On 6/21/06, Robin Hastings <robin.hastings_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> > I guess my direct point is this: the problem of the NGO(PAC) isn't
> > necessarily best solved by layering an OSS hack on top of a
> > featureless black-box catalog, but perhaps the catalog itself (which
> > is the core of the circulation system, what most here seem to be
> > referring to as the "ILS" side of OPAC-ILS) should be fixed to provide
> > a real, full-featured interface -- without bankrupting the library.
>
> This is what I'd like to see. An ILS system with a full-featured web
> services interface/API that we could hook up ANY front end to and use.
> I don't remember if it was this list or Web4Lib that linked to the "If
> Amazon Sucked Like Our Opac" (http://library2.csusm.edu/amazon/)
> interface that the amazingly talented David Walker put together. If
> this is possible through web services from Amazon, why shouldn't our
> ILS systems offer the same data for us to use to create our own
> interfaces or, for libraries without the technological know-how, offer
> a "pre-built" interface themselves.
> I've not been able to play with Evergreen or Koha, so I don't know if
> they work this way, but this sort of architecture would pretty much
> make everything I want to do with our catalog possible - including all
> of the filtering and sorting options you all have been discussing on
> this thread.
This is exactly how Evergreen/OpenILS works. It was designed from the
ground up as a service framework, not as a black-box set of modules.
As for Koha, I'm not sure on the specifics, but I think they have
search results in marcxml and, very recently, MODS.
>
> --
> Robin Hastings
> robin.hastings_at_gmail.com
> http://www.rhastings.net
>
--
Mike Rylander
mrylander_at_gmail.com
GPLS -- PINES Development
Database Developer
http://open-ils.org
Received on Wed Jun 21 2006 - 16:45:13 EDT