[Web4lib] Stephen Abram: Evolution to Revolution to Chaos?Reference in Transition (UNCLASSIFIED)

Fri Sep 5 12:52:59 EDT 2008

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED 
Caveats: NONE

What I found ironic is that he is with Sirsi/Dynix, and has the gall to
state 
"For instance, the OPAC and ILS systems don't suck for library workers.
They were built to meet our specific needs - library management,
transaction processing, inventory systems, etc."  

So, Sirsi/Dynix systems don't suck for library workers? Could have
fooled me. We're on Horizon, an extremely buggy platform, and they
apparently have no desire to fix their product (that we're paying big
bucks for), in order to force us to go the 'new' Symphony, based on 20
year old Unicorn code. And their OPAC is unusable for anyone, at least
the version we have.

And those copyrighted catalogs? Isn't it the ILS vendors who own the
copyrights to their software? And OCLC? The corporation  that claims
copyright on the data that WE provide? The corporation who is licensing
this data to other corporations, and not returning any of the moola to
the data providers? The corporation who decided that quality control of
the Worldcat database wasn't really important?

I get so tired of corporate bs.

Holly Hill
holly.k.hill at us.army.mil
Barr Memorial Library; Directorate of Family, Morale, Welfare, and
Recreation
Fort Knox, KY     502-624-5351 

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of B.G. Sloan
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 7:33 PM
To: web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Stephen Abram: Evolution to Revolution to
Chaos?Reference in Transition

I never quite know what to think when I finish a Stephen Abram article. 

I do understand that there's a need for futurist cheerleading, prodding
reluctant members of the library community into thinking about the need
to adapt to changing environments, but I find it hard to take this kind
of writing seriously. For example: "I don't want an eight crayon box
future. I want the whole 128 crayon box with all the colors and the
sharpener in the big carousel! If we put our minds to it, we can have
the whole cake and meet the needs of everyone - just as we have always
dreamed of doing." 

And there are some oddities here. Abram asks: "Can we imagine the
Librarian 2.0 of 2020 as the guru of the information age? Librarian 2.0
strives to understand the power of Web 2.0 opportunities and has learned
the major tools." What the...? Don't we already *have* librarians who
understand the power of Web 2.0 and who have learned Web 2.0 tools? And
people are already talking about Web 3.0. Will librarians still be using
Web 2.0 tools twelve years from now? That's kinda what it sounds like.

And then there's the following: "I am always surprised at the cognitive
and value disconnect when some libraries continue to limit innovation by
declaring copyright on their catalogs!" That threw me a bit...how many
libraries declare copyright on their catalogs? I can't think of any (of
course that doesn't mean there aren't any).

A lot of what Abrams says in this article has been written about for
years. Yeah, reference is in transition, but that's been pretty much the
thrust of discussions on reference since the turn of the century.
There's one sentence in the article that pretty much sums up the article
for me: "To capture market share and, more importantly, mindshare, we
must now prioritize our long-term and short-term strategies around
serving the real customer (and not just the internal needs of library
workers)." It's a good point, but people have been saying things like
that for years!

I guess my basic gripe about the article is that it sounds kinda dated.
And that seems rather odd considering that it comes from a futurist.

Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN

--- On Thu, 9/4/08, McKiernan, Gerard [LIB] <gerrymck at iastate.edu>
wrote:

From: McKiernan, Gerard [LIB] <gerrymck at iastate.edu>
Subject: [Web4lib] Stephen Abram: Evolution to Revolution to Chaos?
Reference in Transition
To: web4lib at webjunction.org, lita-l at ala.org
Date: Thursday, September 4, 2008, 5:23 PM

Colleagues/

Reference in Transition 

/Gerry

FEATURE
Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition by Stephen
Abram, Vice President of Innovation, SirsiDynix

[ http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep08/Abram.shtml
<http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep08/Abram.shtml>  ]

/Gerry

Gerry McKiernan
Associate Professor
Science and Technology Librarian
Iowa State University Library
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu

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Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED 
Caveats: NONE