Gary, first, nice to meet you and welcome to the list.
Second, as the fine folks at the Georgia Public Library System had
described, and those at NCSU, there are some very good reasons - very,
very specific reasons - in the present marketplace for a given library
or libraries to roll their own system. The PINES folks were never going
to find a commercial system that could modified at an affordable price,
in a timely way, to meet their particular needs, so they wrote their own
system.
Most libraries are not in that position and will never be; they are in
fiscal, managerial and technical environments which require them buy
commercial ILS products. The UC and CSU campuses and systems are
perfect examples of this; between them those campuses have bought one of
everything that was ever electrically powered, including most of the ILS
products marketed over the last 25 years. That didn't stop the UC
Library Systems Office from creating MELVYL; there wasn't a commercial
system that could do what MELVYL does.
I take your point that "library values" should drive system design, but
as that great teacher, the Little Red Hen, says "Who will help me bake
this bread?" Will the UC Berkeley campus put time, money and bodies
into a next generation catalog project? Will it solicit the ongoing
involvement and support of like-minded institutions across the country
who, with rare exception, are spending the public's money on I.T.
projects? I told the people I worked for that if I ever suggested a
multi-year, multi-million dollar software development project they
should fire me - project management at that scale is a skill I don't
have and won't acquire at someone else's expense. Heck, I've seen what
happens in industry for pity sake; turning my vendor-jaundiced eye to
academic institutions, I am skeptical of these types of projects,
despite people's very good intentions.
Every company I worked for in this business is gone. And outside of
those companies, I watched the entire evolution - and dissolution - of
my alma mater's (U. of Missouri) home-grown ILS in favor of commercial
product precisely because that University wanted to get out of the
software development business. The same thing happened at UCLA with
Orion. And at U. of Chicago with Notis. And at Harvard with Hollis
(which was their hot-roded version of Notis). And in Florida at the FU,
FSU and the community colleges. If I tried another 10 minutes I could
think of at least 15 more examples.
The spirit in your note is admirable. How do we turn it into a viable
product?
Mark
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Mark Andrews, MLS
Systems Librarian
DoIT Academic and eLearning Technologies
L 32 Reinert Memorial Alumni Library
402.280.3065
mja30807_at_creighton.edu
AIM: mja30807
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Received on Wed Jun 21 2006 - 13:29:38 EDT