DIY Integrated Library Systems

Libraries use integrated library systems (ILS) to manage and add to their collections and to provide online public access catalogs or discovery systems to their users to search those collections. In this chapter, based on the LAMP stack we created in the prior chapter, we will build a basic ILS. Specifically, we will create a bare bones OPAC and a bare bones cataloging module, two cornerstone modules in all ILSs.

We start with an additional lesson in relational database usage. We then proceed to build the OPAC and cataloging modules. By the end of this chapter, you will have a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of these library technologies and how they are used in everyday practice.