[Web4lib] Question: Integrated Library Systems whose only client is a browser

[Karen Coyle]

Mike Taylor wrote:

>>Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 19:06:46 -0700 (PDT)
>>From: li li <liligs1973 at yahoo.com>
>>
>>Do anyone know about the requirement and responsibility of system
>>staff maintaining Open source library systems?
>>    
>>
>
>That would be exactly the same as for proprietary systems. 
>
For the developers, yes, that is probably the case. But the fact is that 
most libraries do not do development work on their own systems, they 
rely on vendors. I often feel like we are comparing the purchase of a 
vendor system with running your own open source system, and those are 
not comparable. The open source "gestalt" is very do-it-yourself, while 
the library approach to systems grows out of a recent (and pretty much 
ongoing) experience of purchasing "turnkey" solutions. There are many 
libraries that don't have "root" on their own system, which is reserved 
by the vendor for maintenance and repairs (and to keep the library from 
getting itself into a mess that the vendor will then need to fix). So 
library "system staff" may not be doing programming or development 
currently, and the library may not have staff that can create applications.

kc

> The only
>difference is that institutions with an open source system have
>additional _opportunities_, to do with control over how their system
>works and what it integrates with; but of course there is no
>requirement to take these opportunities up.
>
>  
>
>>Are there other costs incurred by an open source library system?
>>    
>>
>
>No.  There is no reason at all why maintaining an open source system
>should be more expensive (in either time or money) than a proprietary
>one: in fact, the converse is usually true, since _any_ suitably
>skilled/experienced programmer can make changes as required to an open
>source system, whereas with a proprietary system you are tied into the
>vendor's support arrangements or nothing, with all the usual negative
>(for the customer!) consequences of any other monopoly.
>
> _/|_	 ___________________________________________________________________
>/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike at miketaylor.org.uk>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
>)_v__/\  "No man ought to surrender his own judgment to any mere authority,
>	 however respectable" - Joseph Priestley
>
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>
>  
>

-- 
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
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