Mark J. Andrews wrote:
> Well, some among us (ELM is an GREAT example) have taken the initiative to
> create innovative products (MyLibrary) to solve new problems. Other
> projects like LibData, and the myriad of portal, imaging, archiving and
> social computing projects - some based on commercial products, some FOSS -
> are part of this outpouring of creativity. Heck, there are even folks
> writing new ILS systems (Open ILS and the George PINES folks), which I find
> audacious. Didn't we just spend 25 years developing local ILS's only to
> scrap them?
Just wanted to interject something here from our project.
See, we wouldn't call our project audacious. We would call it necessary
for the survival and growth of our PINES library consortium. Nothing
else was cutting it, and we were forced down this path by the state of
library automation.
What alternative did we have? We looked at it long and hard from every
angle. In the *best* of scenarios, without Evergreen/Open-ILS, we would
be forced to keep the PINES consortium from growing until the library
automation world caught up with our needs (when would that be?). I don't
want to imagine the worst case scenario. We're in the lucky position to
have the resources to develop an ILS, so it was the logical, and LESS
(comparatively-speaking) audacious path for us. (the proof is now in the
pudding.. we were right to take this path.)
Further, I wouldn't call Evergreen/Open-ILS just another local ILS. It's
open source, and there are many other libraries in the world interested
in using it. We hope a community of developers and users grows around
the project. It is our hope that we don't create just another
locally-grown ILS... if we do, then we've at least partially failed in
our goals.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Brad LaJeunesse
PINES System Administrator
Georgia Public Library Service
Received on Sat Jun 10 2006 - 10:54:08 EDT