[Web4lib] RE: library automation vendors

[Jesse Ephraim]

"The library automation vendor marketplace is not a strong one, for a
number of reasons. One is that libraries are relatively poor
institutions who buy systems and upgrade as seldom as possible."

One of the barriers to upgrading more frequently is the extremely high
cost of the software, though, and the unpredictability (and complexity,
for some) of doing upgrades.

"We are seeing an increasingly shrinking vendor pool, which isn't good.
Companies have recently gone out of business or been bought, and not
because they've got good profits!"

At the risk of sounding harsh to the vendors, that isn't our problem.
Our job is to get more usable systems for less money.  Since most of us
are probably getting our revenues from taxes, we owe that to the
taxpayers.  

"Another reason why the market is difficult is that it's a zero sum
game. There are a finite number of libraries, and they all need systems.
Every purchase from one vendor robs a customer from another. 
This kind of market doesn't respond well to the normal economic
pressures.""

There are any number of things that vendors could do to broaden their
market.  It wouldn't be that difficult for them to use the same engines
to drive a less-complex, relatively low-cost version that is sold to
home users, small businesses, community center libraries, etc.  For
example, ReaderWare or Delicious Library are about $40.  ReaderWare and
Delicious Library let you scan a barcode (I use ReaderWare with a CueCat
scanner at home), and then go out and pull in pictures of the covers of
the items, bibliographic information, etc.  You can even manage
borrowers and circulation.  For companies to succeed when they have a
finite number of customers, they need to work to do a very good job with
their product and/or work to broaden their customer base.

"The other argument against pressuring vendors to work on their user
interfaces is that the user interface is going to be the most variable
part of the system across customers. It's not economically viable, nor
terribly sensible, for vendors to put a lot of energy into customizing
the user interface for individual libraries. I still think we should try
to split the user interface away from the rest of the system so that it
CAN vary for each library. The vendor's energy could then be put into
making the program interface as flexible as possible."

A lot of problems would be solved if the backend works well, the
database is designed well, and they build good, solid APIs to the
system.  Alternatively, simply making it easier to customize the
interface would be very useful.  In my experience, one of the big
problems is that the backend (engine, database structure, etc.) is not
good.

- Jesse