blog.ecorrado.us

Balancing Innovation and Focus: A Non Sequitur 2010 February 2

Note: This is post is a modified version of a comment I originally posted on Carl Grant’s blog. If you already read it, move on. Nothing new to see here.

Carl Grant recently made a post about Balancing innovation and focus that had a huge bent towards the question of investing in Open Source Software (OSS)

I agree with Carl that many libraries could use more focus when implementing new technology but I strongly disagree that this is any different when it comes to OSS versus proprietary applications. None of his critique is specific to OSS and signally out of OSS to me is a bit of a non sequitur. Many proprietary applications, including some of Ex Libris’ offerings, need a great deal of customization and often just as much, if not more, staff to implement and maintain as Open Source. I was talking to a proprietary ILS administrator from another University last year and they have twice as many systems people working on their ILS then Georgia Pines had to original develop Evergreen. Another example about three years ago a University had four new job advertisements to help them implement a new proprietary discovery layer. People like David Walker have put into a lot of work implementing a custom interface on top of Metalib. Are these wasted, redundant efforts? Why is this different then focusing efforts on OSS? It’s not any different. Or if it is, one could argue that at least a library would have the software to change and modify like University of Rochester did with Dspace in creating IR+ which they couldn’t do if they put all their previous efforts into a proprietary product that ended up not suiting their needs. This is not an OSS issue, it is a technology issue and a management issue. It is just as easy to say that Ex Libris building Primo Central (or whatever product you want to name) is “redundant and poorly coordinated investments” considering other vendors are in this space.

Carl’s underlying point “that librarianship is in need of a clear definition of the future of the profession and to examine how technology (open source or proprietary) will move that definition to fruition and, at the same time, leverage librarianship” is well taking and I agree. Libraries should evaluate each technology acquisition carefully considering need, budget, skill level, mission, etc. This evaluation may or may not lead to an existing OSS or propitiatory solution, developing a new OSS or home-grown solution, partnering with a vendor on a new product (such as the URM development partners are doing with Ex Libris), or not implementing anything at all. But dividing the world between Open Source and proprietary applications only serves in muddying the water and weakening this message.

That’s a lot of text for a non sequitur, no?