Prompted by a recent entry, I got a note from Koen Calis, Librarian Bruges Public Library, about their catalogue, Cabrio. Here is quite a full presentation which covers a range of interesting feature:
I was interested in their adaptation of my colleague Robin Murray's synthesise/specialise/mobilise framework to frame the discussion. In his note, Koen remarked that "Bruges Public library considers the horizontal discovery of local resources (heritage collections, community information, courses and events, local advisory data...) to be a very important starting point for redeveloping our library into a local knowledge hub and to enhance participation of the local community".
We were pleased to welcome Dr Michelle Alexopoulos from the University of Toronto to OCLC last week. Michelle is an economist whose recent research has focused on creating and analyzing new measures of technical change for developed economies.
The abstract of her talk gives a flavor of some of this work, and why it was of interest to us:
Can the patterns of library collections be used to measure economic growth and technological shifts? In this talk, Dr. Alexopoulos will unveil new indicators of technical change that, she argues, resolve many of the problems associated with traditional ones (e.g., research and development (R&D) intensity and patents). Dr. Alexopoulos' measures are primarily derived from previous unutilized information contained in MARC21 records (available from the Library of Congress and OCLC's WorldCat database) on new book titles in various fields of technology over the last century. Further, Dr. Alexopoulos will discuss how the indices are related to inputs into knowledge production (such as scientific advances and R&D), and demonstrate that the measures are closely correlated with the commercialization date of new technologies. Finally, she will highlight a number of questions that the new indicators can help answer. [Presentation splashpage]
We are very interested to see Worldcat data used in this way, alongside other sources of data about book publication and use (books in print data and sales data). It was interesting hearing Michelle describe some of the reasons why books - and library catalog data - was a good candidate as an indicator:
- Book publication is linked to changes in knowledge (consider the appearance of manuals, how-to books, ...)
- The timing is right: there is a good correspondence between the date of commercialization of a technology or process and the date of books published about it. This is supported by commercial interests of publishers in catching interest at the right time.
- Library catalogs group books into subject classifications which can be useful for analysis purposes.
We will make the slides and audio of the presentation available soon. Some further details of the approach can be found in these publications:
Incidentally, it was also quite interesting for OCLC colleagues to see an economist talk knowledgeably about the MARC format ;-)
My former OCLC colleague Eric Hellman has become one of the more interesting bloggers in our space. A little while ago he wrote about the acquisition of Liblime by PTFS. He made a general opening comment ...:
The library industry has likewise been troubled by misalignment of interests between the owners of the companies and their customers. That's why it's important for libraries to pay close attention to the frequent mergers and acquisitions of the companies that serve them. [PTFS to Acquire LibLime and Move to Library Systems Premier League]
And goes on to talk about the rationale for open source (primarily to avoid vendor lock-in, Eric argues) and PTFS and Liblime positions in the market.
Here, for example, he talks about aspects of the library/vendor transaction from the vendor perspective ...
From the vendor's point of view, the sales process is very expensive. Promises to customize the system to address customer peculiarities are common, and these add to the cost of system maintenance. Once the system has been sold, a proprietary system vendor has a guarantee of continuing profits from support contracts. Only the vendor has the system knowledge (and sometimes even the system access) to make even the most trivial changes. It's in the support phase that the vendor and customer interests can become misaligned. The vendor has every incentive to do the least work at the highest price possible. The customer is locked into whatever system they have chosen. [PTFS to Acquire LibLime and Move to Library Systems Premier League]
.... and here he talks about open source ..
The recent popularity of open source library management systems is in large part a search for business models that better align the interests of vendor and customer during the support phase. If the support vendor doesn't perform to the library's expectations, the library can hire a new support vendor without ditching their automation system. If a library wants to add a new feature to their system, or integrate it with a system from another vendor, they can hire a developer based on qualifications rather than access to source. The important thing to the library is not so much the access to source or the cost of the license, it's the absence of vendor lock-in. [PTFS to Acquire LibLime and Move to Library Systems Premier League]
The entry was informative and interesting. I may disagree with detail or emphasis (other factors are clearly in play in the current interest in open source for example) but - importantly - my thinking has been influenced by it.
When I finished reading it I was also struck by how unusual it is to read something like this in the sources where you might expect it, in the library 'journalism'. In general we are not well-served by library journalism (I am thinking of what is published in our 'trade magazines': American Libraries, Library Journal, CILIP Update, ...) when it comes to this type of 'business' analysis. Our discussions are poorer for it.
I am interviewed occasionally for a report somebody is preparing. Sometimes internal, not for publication, sometimes published. It is always interesting when reading the final outcome to see how and whether my comments were included.
My experiences vary. Sometimes I am pleased to see an appropriate trace of the conversation; sometimes I can see no evidence that I was ever spoken to; and sometimes comments are assimilated to a view that I did not really have.
Not unsurprisingly, people are variably good at listening. Sometimes a comment will be enlisted in support of a view the interviewer had. Although, I haven't kept track I don't think that people inside the library community are necessarily more faithful interpreters than those from outside.
What is surprising - to me anyway - is the number of interviewers in situations like this who like to answer their own questions, or who, in response to the slightest prompt, are keen to talk about experiences on their previous assignments. In my experience, they tend not to produce great reports.
Apologies to commenters - we had some hiccups. Some were delayed and a couple may have been lost. We will try not to do it again ...
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