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Weekly News Digest
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May 2, 2011 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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Innovative Announces Sierra Services Platform Development
At the recent Innovative Users Group Annual Conference, Neil Block, president of Innovative Interfaces, publically announced a new strategic ILS direction for the company and the development of the Sierra Services Platform. Providing complete ILS functionality with the power and scale of modern software architecture and built on a foundation of “open services,” Sierra will provide all the benefits of proven, stable business logic and integrated resource management on which thousands of libraries rely. At the same time, Sierra is designed with flexibility built in to meet changing needs of libraries and their users.Sierra has been designed with a modern Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) optimized to facilitate the following: - Increased opportunities for open development with Innovative’s partners and customer libraries; flexibility in determining their priorities and development options; integration of web-based and web-scale services; and multiple device support (browser, mobile, tablet)
- Flexibility in deployment of resources from a single local Sierra instance to cloud-based hosting
- A platform for rapid application development, device adoption, and resource independence
Sierra’s SOA-based design has four layers, each of which exposes applicable services and provides an independent, distinct set of functionality. The services architected within each layer are loosely coupled with well-defined, highly functional interfaces. Careful consideration has been given to planning the migration of existing Millennium libraries—they will see no loss of functionality when they migrate. The initial release—scheduled for late 2011—will be a major foundational release that includes exposure of the industry-compliant PostgreSQL database and Lucene index structures, as well as a new integrated staff application that simplifies the routine functions and provides a single interface from which critical library functions can be managed. The new application has an easy to use, attractive user interface optimized for library staff. Subsequent releases will include enhanced e-workflow functionality, continued API development, and the release of a thin web application. For detailed coverage, see the blog post by Marshall Breeding, “Innovative Interfaces to Launch Sierra: A New-Generation Automation Platform.” He says, “The launch of Sierra comes at a critical time when the library automation industry is entering a new phase. Many new products that embrace new approaches to library automation are brewing…. Through its development of Sierra, Innovative has claimed a position among the ranks of these new systems and seems ready to take a new turn in the way that it creates software and interacts with its customer libraries.” Source: Innovative Interfaces
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Brandi Scardilli
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