On 6/15/06, JOHN MARQUETTE <JOHNMA_at_ci.commerce.ca.us> wrote:
> My observation of today's posts is that we're all pretty much of one
> mind about our patrons, their interface experiences, and our library
> automation systems. It seems to me that we have not verbalized our
> needs clearly enough to our vendors
I'd go out stronger and say that we've been terribly poor at
verbalising this to our managers and to the people who run the
library-world. We need to take back the control of our data and our
systems. Trusting vendors seemed like a good idea at the time, but has
proven to be a huge kludge on our world; if vendors aren't breaking
our data free from the shackles of our conservative way, then we're
sure as hell not going to, nor *can* we as all our expertise is locked
down in vendor's systems.
Surely there's better ways to making libraries more valuable to
patrons than sitting around waiting for vendors to be clever? Surely
our managers can see this, or at least sympathise with it? Surely
that's what we - as library folks - want? Right?
Alex
--
"Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know."
- Frank Herbert
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Received on Wed Jun 14 2006 - 21:25:51 EDT