From: Katherine A. Perry, VIVA Director, kperry04_at_gmail.com
This is an open letter to Vendors and Publishers.
Although it seems obvious, apparently it isn't, so I feel the
need to make this statement:
*It is usually a very bad idea to make platform changes in the
middle of the academic semester.*
We've had 3 vendors announce interface changes within the past 2
weeks -- one is causing significant problems, despite the usual
promises of it being "seamless". And these are not business
databases, but ones where the academic community represents major
portions of their customer base.
While I realize the calendars are not the same for all colleges,
universities, countries, or continents, some consideration has to
be given to the academic calendars. Major changes can (and often
do) produce confusion for our students, faculty, librarians and
staff throughout the library. The impact can be observed in
broken links in course management systems, MARC records that have
to be reloaded, bibliographic instruction materials requiring
revision, reference staff and virtual reference staff requiring
retraining, and lost use data, to name just a few aspects coming
to light in the wake of these "seamless transitions".
Thank you,
Kathy
Katherine A. Perry
VIVA Director
kperry04_at_gmail.com
Received on Wed Mar 03 2010 - 03:01:20 EST