Shirley Lincicum schrieb:
> I totally agree that librarians need effective management systems, and
> that we definitely don't have them now. In fact, one of the most
> frustrating things for me about Next Generation Catalog systems as
> they currently exist is that they seem wholly focused on the user
> interface and can, in fact, actually hold libraries back from
> designing or implementing improved "back end" systems because of the
> dependencies introduced by the new "discovery layer" applications.
Maybe we need a ngils4lib, too? I actually don't like the idea of those
big fully integrated systems. They make it very hard to develop good
independent "add ons", as e.g. discovery layers. It's incredible how
hard it is, just to build an "open" interface to the lending system (is
that the correct term in English, in German it's "Ausleihsystem")?) of
some ILS to use that in an independent discovery layer.
Things like the ILS Discovery Interfaces specification or
implementations like Jangle are on the right way. But they only describe
or provide a clean interface to still ugly designed systems. Wouldn't it
be nice to have open[*] ILS components? Why shouldn't it be possible to
use a cataloguing module from vendor A with a lending module from vendor
B? At the moment there is little (real) choice, little competition and
(as a result) little innovation.
Regards,
Till
[*] Yes, I know, every vendor tells you his system is open. Just sign
here, pay there, and you may use this strange interface for some funny
things...
--
Till Kinstler
Verbundzentrale des Gemeinsamen Bibliotheksverbundes (VZG)
Platz der Göttinger Sieben 1, D 37073 Göttingen
kinstler@gbv.de, +49 (0) 551 39-13431, http://www.gbv.de
Received on Mon Mar 09 2009 - 05:34:54 EDT