Why do we continue to silo our supply chains?

Posted On Aug 13 2009 by

Okay, so I have not been the most faithful blogger, lately.  I was going to make an excuse about increased micro-blogging on Twitter or social activity on Facebook, but those have fallen rather dormant as well, so I have no good excuses.  I do, however have some good news, and that is some guest postings from my friend and colleague, Matt Goldner. So today, guest columnist, Matt Goldner, Product and Technology Advocate, contributes his thoughts on sharing systems and workflows to deliver a more effective experience to patrons.  In his new role, Matt will be on the road visiting libraries …


Sacred Cow #4: Notes, notes, notes

Posted On Sep 5 2008 by

In case you’re wondering how many cows are in this pasture, I started counting and figured I could keep this series going for at least the rest of the calendar year.  How long can I milk this one?  After a while, though, it begins to look whiny and tired, so I thought I would end with a cow for which it might make sense to make more hay.  (there, have I…ahem…butchered that metaphor enough?). Some of last week’s work had me thinking about notes fields in bibliographic and item records.  Boy, do we love notes.  We didn’t quite have the …


Sacred Cow #3: Migration

Posted On Aug 24 2008 by

Though I heard it in a much different context once, I like to apply something from religion to the world of libraries (don’t worry).  Preparing the congregation for a “radical change,” a senior pastor told his flock: “There’s a difference between ‘tradition’ and ‘traditionalism’.”  Tradition is what we do all the time and for some good reason.  Traditionalism is what we do all the time but we can no longer recall the reason.  I think libraries excel at traditionalism, and I have been giving quite a bit of thought to the processes we use to perpetuate it. In the first …