I definitely agree. There are a lot of reasons to be wary of a "one catalog to rule them all" solution being sold by a single vendor no matter how appealing the idea might be.
There are a huge number of places where the library world needs a digital commons that "the Big O" (or any other vendor [1]) is unlikely to be able to provide:
1) a way of creating links to media that can link to library catalogs, bookstores, book swap sites, LibraryThing, etc. in a location and user-aware way anybody could understand and use
2) Open-source/wikified MARC records
3) Creative Commons-licensed reviews of materials, cover images, sample text, etc.
4) Union holdings information
5) (Anonymized) patron usage data, ratings, tags, etc.
OSLC, anyone?
[1] Cue the Talis guys...
>>> "K.G. Schneider" <kgs_at_bluehighways.com> 4/24/2007 9:47 AM >>>
I wonder how many of us are conceptually on board with the concept of a
national catalog, and yet hesitate to endorse this concept (or even argue
for a functional model we realize is not working for us now, if it ever did)
because the only functional model remotely available to us (and not that
remote any more, either) would place us under the control of the Big O.
Karen G. Schneider
kgs_at_bluehighways.com
Received on Tue Apr 24 2007 - 11:40:40 EDT