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February 16, 2006
Library Systems Vendors Stray from the Light
The Family Man Librarian (AKA Steve Oberg) has a thoughtful and well-written post about librarians' growing dissatisfaction with our OPACs/WebPACs/Catalogs: Where have library systems vendors gone astray? So, where have they gone astray? Here ya' go, courtesy of Steve:
- Faulty participation in standards development affecting libraries
- By and large, lack of deep pockets and resources to research and quickly implement new products or features
- Too much time spent on unimportant, widgety enhancements to existing software
- Focus on meeting individual libraries’ or customers’ contractual needs instead of the bigger picture of what is happening in the broader information technology arena or how to best serve the broader customer base
- More attention given to librarians’ needs than library users’ needs
- A tendency to focus on the lowest common denominator customer at the cost of alienating customers who want to expand and enhance and push the envelope of the system
I post this list here, not only because I think Steve hit on most of the key reasons things have gone as wrong as they have and that makes me happy, but also because (pay attention: Sirsi/Dynix, Innovative Interfaces, CARL, Endeavor--did I miss anybody?) I think that some introspection on the part of the vendors about this list and how it applies to their companies can only help the situation.
No one likes to read that their companies are not making their users happy. Nobody. But when companies come back with the total bull crap (pardon my French) reply that their catalogs are wonderful and technologically progressive because they allow users to pay fees and donate online, one has to wonder if they're simply not getting the message. Your products are (by and large) 10 years behind the technology curve. They don't work well for library users. You need to start from scratch and really re-think what you're doing. Start by looking at Steve's list. Go from there. Many of us would be happy to serve on focus groups to help you get where you need to go.
I'm hoping that some of these companies have ego RSS feeds or read this blog so they'll see this. So far, I've found that contacting the company directly doesn't work, nor does communicating through the area users group. Maybe something like this will. Who knows? Weirder things have happened.
February 16, 2006 | Permalink
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» He who pays the piper...... from panlibus
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Tracked on Feb 20, 2006 5:14:35 AM
Comments
As a fellow III library person, I hear you loud and clear. I won't list all my complaints (that would be a very long comment), but the process for assigning yourself a PIN is back-&$%-wards and using the MyLibrary interface and features is like stumbling through a dark room filled with potholes. Useless. Don't get me started on the impossible to use search reuslts pages. Basically, unless you have a talented programmer to completely re-design the interface that III gives you (like San Francisco Public Library), you're outta luck.
Posted by: Sarah Houghton (LiB) | February19, 2006
I firmly believe that our ILS was designed by deaf, mute, and possibly blind monks raised in a monastery in some far-off clime that is inaccessible to the rest of the world 9 months of the year. There is no way anyone more in touch with the world would design a catalog which functions so poorly. Yes, III, I'm looking at you.
Who designs a catalog where you cannot search by keyword in specific fields or by location within the library?
Posted by: Meg'n | February18, 2006
Amen! Let's not forget to include Ex Libris from the roll call of vendors who've been behind the curve in user experience design for too long. Don't get a librarian from CUNY started on how our implentation of Aleph 500 has gone in the past two years.
Posted by: Stephen Francoeur | February17, 2006
I think you are absolutely right Jeff. The sad thing is that the medium and small sized libraries (many of which are the public libraries) end up getting the totally unusable "out-of-the-box" catalog with no enhancements. And most of us don't have staff who can devote time to developing fixes, work-arounds, and improvements on our own. So the vast number of their customers (who I'm sure pay more all put together than the few big libraries do) are unhappy. We all need to band together, as we've started doing, to get our message across. Having an unusable and inaccessible catalog in today's online environment is not okay.
Posted by: Sarah Houghton (LiB) | February16, 2006
I spent many years working for a library automation vendor which shall remain nameless, but which might possibly have their corporate headquarters in southwest Virginia. While I think all of the points in Steve Oberg's list are valid, I can say from inside experience that the one that trumps all the others is:
"Focus on meeting individual libraries’ or customers’ contractual needs instead of the bigger picture of what is happening in the broader information technology arena or how to best serve the broader customer base."
That's the crux of the problem right there - big customers with (relatively) deep pockets who have esoteric local needs that can be satisfied via paid customizations to the vendor's base product. Of course, this in turn leads to "unimportant, widgety enhancements to existing software." But let's face it, library automation vendors are for-profit outfits, and they have to go where the money is. As long as the big libraries are willing to pay for the widgety customizations, the vendors will continue to satisfy that need.
Posted by: Jeff | February16, 2006
