OCLC has to find a fee structure that is viable for smaller libraries
(if you can actually replace some/much of your ILS cost with OCLC, does
that make it more viable? That's a big IF, but that's what this thread
is hoping for). OR, an alternative cooperative to OCLC has to arise
which has a different fee/service model, and works for smaller libraries.
One or the other is absolutely neccesary. In the 21st century, the
success of libraries absolutely depends on the availability of networked
sharing of data and services, and that's the role OCLC is filling. If
smaller libraries don't have access to this, this is a big problem.
Jonathan
Lynn Reynish wrote:
> That, of course, presumes that one can afford the fees to belong to OCLC. I've worked with or assisted 29 libraries in my career (school, public, academic and special) and only 2 were able to afford joining OCLC. A standalone client that could act as a front end to both OCLC and the LMS might be a reasonable compromise.
>
> Lynn
>
>
> ---
> Lynn Reynish
> ILS Librarian
> Regina Public Library
> lreynish_at_reginalibrary.ca
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Frances Dean McNamara
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 9:24 AM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] NGLMS4LIB?
>
> I think an alternate suggestion is not to have a cataloging module at all and to only use OCLC. Why create a standalone cataloging module when that is what OCLC specializes in?
>
> So, can you have a "disintegrated library system" (DLS instead of ILS?) where there is no cataloging module, all cataloging is done on OCLC?
>
> Frances McNamara
> University of Chicago
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Stephens, Owen
> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 10:39 AM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] NGLMS4LIB?
>
> Mark wrote
>
>> So why not? I'm not a database guy, but it seems to me that if a
>> standard database scheme was created to store all the types of data an
>> ILS needed, wouldn't that solve 99% of the problem? Couldn't we tack
>> on any company's circ software, assuming it knew how to read and write
>> to our database? In terms of what the user wants to accomplish,
>> aren't the basic tasks pretty much predictable?
>>
>>
>
> I'm not sure you need to go as far as a standard database. Considering the small number of large LMS suppliers in the market, actually even building an interface to each one is a minimal amount of work (6 major systems, 4 major suppliers?) - if only they all had published API to work with...
>
> In some cases standard APIs already exist. For Circulation SIP2 or NCIP would surely cover the vast majority of tasks you want to carry out. In my previous employment we implemented Self Issue using RFID and we were achieving >90% of loan transactions at the self service machines. These had their own client s/w which the user interacted with, with the communication back to the LMS by SIP2.
>
> There might be some circ stuff ('supervisory' functions?) that isn't covered here, but this should be a minimal number of transactions.
>
> To pick up Mark's example of a cataloguing client, an easy approach would be simply to create MARC records in a stand alone client that could then be imported into one or more LMS (solving Mark's problem of cataloguing over several different LMS systems). As Karen noted, Mark isn't asking for the world - the stuff he suggests is relatively straightforward I think. There are questions about where the data comes from perhaps, but if things such as the Authority files and encoded field lists could be supplied via a web service, then the client itself would be quite 'lite'.
>
> Are there any good standalone cataloguing clients already? What are there drawbacks compared to the LMS? (I guess you lose some workflow
> benefits?)
>
> Owen
>
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
Received on Tue Oct 23 2007 - 12:40:04 EDT