> "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."
Agreed. There are certain "transaction costs" involved with changing from one Integrated Library System (ILS) to another. The monetary costs for hardware & software is only one portion of those transaction costs. Of equal, and sometimes greater, importance are things like the loss of productivity as staff are retrained and come up to speed on the new system and the other hassles as Jim mentioned. Because of these transaction costs, most libraries (wisely) don't contemplate an ILS migration unless the new system is deemed to be a significant improvement over the old system. Kind of like you wouldn't sell your house and buy a different one in the same neighborhood with a similar floorplan just because it had 100 more square feet of space and an oak tree instead of a sycamore tree in the yard. Yeah, the new house might be incrementally better, but it's not worth the closing costs, Realtor commissions, and hassle of moving all your household goods.
The mass migration in the 1990s from main-frame based ILSs to client-server based ILSs with "real" web catalogs was a no-brainer decision. For the most part, the current crop of ILSs designed for academic libraries are fairly similar in their architecture and functionality. We've worked hard to get the most out of our current ILS and (leaving open-source aside) I haven't seen much out there that represents a quantum leap forward in ILS design.
-- Michael
# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
# University of Texas at Arlington
# 817-272-5326 office
# 817-688-1926 mobile
# doran_at_uta.edu
# http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
> Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 7:04 AM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Library Automation Survey Result
>
>
> 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 - 17:45:54 EST