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

Tue Sep 16 11:24:12 EDT 2008

Amen to Holly's comments. We are now on Symphony, and both the OPAC and staff
client are riddled with bugs and usability problems. This system is not meeting
anyone's needs.

As far as I'm concerned, Stephen Abram will not have much
credibility until he stops collecting a paycheck from SirsiDynix.

Sandra

---------------
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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