Tim Spalding's points are well-taken...
But maybe I should have been more specific. I was talking specifically about discussions on NGC4LIB. I don't think NGC4LIB can claim any credit for the progress that Tim cites.
I was reflecting on almost three years of NGC4LIB, and wondering how much of a difference these discussions have made as far as next-generation catalogs are concerned.
Bernie Sloan
--- On Fri, 3/6/09, Tim Spalding <tim_at_LIBRARYTHING.COM> wrote:
> From: Tim Spalding <tim_at_LIBRARYTHING.COM>
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Three years of NGC4LIB - reflections?
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Date: Friday, March 6, 2009, 4:54 PM
> I dunno. I think there's been some progress. Three years
> ago projects
> and products like VUFind, Blacklight, Aquabrowser,
> Endeca-based
> cagtalogs, the Talis Platform and Google Books were either
> not in
> existence, not as good or not as popular as they are now.
> John Blyberg
> and David Pattern were just warming up. There were open
> Z39.50s but
> Simon Spero hadn't crawled the LC Authorities*, Open
> Library hadn't
> challenged OCLC--and LibraryThing had just a few thousand
> members, no
> competitors and neither free data or products for
> libraries.
>
> So, I think there's been progress--solid progress. The
> catalog of the
> future will be modular, open source, usable, social, fully
> "on" the
> web and reliant on open data. We've had progress on all
> fronts and, as
> long as OCLC doesn't win, I expect more progress.
> Things only seem
> bleak when compared with the change of the larger web and
> information
> landscape itself--which has been, I think, much more
> impressive.
>
> Tim
>
> *Still my favorite righteous hack.
Received on Fri Mar 06 2009 - 20:49:45 EST