[Web4lib] An Analysis Of Open Source ILS Market Penetration

[Bob Molyneux]

>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.
I am thinking of a regular report. But, if I wanted to do all vendors or 
even the major ones, it is a truly daunting project without some help. In 
the US there are 9,207 public library systems (as of FY 2004) and 3,889 
(also FY 2004) academic instutions reported in the Academic Library Survey. 
Both series, it is rumored, are going to have new data out soon so the 
counts will change. That will be FY 2005 for the public library data and FY 
2006 for the academic data. As I mentioned, I have hopes for Canadian 
comparisons.

Folks, that is a big number of things to keep track of and I can't do it 
all by my lonesome. Open source I can do because the numbers are, ah, well, 
one might say er... "barginally" small right now. If folks here would take 
a look at those tables and tell me if I have missed something, then I would 
make sure the next update would be more mature and useful.


>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.
About the only thing that gets me defensive is the jealousy that people 
express when they see my naturally curly hair. It is a cross I bear with my 
characteristic stoicism.

Au contraire, mon ami, I was gently chiding you for using an ad hominem 
argument. I confess I am sensitive to the use of that argumentative form in 
the library world. So should we all, given that part of our solemn mission 
is the preservation of a part of our civilization and given that the 
argumentum ad hominem has been regarded as invalid since before the birth 
of Christ. How can we preserve if we permit this transgression?

But, all's well that ends well.

The fact is, it does not matter what I think of open source nor if I still 
worked for a proprietary vendor. What matters is the tables and my 
analysis. Are they correct? They stand by themselves. One reasonably can 
take knowledge of the world to help interpret something. Hmmm...this guy is 
associated with X, maybe I better take another look. And, if you did, you 
might ask some perfectly reasonable questions...such as, oh:
* Doesn't your method of counting a library as an open-source library 
undercount Koha libraries? That is, if you use Marshall's criteria, the 
numbers would be higher. Why did you do that?
* I checked your numbers and something doesn't add up.

See, that kind of conservation is what would be helpful and would advance 
the analysis, not supposing I am up to no good. For heavens' sake, the 
defensivness is in the posts reacting to Blake's link to my note on 
LISnews. Is this the discussion one expects from a growing, self-confident 
movement?

I have a question for you folks: If people in this community wanted to 
measure the impact of open-source ILSs, would they have used these 
variables? If not, why not? Which would be better? Why?

Now, if you had known of my longstanding interest in library data analysis 
and my publication record, you might have been less suspicious. And just a 
bit more work would have found it.

Here is your penance: when we meet, you buy me the first beer. I will take 
care of the second.




>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


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