On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Jesse Ephraim
<JEphraim_at_ci.southlake.tx.us> wrote:
> Why do we tolerate out-of-date, buggy ILS/OPAC systems, when they are
> only
> (ultimately) inventory and customer management systems? Worse still,
> why do we pay more than a couple of hundred dollars for ILS/OPAC
> systems? They aren't that complex, from a programmatic/database
> management standpoint.
ILSes are, in fact, quite complicated, since, not only do they manage
workflows, but have to deal with each individual doing everything a
little bit differently (as Jonathan Rochkind says, "we're unique
little snowflakes").
So, really, they try to do too many functions and can't really mandate
anything which gives the end result of what we have.
However, if they were 'simple systems' like you claim, the OSS
alternatives would have far surpassed the competition years ago.
-Ross.
Received on Sat Aug 23 2008 - 13:26:37 EDT