Re: Death by enhancement: was WorldCat Local

In my experience, a great many of the the incremental enhancements
requested of the ILS vendors are for the benefit of the
librarians/library staff using the back-end, improving their
work-flow etc.   I think we should be careful not to conflate the
features/fixes that are necessary for end-users with those for
library insiders.

Laura


At 11:49 AM 4/26/2007, Hank Young wrote:
>This may be totally off-base, but when I read this I could not help
>but drawing an analogy to a popular MMOG I have played since before
>the first expansion was introduced.  Players have always complaining
>about quests that did not work, NPCs (non-player characters) that
>had typos in their scripts and used poor grammar, rings that could
>only be worn on the waist (!), treasure that could not be used by
>the types of characters who obviously SHOULD be using them, doors
>that opened the wrong direction, etc...  however; the company that
>produces the game has chosen to focus on the next expansion
>(available at your local store or by digital download every 6 months!)
>
>When you look at the number one source of player complaints, there
>were too many new expansions (which sounds like new product
>development on one specific functional area) instead of fixing
>problems that already exist.  I am often asked "OMG! Do you still
>play ____?" NOT because I am ## years old but because these
>complaints have driven so many players to other fields.  The mind
>boggles at what libraries could do if they were able to change their
>ILS as easily.
>
>Just food for thought.  I will go back to lurking now.
>
>Hank Young
>Cataloger
>University of Florida
>
>
>----------
>From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
>[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephens Owen
>Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 2:03 PM
>To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>Subject: [NGC4LIB] Death by enhancement: was WorldCat Local
>
>Interestingly the North American Aleph user group has recently moved
>away from working with the supplier (Ex Libris) on individual
>enhancement requests, and instead has an agreement to focus
>development on one specific functional area at a time. However, even
>early into to trying this not all libraries are happy they have lost
>the opportunity to vote for smaller enhancements.
>
>Having been involved in a process of 'incremental' enhancements I'm
>convinced that this type of 'improvement' does nothing for the
>overall development of the product, detracts from strategic product
>development, and leads to much wasted time and resource for both
>users and suppliers.
>
>Although I agree that libraries continue to have a need for
>'acquisition' and handling multi-part items we end up getting very
>small changes to the way systems handle these issues, when we should
>really be asking questions about whether completely accurate
>prediction of when the next issue of x journal is going to arrive is
>more or less important than redesigning the subscription
>functionality to deal with electronic resources more effectively.
>
>Owen
>