Library portal solutions

This article reviews a significant range of new products developed by library management system (LMS) suppliers, which will be referred to for convenience as library portal solutions (LPS) and whose purpose is to manage access to e‐content in an integrated way with books, journals and other library stock. The article reviews current understanding of user requirements and then describes the state of the current market place, based on a survey of suppliers conducted in May and June 2002, as well as on supplier Web sites and live demonstrations. The article concludes by summarising evaluation criteria for choosing a system, and makes some tentative predictions about the development of the market place in the next five years. The perspective is primarily that of a UK academic library, but the products are certainly of interest to libraries in many sectors in every country.