Putting the World in WorldCat
Posted On Jul 3 2007Seems like a guy can barely put a print column to bed before there’s another change in the library automation landscape. Back (and exhausted) from ALA, I gleefully submitted my column copy for the August issue of the magazine (during the day even, and not the few minutes before midnight on the day of my deadline as usual) when what should appear but another press release from OCLC. With this much e-mail, Bob Murphy should be on my buddy list! OCLC has just purchased the remaining shares of OCLC PICA, the European arm of the library cooperative. OCLC PICA was …
What Next? Part 3: Challenge
Posted On Jun 6 2007This is the third and final instalment of “What’s Next” for the library automation marketplace. Time to review: Major consolidation of the library automation market, the emergence of viable open source software solutions and new business models for supporting them, and a somewhat rancorous and impatient customer base that fears that profit and efficiency have out-gunned innovation and service. This is the making for a dangerous cocktail. What’s a vendor to do? What’s a library to do? The Prod IMHO, I suspect that most libraries are going to sit tight. As have been mentioned many times, the pain and expense …
What Next? Part 1
Posted On May 23 2007Someone once called me a library provocateur. I much prefer that to rabble-rouser. Here are a few recent thoughts meant to both provoke and rouse the rabble. Last week I asked why consolidation in the library vendor market is such a bad thing. Librarians typically don’t like consolidation. It happens so much in the publisher arena that we fear one monolithic beast to whom all scholars feed the products of their labor. We fear that the beast will refuse to regurgitate on demand, instead requiring huge sums of money to let that wealth of content out again. Librarians and scholars …