[Web4lib] An Analysis Of Open Source ILS Market Penetration

[Rick Mason]

Bob,

My apologies if I came across as attempting to play "gotcha"... when you pointed out that association between the writers of the Evergreen posts and Equinox, I became curious.  I was looking for more information on your attitude towards open source in general, and was hoping for blog postings, listserv archives, etc.  I thought it significant that you had an association with SirsiDynix, and thought it added to the conversation.  I was not attempting to portray you as "evil vendor-scum", or to suggest that your information was invalid because of your association.

That said, the information contained in your LISNews article is fascinating.  I would love to see that data further broken out, taking the "All U.S. Public Libraries" category and showing some of the major players and their particular statistics.  In addition, as has been mentioned in several places, a continuation of this data over the next few years would be very interesting to see.  The six-month updates you mention will be terrific, and I hope that you will let this list know as the updates become available.

Thank you for putting the information together, and again, I am sorry that my posting has put you on the defensive... I, for one, look forward to all that you can contribute to our discussions in the future.

Rick Mason
http://blog.librarysupportstaff.org/

>  -------Original Message-------
>  From: Bob Molyneux <drdata at molyneux.com>
>  Subject: [Web4lib] An Analysis Of Open Source ILS Market Penetration
>  Sent: 16 Oct '07 08:19
>  
>  Rick Mason smoked me out. Yep, I worked for SirsiDynix as its Chief
>  Statistician--up until May 9, 2007 when I was laid off. But before being
>  evil vendor-scum, I had a life in the library world he has somehow
>  completely missed in his expert searching. For 20+ years, I have compiled
>  and analyzed library data as well as having a life in IT. I suggest my
>  book, Internet Under the Hood as a good (albeit a bit dated) introduction
>  to networking and the Internet for LIS students. A bit more checking might
>  find that many of the library data series I have worked on are available on
>  the Internet for folks to use. There was a reason Sirsi hired me.
>  
>  My library data work has largely involved compiling longitudinal data and
>  analyzing them. It is something I do. A sensible person might exclaim in
>  horror: "Why would anyone do THAT?" To look at trends. Trends start
>  somewhere and it is a fact that we often don't know when things start in
>  the library world and that makes subsequent analysis untidy. I submit we
>  now have a begin data on objectively studying the impact of open source
>  ILSs--although a better one will follow in a bit when the NCES updates the
>  public and academic library data. The LISNews post is the beta. I hope to
>  make this report a regular...say every six months. In five years the barge
>  may have picked up some steam.
>  
>  When I was still at SirsiDynix, I talked to Marshall Breeding, whose great
>  work at lib-web-cats I have relied on for this analysis, about doing a
>  similar analysis tracing all ILS vendors using not just counts but some
>  other measures such as circulations, population served (which public
>  librarians seem to prefer), or maybe expenditures--like I did here. This
>  kind of analysis would give a different view than counts because of the
>  skewed nature of library distributions, simple counts don't give the whole
>  picture. I thought it would make a helpful addition to his work. In any
>  case, I have asked Marshall again for data from lib-web-cats that would
>  enable me to do that relatively rapidly and on a regular basis. He measures
>  which library has which ILS differently from the way I did, of course, but
>  I think that is addressable.
>  
>  I have written to Dan Scott separately to apologize for including
>  Laurentian as having a "relationship" with Equinox. I misinterpreted it and
>  I regret it.
>  
>  "This isn't to suggest that any of his data is suspect." Well, thank you.
>  They are, I believe, correct but errare humanum est. I have citations for
>  you to check and if you can't do the math, I can send spreadsheets. All
>  sources are available on the Web. If there are errors, I want to know about
>  them so I can correct them.
>  
>  Bob Molyneux
>  drdata at molyneux.com
>  XyWrite forever!
>  0x 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0