Tim Spalding wrote:
> LibraryThing is part of a trend. The last two years have seen an
> enormous explosion in web aps.... It comes down to this. Web aps.
> are becoming radically easier and cheaper to build and run. They
> are becoming almost a comodity. OPACs *ARE* web aps. Therefore,
> OPACs will, or at least should, go down the same path, and soon.
Yes, technically speaking OPACs (or what ever we are going to be
calling these things) are essentially Web applications.
There is no magic here. Just a database to store the data and an
index to make the data searchable. You can purchase these pieces of
software, but the purchased software are technically no better than
the free, open source software. So why are we paying for it? We pay
for it because we, the library profession as a whole, does not have
the critical mass of computer skills to create these thing on our
own. Most of us couldn't design a relational database if we had to,
and most of us are unable to distinguish the difference between a
database and an index. I'm certainly not saying that understanding
these technologies are the only issues in the creation of "next
generation" library catalog, but I am saying that until we raise our
level of knowledge we will continue to be held hostage to commercial
software that does not do what we want it to do.
--
Eric Lease Morgan
I'm hiring a Senior Programmer Analyst.
See http://dewey.library.nd.edu/morgan/programmer/.
Received on Tue Jun 20 2006 - 06:30:19 EDT