They say too many cooks spoil the broth, but the Open Library Environment (OLE) final draft report released on July 26—featuring input from more than 125 libraries and other institutions—may just rewrite the rules of the kitchen. Even as vendors continue to improve existing options for library software, this grass-roots effort seeks to raise the standard for software flexibility and integration with broader university information standards and release an open source product back to the community.

The OLE project got its start in June 2008 with a $475,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The initial goal was to fund a framework document that would map a system to best fit the needs of academic and research libraries. The plans cover the range of current library software components, including the functions currently performed by existing integrated library systems (ILS) and electronic resource management (ERM) systems, and other systems, such as those that govern student and user identity management and human resource functions.

Also of note: the document is explicitly silent on everything but the behind-the-scenes operations of a library, planning instead to integrate with existing discovery interfaces, like “eXtensible Catalog, VuFind, Primo, Encore, AquaBrowser, Blacklight, and Endeca as well as future products.”

Aside from its ambitious scope, a hallmark of the project's first phase was its focus on library community engagement. Project coordinators solicited input from interested librarians and administrators at dozens of events and workshops around the country and in Canada and via webcasts. In total, more than 370 people attended the workshops, while the webcasts drew 385 people from 217 institutions.

Along with a commitment to implement the finalized components at their institutions, “build partners” for the final phase will shoulder half of the estimated $5.2 million development costs to extend the system over the course of two years. The rest of the funds are expected to come from further Mellon grants.

Still, while impressive coordination efforts were required to put the final document together on time and according to the original budget, the projected costs for the build phase are more than ten times as much as the design phase. The time frame is also twice as long, potentially providing more opportunity for mission creep and other challenges.

Much of the sustained commentary on the project has come from vendors—no surprise, given the somewhat similar endeavors under development by Ex Libris, OCLC, and others.

Ex Libris North America president Carl Grant questioned in a blog post whether the project has a sufficiently robust business model to sustain itself and described Ex Libris's Unified Resource Management (URM) software as sharing many similarities, at least in terms of scope. Talis technology evangelist Richard Wallis outlined skepticism about the project's time line and budget on the company's Panlibus blog.

The first components aren't expected until mid-2012 (and not until 2013 for non–“build partner” libraries). But the document is now in the public record, allowing it to inform equally the next-generation software built by vendors as well as the project's own build phase.