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Many thanks for this John, and to Robert Day for yesterday's useful contribution.
For me personally (my views, not those of my employer, etc. etc. etc.) the key stumbling blocks are:
1) Who would be responsible for the development and upkeep of the LMS? How many library authorities have the resources to be able to commit to doing this themselves? And if they have those resources wouldn't they be better employed doing something other than reinventing the same wheel as all the rest of the library authorities? (It's interesting to bear in mind that we're having this discussion at a time when we're being told how inefficient it is to have our staff ordering, receiving and invoicing our stock).
2) If the development and upkeep is to be outsourced to someone else how will accountability for this be enforced, if at all? Could we sensibly entrust our core business systems on goodwill?
3) After years of Compulsory Contractual Tendering and Public Private Partnership most of the IT back-up available to most library authorities will be in corporate IT divisions or outsourced to partnership organsations. In the event of the library authority deciding not to buy an off-the-peg LMS from one of the usual suspects it could be that their local IT guys decide that rather than adopting an Open Source LMS with structures or technologies they're unsure of they'll do something bespoke locally with structures and technologies they're using everyday (even if that doesn't give the best result in the long run).
4) What sort of commitment would there be to medium- long-term development paths or messy immediate needs? Without contractual obligations it can be very difficult to avoid the situation where developments are technically interesting rather than being operationally useful. It can be difficult enough even with contractual obligations.
5) How will interoperability requirements be ensured? Unlike in the States, for instance, public libraries in this country aren't semi-autonomous local services, they're just another local authority service with a requirement to fit in to the t-gov agenda and be available and applicable via generic front-end points of contact such as call centres and portals. The LMS market is a neat and orderly backwater in the public sector IT market.
6) Would Open Source be adopted because it's the best solution or because it's the cheap option? We know from bitter experience that the expectation would be that the impact on workload would be absorbed by the existing workforce regardless of their capacity to cope with it.
I think that people who are willing to go Open Source are brave and hardy souls and good luck to them, especially if the organisations they're working for are prepared to support the work and accept that there will be times when problems aren't solved by a wave of a magic wand. The Open Source movement is useful for demonstrating that different working models can be applicable to situations and also as a training and preparation ground for people who are interested in library technology. The strength of this movement lies in its ability to challenge orthodoxies and debunk "can't be done" positions.
I don't think that going Open Source is a good way of running our core businesses though. We're still stuck in the tinkering phase of the development of IT, which seems to have had the longest period of adolescence of any mainstream technology since the napped flint. We long should have reached the mature phase where the customer can buy something and expect to have it do the intended job, not be fobbed off by being told that the product's in beta or that everything will be fixed in the next upgrade. If you buy a washing machine you don't expect to be told that the next release of the product will be the one where the door doesn't fall off in mid-spin. From a library service's point of view all they should have to know about the technology (hard- and software) they're using for their LMS is that there's a box with wires that they connect to and that if they do this, it'll issue a book, do that it'll return a book and do the other and they'll get all the management statistics they need to be able to address the full suite of CPA-related performance indicators. It would be a matter of concern if they had to know about the technology's operating systems.
Steven
Steven Heywood
Systems Manager
Rochdale Library Service
Wheatsheaf Library
Baillie Street
Rochdale OL16 1JZ
Tel: (01706) 924967
[log in to unmask]
http://www.rochdale.gov.uk
http://libraries.rochdale.gov.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Usher, John [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 August 2007 13:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Open Source LMSs
Hi Ken,
Aren't we barking up the wrong tree with Open Source? Isn't it just another techie issue for libraries to get bogged down in?
You've been in the industry for many years - as a user, as a supplier, and now a consultant - so you've seen trends come and go.
We started on proprietary Minicomputers for catalogues and proprietary mainframe processing of offline captured data - Hollerith punch cards, punch tape and mag tape - for circulation.
Then we went to the Mini-based 'turnkey' systems - you tried to sell me CLSI, remember? - on proprietary Mini's and then on more 'Open' standardised processors such as DEC PDP's, and Intel arrays such as Pyramid.
Then we all went Unix, 'cos it was 'Open' - but which Unix? Sun Solaris,? DG-UX (etc. etc..) or the 'standardised 'SVR4' version for ISO compliance, which was never *quite* standard.
Then the proprietary suppliers (e.g. IBM and ICL) went 'POSIX' compliant for ISO to beat back Unix, so Unix flavours' retreated.
And we couldn't run Microsoft, 'cos NT Server wasn't truly multi-user - but the world has clearly moved on.
Now we're all moving to Microsoft or Linux - but which 'Linux distribution'? Dell recently said it would love to ship Linux PC's, but will someone please tell it which 'flavour' to standardise upon? It gave up on an earleir attempt for this reason - One version of Microsoft OS at a time is hard enough to support, but multiple Linux distributions!
And we had the database wars - Index-Sequential (ISAM), Pick, Relational (or Pick or ISAM sitting on top of Relational)
But which relational database - Ingres? Sybase? Oracle? SQL Server? MySQL?
And then we had programming language debate - proprietary, C, C++, then Object Oriented Programing (OOP's) and Fourth Generation Languages (4GL's) were going to revolutionise speed of programming - but whatever happened to the latter two?
And now it's the shift to Platform and Web/Library 2.0, with 'Sprints' and 'Permanent Beta' etc. etc.
And there'll be something else coming down the pike - be very sure. Remember the Gartner Production Adoption Hype Cycle!
It's enough to frighten the horses!
Many years ago, I was asked in an interview which I thought more important - hardware or software? (This was before Sun's motto of 'the Network is the computer'), so I said they were interdependent - and was offered the job!
But today I think that there is one thing more important than the hardware, software or network, and that's the 'Wetware' - what's between people's ears!
I think we need to concentrate on other issues:
a) the tasks we need the applications to do, and the workflows inside them, in a rapidly changing world - e.g. why does a public library need to buy separate, expensive (and complex to integrate with the LMS) ERM, PC Booking and Self-Services systems for low percentage of their total business when the LMS could be extended to encompass these new roles?
b) the close working of suppliers and customers to define the business needs and produce 'quality' applications - quality defined as 'fitness for purpose' - rapidly, and evolve them quicky in a rapidly changing environment. But do library services really know what they want from these systems?
c) develop solutions (e.g. standardised 'front ends') which mean that the *true* costs of moving from one LMS supplier to another (I submit these are the inertia and staff training issues) are lowered. We used to by everything from one supplier, but that is now not the case, and that needs, IMHO, to go deeper.
Change only seems to occur when a 'Tipping Point' is reached in any authority - e.g. the old system is 'time-expired', a corporate edict is issued on the OS or database to be used, otherwise it's 'stick with what you know'? Nice for the suppliers!
d) good support - from library staff, from IT staff, from suppliers. If Open Source is the tool to do this, then fine, but is it? IBM seem to be making good use of Open Source, so perhaps its the level of commitment and owhership by suppliers to support that Open Source (or anything else) which is the real issue?
Feel free to tear this to pieces - would be good to see a real debate about this!
Regards
JU
John Usher
ICT Development Manager
Islington Library & Cultural Services
Islington Council
Central Library
2 Fieldway Crescent
LONDON N5 1PF
Tel: 020 7527 6920
Mobile: 07825 098 223 <NEW NUMBER>
Fax: 020 7527 6926
Alternative contact: Michelle Gannon - 020 7527 6907
www.islington.gov.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: lis-pub-libs: UK Public Libraries
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Ken Chad
Sent: 08 August 2007 16:43
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [LIS-PUB-LIBS] Open Source LMSs
I'm just completing an article for CILIP Library+Information Gazette on Open
Source--and more particularly Open Source LMSs. In the US especially, a
number of major libraries, (inc. large publics, research and academic
libraries as well as smaller libraries) has gone this open source route but
I haven't detected anything here in the UK (yet?). Have I missed something?
If you are looking at (or even interested in) Open Source solutions for your
LMSs I'd be really interested to know.
In the US there is *very* vocal dissatisfaction with the LMS vendors. The
consolidation, changes of ownership, private equity stuff, paradoxically
seems to be much more strongly resented there. There is a strong feeling in
some quarters that the market model has failed libraries and a new paradigm
is needed. A growing community is springing up dedicated to the support and
further development of Open Source LMSs. Commercial companies are emerging
(cf Redhat and Linux) to support and develop Open Source LMSs
I don't detect the anything like the same depth of feeling here in the UK.
Is this true or are we in true Brit fashion just less demonstrative
('mustn't grumble')? Or maybe the LMS vendors simply do a better job here in
the UK? Or could it be that the sector is so wedded to the traditional
procurement model (RFP/Tender), which organisations like OSS watch in the UK
think are not appropriate for Open Source
Of course some LMS vendors (VTLS and Talis --others? ) do offer Open Source
solutions that they make freely available but they have not yet gone the
route of offering the complete LMS in this way.
Any view on the role of Open Source in the UK LMS marektplace?
Ken
Ken Chad Consulting Ltd. www.kenchadconsulting.com
Tel 07788 727 845
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