Although I hope the OLE will look at new ways of doing things, I also
think using systems to help with existing processes is a useful exercise
There is no doubt that many aspects of library work have not fully
taken advantage of automation, and I've often found that local
development is needed for the most basic of tasks. However, this is, I
think, the problem - local practice can vary considerably
, and designing systems to meet all needs is impossible (or more
accurately too expensive I guess)
In terms of user facing systems, I agree this is incredibly important,
but there is already a lot of activity in this area on both the Open
Source and Commercial sides. I very much support the OLE looking at
'back office' requirements as I believe these would benefit immensely
from better systems, and there is the potential to make efficiency
gains here.
A key aspect of systems like VuFind, Primo, aquabrowser etc. is they
separate the user interface from the 'office' systems, meaning the
design of one doesn't rely so intimately on the design of the other -
which I believe will allow us to design much better systems on both
sides.
Owen
On 13 Dec 2008, at 14:36, "Eric Lease Morgan" <emorgan_at_ND.EDU> wrote:
> I had the opportunity to participate in an OLE (Open Library
> Environment) workshop the other day in Chicago, and in a sentence,
> it was an opportunity to describe and flowchart back-end library
> processes in an effort to help design an integrated library system.
>
> I'm glad I had the opportunity to attend. It gave me a chance to get
> a better understanding of what OLE is all about, and I saw it as a
> professional development session where I learned more about where
> things are going. The day's events were well-structured, well-
> organized, and manageable given the time restraints. I only regret
> there was too little "blue skying" by attendees. Much of the time
> was spent outlining how our work is done now. I hope any future
> implementation explores new ways of doing things in order to take
> better advantage of the changing environment as opposed to simply
> automating existing processes.
>
> For more details, see:
>
> http://infomotions.com/blog/2008/12/a-day-with-ole/
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> University of Notre Dame
Received on Sun Dec 14 2008 - 03:52:20 EST