Do We Still Need Online Catalog Vendors?

[Franklin, Alethia]

We need the vendors and they will stay as long as they keep up with the pace
of information delivery.  Debbie is most definitely correct in the fact that
the complexities are the reason for these vendors in the first place.  And
why should we reinvent the wheel.   There are some vendors that have already
taken steps to move our catalogs, integrating all functions, into the one
web interface.  If anyone is  interested they should visit the following
site, http://www.opentext.com/techlib/.  Open Text recently acquired the
company Information Dimensions which has targeted the special libraries
market for the past 12 years and their product has always been on the
forefront of technology.  They are using current technologies, such as ASP
and ODBC to allow your catalog to talk to your legacy databases and present
the results in the most common interface of today, the browser.  This not
only includes the catalog, but circulation, acquisitions, serials checkin,
the whole works.  Other vendors are starting out more slowly, with the
catalog presented in a web browser, but the ability to access other
databases through links.  SydneyPlus another vendor for special libraries
has this functionality,   http://www.ils.ca .  Our goal at Willkie, when we
implement our intranet is to have a seamless interface for all of our
databases, and with the assistance of vendors we won't have to do so much of
the work on our own.  

Alethia Franklin
Library Systems Administrator
Willkie Farr & Gallagher