Libraries are increasingly demanding the ability to exploit their library systems (LIS) using application programming interfaces (APIs), Web services, or other technologies. This issue of Library Technology Reports explores how vendors of open source library technology are approaching this desire for customization plus an in-depth exploration...

Marshall Breeding serves as the Director for Innovative Technology and Research at the Vanderbilt University Libraries in Nashville, Tennessee. He has authored several previous Library Technology Report issues: "Electronic Security Strategies for Libraries," "Strategies for Measuring and Implementing E-Use," "Integrated Library Software: A Guide to Multiuser, Multifunction Systems," "Wireless Networks in Libraries," "Web Services and the Service-Oriented Architecture," and "Open Source Integrated Library Systems." Breeding is also a contributing editor to Smart Libraries Newsletter, published by ALA TechSource, and has authored the feature "Automated Systems Marketplace" for Library Journal for the last six years. His column "Systems Librarian" appears monthly in Computers in Libraries magazine.

Preface Acknowledgments Part I Today's Landscape Chapter 1 Teenagers and the Library Chapter 2 Information-Retrieval Systems: For Better or for Worse Chapter 3 Information Technology Meets Communication Technology Part II Consequences Chapter 4 The Fallout: Intended and Unintended Consequences Chapter 5 From Mischief to Mayhem: Behavior Chapter 6 The Deep End: Content Part III Next Steps Chapter 7 Fishing Poles, Not Fish: Damage Control Chapter 8 Putting It All Together References Index