either a MARC record or another representation of the record. AND that the Local Control Number is present in the record.
- That we can use a Local Control Number to lookup live item holding availability.
- That we can build a deep link to your library catalogue or discovery service using the previously captured Local Control Number
- That we can build a deep link to an author and title search for finding other formats and editions of a title.
We may need to do some development work to support local specifics of a library system integration, but we have not come across a system that we cannot integrate with.
Lean Library
Lean Library integrates with the library’s holdings information and its authentication infrastructure. We do not store library holdings information, but we are able to call on it via integrations. As a result of these integrations, when a library user browses to a publisher domain our browser extension redirects them to the proxied URL. To achieve this simplified access, we do not need any direct integrations with publishers and all publishers are treated in exactly the same way.
We are also able to embed relevant publisher content in user workflows to enhance discoverability and the PWI. This capability is only available to Lean Library Futures customers.
Lean Library is also able to embed relevant publisher content into a user’s workflows, via our browser extension. Preview content can be embedded directly onto any webpage, with URL links to relevant publisher pages for further information. Lean Library does this through the PWI (Patron Workflow Integration) standard, which outlines a consistent framework for integrating any content product or library tool with our browser extension.
Briefly put, the PWI simply requires a list of keywords/titles, content associated with these keywords (e.g. definitions, or summary of videos), and specific publisher URL link/s. Whenever our browser extension detects one or more of these keywords/titles, the user is then able to trigger the presentation of associated content against those terms – with direct links to explore more content on the publisher’s domain. Libraries decide which URLs the browser extension should be active on to achieve this. E.g. it could be limited to Wikipedia or Google Scholar, or it could also run on YouTube, Google and other sites.
These content integrations are generally most appropriate for thematic collections or encyclopedia-style reference databases. In our experience, broader journal or eBook portfolio integrations are often not as appropriate since library users will prefer to search through this content via open search engines or library discovery services. However, we do have a number of integrations of this kind and we are always open to discuss this with publishers and would respond to any such requests from our library customers.
Particular publisher integrations are only available to library users if the library expressly configures it. I.e. there is no scenario in which Lean Library makes these integrations available to library users at its own choosing, or would interfere to privilege one publisher integration over another.
How is this achieved technically?
There are two ways this capability is achieved technically.
- Via bilateral integration, Publisher-Lean Library.
- Via unilateral set-up, configured by the library itself.
Bilateral integrations
Whenever a Lean Library customer requests a specific publisher integration that is not yet available, Lean Library will approach the publisher to establish a direct, bilateral integration, often achieved via API/s. We do this to ensure the best possible integration and user experience. We will work with the publisher to work with their API/s, or identify another means of integration if that is not possible. We will also work with the publisher, and library customers, to make appropriate modifications in the ways in which the content is embedded to ensure the experience is optimised for the content type. We want the publisher, our libraries, and the end user to be delighted with the experience.
Unilateral set-up
To ensure scalability of this capability, we also give libraries the ability to set up content integrations themselves, without the need for any involvement from Lean Library or the publisher. All they need to do is assign specific URLs to a list of keywords and our browser extension will iFrame the content from those URLs whenever these keywords appear in a user workflow, and the user triggers an action to prompt the iFrame.