Tame The Web » Blog Archive » PNS on an ipod/iphone using Prowl.

SirsiDynix customers and prospects, as well as our library colleagues and peers, have asked us for our reaction to open source technology development as it grows and changes in the market. In response, I wrote a position paper that provides our perspective of open source technology as it exists today as an option for library automation. I am a librarian who has worked for libraries and several vendors, and I feel that the paper brings some very real challenges to light for any library considering open source solutions for their library automation.

The paper has been posted and exchanged in the past day, rumoured to be a secretive lobbying effort that SirsiDynix has been hiding. This is simply not true. There has been nothing secretive about the position paper, we have been offering and sharing it with many customers as we meet with them, and I am offering it to anyone interested at the link below.

via Stephen’s Lighthouse: It’s About a Respectful Discussion.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we really can’t look at things as being so black and white. We can’t say open source=good, proprietary=bad. It’s not that simple. Stephen Abram is not a bad person because he wrote a crappy “position paper. OCLC isn’t necessarily evil. Open source vendors aren’t necessarily good. We shouldn’t assume that a vendor is out to take us to the cleaners and steal all our data, but neither should we assume that a vendor has our best interests at heart (no matter how cool they or their representatives are). Things are really, really gray, and require a much more critical eye than we sometimes have by default.

via Shades of gray | Information Wants To Be Free.

To garner some sustenance and survive, SkyRiver will need to differentiate itself from OCLC and provide a better option for at least some libraries. SkyRiver is emphasizing three differentiators:

• Higher Quality: Although SkyRiver is starting with a much smaller database of bibliographic records than OCLC currently claims–20 million compared to 144 million–the creators promise that it will offer higher quality both at the record and the aggregated database level. Although I’ve never worked closely and extensively with the OCLC Union Catalog (Is it still called that, or am I dating myself?), it has had some quality issues in the past. Even when I was in library school in the mid-80’s, using ye olde tyme 3,2,2,1 search statements, the issue of the need for quality control was evident.

• Lower Costs: SkyRiver promises to provide more bib for the buck when compared to OCLC. Marshall Breeding’s article about SkyRiver in Library Journal mentions that some libraries may be able to save up to 40 percent for their bibliographic services. Exact pricing for SkyRiver records and services has not yet been released.

• Record Ownership and Use: Controversies and questions persist. Who owns the records contributed to a database of bibliographic records? What are the permissible uses of those records? The dillemas have plagued OCLC and its member libraries for decades. SkyRiver plans to cut through the Gordian knot by not claiming any ownership or rights regarding the records.

Sky me a River | ALA TechSource.

What is LibraryH3lp?

LibraryH3lp is an integrated web chat/IM platform written specifically for libraries.

It allows multiple librarians to receive chats from its native chat widget or Meebo Me widgets as well as IMs from patrons on other IM networks such as AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ. While it routes messages to multiple librarians, only the first one to respond “wins” the chat and becomes connected with the patron.

It is designed to be very mobile-device friendly. It provides two different SMS gateways. Both allow patrons to text their library using a phone number, which is easily stored on the patron’s phone, rather than a short code/library ID combination.

Librarians in the same administrative domain can transfer any chats, IMs, or text messages to each other as needed. The system provides an administrative backend for service creation, management, and centralized transcript storage, download, and deletion.

libraryh3lp.