What Next? Part 2: The Open Source ILS
Posted On May 30 2007It’s true that I am one of the skeptics. I’ll state that up front. But, in truth, my skepticism toward building an open source integrated library system was born in optimism that the vendors of proprietary software would be paying close attention to the landscape. Alas, I don’t think they were. Some tried Most people have forgotten that Dynix wrote a white paper in 2003 called“Horizon Open Technology: A Vision for the Future” that was the basis of the original Horizon 8.0 (I looked all over for this white paper online and had to fall back on my own archive). …
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 …
Thomson Sells and Buys
Posted On May 16 2007If you thought the world of Mergers & Acquisitions was hard to follow in the library systems marketplace, well buckle up for content providers. The Thomson Corporation has sold off its assets in Thomson Learning to Apax Partners and OMERS Capital Partners, for a total of about $7.75 billion in cash. (I love seeing “in cash.” . . . “Hey, can you break a trillion? I left my billions in my other wallet.”) The transaction includes Thomson Gale, Wadsworth, Delmar Learning, Brooks/Cole, and South-Western, and comes as no surprise since the intent was announced last fall. Details of the plan …