Preaching to the Publishers
Posted On Oct 31 2006I just got back from Nashville and the 9th annual LITA Forum–the second of four trips in just under 3 weeks. Next I’m off to NISO’s Discovery to Delivery, and then I wind up my fall travel in Charleston. You’re probably wondering how I get any work done…the secret is I don’t. Anyway, the LITA Forum is always a great chance to catch up with colleagues, see some good presentations and thoughtful keynotes, and just hang out. I was pleased to see more public librarians in attendance this year. There were just shy of 400 in in Nashville. For some …
More Meta
Posted On Sep 29 2006After spending a couple years of my professional life trying to improve the state of metasearch (federated search, if you prefer), I took a little break from being so passionate about the subject. But, like e-books, it’s one of those library technologies that I just can’t seem to shake an interest in. And it seems like librarians are loosening up a bit and letting patron demands and satisfaction with “good enough” search results replace an entrenched skepticism about the adequacy of metasearch. It’s still amusing to note that it took metasearch for librarians to beatify content providers’ native interfaces, which …
Follett Acquires Sagebrush Software
Posted On Aug 2 2006Like dying celebrities, mergers and acquisitions seem to come in threes, so we’ll call this one number two after Ex Libris (I predict that number three will happen before the end of the calendar year). Sagebrush Corporation announced last week that it has sold its library automation division to Follett Software Company, a subsidiary of Follett Corporation. Two of the biggest players in the K-12 library automation market, this is a consolidation of importance to that market, and a more focused direction for Sagebrush Books, Sagebrush Library Services, and Sagebrush Viewpoint, which has rebranded and renamed itself Savia, LLC. Bob …