The names are changin’, deals are a-happenin’, and the grant money is flowing.
More Names
I sometimes wonder if there is still a niche market left in the library automation industry. If I had been smart, I would have started selling business cards. From an environmental angle, I wonder how many landfills we are filling up with all the old ones. Get ready to start seeing some new cards soon.
Some name changes make sense. Others, I am never so sure about. Here are the bigs ones this season.
ProQuest has a new name. It’s ProQuest. Nope, you read that right. Took me a second, too, but as you will recall, Cambridge Information Group bought ProQuest a little while back. ProQuest has more recognition and rolls off the tongue a little easier, I guess. That’s quite a suite of products that company controls now, so I think we can expect some interesting changes in the future.
In case you did not realize it, SirsiDynix’s announcement about “Rome,” preceded the selection of an actual name for the product. SirsiDynix Symphony is “the company’s new integrated library system that blends the best features of SirsiDynix Unicorn and SirsiDynix Horizon 8.0/Corinthian to offer the most impressive array of library and consortium management solutions available to the library community.” I don’t think the new name clears up any of the market confusion, so I will try to do that here. The name is new, but until I see something technically new, it’s still an upgrade for the Unicorn ILS. The company should start having some fun with naming new releases, though. Is this SD’s first symphony? Imagine an entire release dedicated to music uniform titles.
Here’s one I like. Xrefer has changed its name to Credo Reference. I always thought Xrefer sounded too much like “cross reference”…apropos for a reference resource, but not descriptive of the company. Credo now offers 273 reference titles from nearly 60 publishers.
Granted…
You may have heard that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given another $12.6M to WebJunction. The money will “allow OCLC to replace and add software—including a new learning management system, content management system and portal software—that will provide added functionality and flexibility for WebJunction members and community partners.” I might not have described OCLC as hurting for money, exactly, but you have to give props to the folks at WebJunction. They have created community and resource sharing tools for libraries that rival (quite well) those that have come before them. They also have a pretty nice website.
Deals with wheels
LibLime has announce a distribution deal with PALINET. The open source library system Koha will be available to PALINET members at a discounted price. The software has been around long enough now to be available as both Koha Classic and Koha Zoom. Crawford County Federated Library System (CCFLS) in Pennsylvania chose LibLime to support their new Koha ZOOM system in 2006. The open source ILS wave is swelling.
Well, back to the exhibit hall….
[This post originally appeared as part of American Libraries’ Hectic Pace Blog and is archived here.]
Known you in some fashion for 10ish years now, without knowing you were a fellow D.C. native, Andrew! I too trip nostalgic when in the District.
The most interesting thing I learned about ProQuest’s changes while in the exhibits was that their Bepress vending days are about over. The Bepress rep told me that they’ll be taking what had been Digital Commons back and supporting it themselves. I told the gentleman that I hope they can bring Jason from ProQuest in as part of the deal. Jason did a very nice job demoing the system to me and answering my geekly interrogation at PQ’s Ann Arbor offices a while back.
This post will prompt me to ask John Houser at PALINET if/when they plan to include Evergreen as part of their LibLime-supported offerings…
Re “I always thought Xrefer sounded too much like “cross reference”
On the other hand, “Credo Reference” sounds as though it were a credit agency, presumably one that checks on references for credit risks.