Jim Weinheimer said:
"For those libraries who do not want to change from their current systems, I would suggest that the reason is not necessarily that librarians are so happy with their present system, but the very idea of changing and relearning an entirely new system, as they have had to do so many times in the past, fills them with dread. In other words, their current system begins to look a lot better (and therefore they are more satisfied) the more they think about the hassle of changing it."
Reminds me of a related item. I have a fair amount of experience with libraries changing systems. Another scenario involves librarians chomping at the bit to change systems because their old system is so "bad". Then, after the change, they reminisce about how "good" their old system was compared to the new system. :-)
Bernie Sloan
Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu> wrote:
This is an excellent report. A couple of observations, though:
1) This is not a complaint or a criticism, simply an observation from an enthusiastic Koha user. I noticed that there was a cutoff of 30 responses to get onto the Report Category. Since it appears as if there were less than 30 Koha registered users, their replies were not included in those reports, e.g. "How likely is it that this library would consider implementing an open source ILS?". This, in spite of the fact that the Koha users apparently had a very high satisfaction with their ILS system (go to: http://www.librarytechnology.org/survey-product-report.pl and select "Koha").
2) For those libraries who do not want to change from their current systems, I would suggest that the reason is not necessarily that librarians are so happy with their present system, but the very idea of changing and relearning an entirely new system, as they have had to do so many times in the past, fills them with dread. In other words, their current system begins to look a lot better (and therefore they are more satisfied) the more they think about the hassle of changing it. (Of course, with an open source product, you have the option of making it work as you want, instead of you having to fit in to the system. This does not seem to be widely understood in the library community. Yes, I have a clear bias for open source!)
Once again, an excellent report. Thanks for the great work!
Jim Weinheimer
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> On Thu, 10 Jan 2008, Breeding, Marshall wrote:
>
> > Last August I sent a message to this list soliciting responses to a
> > survey that I was conducting on libraries perceptions of their library
> > automation systems, the companies that provide them, and on attitudes
> > toward open source ILS.
> >
> >
> >
> > I have closed that survey and have written an article describing its
> > findings.
> >
> >
> >
> > The article titled "Perceptions 2007: an International Survey of
> Library
> > Automation" is available here:
> >
> > http://www.librarytechnology.org/perceptions2007.pl
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks to the 1,779 individuals who participated in the survey.
> >
> >
> >
> > -marshall
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Marshall Breeding
> >
> > Director for Innovative Technology and Research
> >
> > Vanderbilt University Library
> >
> > 615-343-6094
> >
> > http://www.librarytechnology.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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Received on Wed Jan 23 2008 - 08:05:04 EST