Andrew,
Thanks for writing that. Let me second you.
I am very happy that Andrew has done what he has done. When I came
right out of the box with criticism, I meant it to be constructive of
course, and not an attack. Still...
I guess when you have grown to appreciate many of the aspects of the old
catalogs, its hard not to bite your tongue for a while and let people
bask in the victory of a great accomplishment.
Kudos to you Andrew. Thanks again for all your hard work - and the way
you have responded to critiques and suggestions.
Regards,
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Andrew Ashton
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 8:14 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Open Source OPAC - VUFind Beta Released
"That Other Andrew" wrote:
'But VuFind is open source ... it is up to the community to make it
better.'
I just want to delurk for a moment to highlight this point. VUFind
looks *fantastic*, even in beta, and with some community development it
will simply rock. I understand that a lot of this criticism is
constructive, but I've often felt that a big impediment to library
innovation is our insistence on perfection right out of the box. I
have, as I'm sure we all have, seen many innovative, and some merely
useful, ideas wither on the vine because a librarian could find a
combination of factors that (*gasp*) might not lead as precisely to one
catalog record as the "old" system.
Personally, I'm interested in hearing more about implementation and
testing experiences. Is there a resource (besides this list) for
libraries who want to kick the tires a bit?
--
Andrew Ashton
Systems Librarian
Scribner Library, Skidmore College
(518)580-5505
>
> "The Peloponnesian War and the Future of Reference, Cataloging, and
> Scholarship in Research Libraries"
> http://guild2910.org/Peloponnesian%20War%20June%2013%202007.pdf
>
> I understand that VuFind relies on the real catalogs it accesses via
> "drivers". So, if a target catalog doesn't have browse lists, VuFind
> cannot provide them? Or does it do its own indexing?
>
VuFind does not rely on catalog and that is one of the core foundations
of the system. It has it's own index. However an implementation of
VuFind would be rather basic with out a catalog for it to connect to.
This is where the drivers come into play. The catalog supplies real
time status information on the records. Also the ability to hold or
recall an item.
Hope this clears things up
Andrew
Received on Tue Jul 24 2007 - 07:08:04 EDT