Quote from NGC4LIB from two weeks ago
>As a fraction of one of his 2 cents worth :), Mark Andrews wondered if there
>is enough of Geac left to do business with. There may not be many libraries
>in North America still using Geac software (we're one of a substantially
>shrunken client list), but they do have a sizeable client list in Europe and
>a new product and business model that be worth noting here.
Very belated response, but perhaps of interest. Boise State was the first Geac Advance customer in the world, in 1989/90. We actually contracted with Ali'i before the acquisition of that company by Geac. Some may remember them from Hawai'i in the 80s.
Anyway, since 1990 I've managed a LISTSERV(R) list named ADVANC-L (good old mainframe uppercase and 8 character name limit, and before LISTSERV went commercial). In the "olden days" it had lots of traffic. It has had five messages posted since last June. There are 175 members in 12 countries, with the following:
* Country Subscribers*
------- -----------
* Australia 13
* Canada 52
* Cyprus 4
* France 1
* Greece 1
* Ireland 2
* Italy 3
* Malta 1
* Netherlands 3
* New Zealand 5
* United Kingdom 11
* United States 79
This of course refers to subscribers, not libraries, as many libraries have several staff members on the list.
There are at least a few members who are "CLSI customers" from that merger, which now seems a hundred years ago, but some are still on Advance or CLSI and others on various other updates/changes/variations.
Why do we still maintain the list when we've not had Advance for five years? It costs almost nothing in time and effort, and if it is useful to a bunch of old friends, that's great. It'll probably just die by itself eventually, and quite certainly when I retire in a few years.
This certainly doesn't give a full picture of Geac, but may be of interest.
If not, we all have delete keys, don't we?
dan, feeling rather ancient today
Lord, I never complain, never ask why, but please don't let my dream run dry
dan_at_riverofdata.com
Dan Lester, Boise, Idaho, USA
Received on Tue Jan 23 2007 - 18:36:59 EST