[WEB4LIB] Re: will OSS impact library automation?

[Mark Pecaut]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 11:41:08AM -0800, Cindy Murdock wrote:
> Admittedly another problem would be tech support.  Yes, I resent that we
> have to lay out such large sums of cash to our catalog vendor for support,
> but what do you do in the case of major problems?  Until an open source
> catalog acquired a large user base where the users could support one
> another, what alternatives would you have?

This is the beauty of having the source code.  Maybe you don't 
want to do any programming yourself, but if you have the source
code you can take all the money you saved from not getting jacked
by III and hire some consultants to provide support/fix problems.
Even if you have expensive consultants you would probably still
save money and you wouldn't be locked into ``our product doesn't
do that''.

I would love to help create free software for libraries, but I
don't know much about what libraries need.  What do they need?

The programming itself doesn't seem (to me) to be the real problem.  
Its the mindset that ``There must be some software we can purchase
that does this...'' , which unfortuately translates to ``How can
I pay the most outrageous fee for some software that sucks''.

> Just some thoughts...

Good thoughts.

> Cindy
> 
> Cindy Murdock
> Network Administrator
> Meadville Public Library
> www.meadvillelibrary.org

-Mark