Some ISIS-Software History and Technical Background on the new FOSS Integrated Library System ABCD

Abstract

While free and open source software is gaining momentum in library automation, it is still not a trivial event to launch a full-blown integrated library system (ILS), given today's high demands on such library systems. In this article we describe the ISISsoftware origins of the newly launched ABCD-software for which there is a morethan-average interest in many parts of the libraries and information communities in the developing world. Many -especially younger -librarians in the West have never heard about ISIS, its relevance and its technological concepts, so we will try to shed some light on this in order for librarians to better judge the meaning of the ABCD software for international librarianship and -why not -perhaps even for their own purposes.

Open source solutions for libraries: ABCD vs Koha

“…As reported by published studies, Koha is at the moment among most popular ILS on the market (Breeding, 2008;Müller, 2011;Riewe, 2008;Yang & Hofmann, 2010). None of these studies took under consideration ABCD, relatively new and unknown software coming from ISIS family, widely used in Latin America (E. De Smet, 2010a). The history of the ISIS software started in 1970's with CDS/ISIS ('Central Documentation System/Integrated Set of Information Services) which was a free software from the very beginning.…”

“…As a part of the ISIS software family, ABCD represents the integration of many ISIS tools, e.g. the meta-search capability, the CMS-based library "portal", advanced serials management and finally the advanced circulation module, which allows linking to PROG 47,2 non-ISIS user databases and multiple loans policy implementations (De Smet, 2010a). ABCD was developed in 2009 by BIREME (WHO, Brazil) in collaboration with the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR, Belgium), using the UNESCO's ISIS database technology.…”

The MARC tags and ISBD display formats for the ABCD UNIMARC bibliographic database

“…ABCD is an open source suite of library management software resulting from the modernization of CDS/ ISIS 1 , a text database management software developed since the 1970s by UNESCO and mainly used for bibliographic database management (Hopkinson 1997;de Smet 2008;de Smet 2009a;de Smet 2009b, de Smet 2010de Smet 2011;de Smet and Dhamdhere 2010). ABCD is a client/server application of which functions are available throughout a browser; it is written in HTML, PHP, JavaScript, XML, to which is added the Word Wilde Web XML IsisScript Server (WXIS) 2 , a web server for CDS/ISIS databases developed by the Centro Latino Americano e do Caribe de Informação em Ciências da Saúde (BIREME, São Paulo, Brazil).…”

“…These applications, that all handle the same type of files, are usually referred to as the 'ISIS family ' (de Smet 2010). They inherit from their ancestor its features among which is the formatting language.…”

“…Several specific applications complementary to the standard CDS/ISIS have been developed either by UNESCO, BIREME, or even users themselves; ABCD is the last to be born. These applications, that all handle the same type of files, are usually referred to as the 'ISIS family ' (de Smet 2010). They inherit from their ancestor its features among which is the formatting language.…”