Some Vendor Syncronicity

While Steven Cohen points to Innovative Interfaces Flickr account, Roy Tennant writes an incredible open letter to ILS vendors:

http://techessence.info/node/83

Dear ILS Vendor:
Like it or not, your world has changed. Libraries now have reasonable ILS options beyond commercial offerings. Not only are there open source applications like Koha and Evergreen, there are outfits like LibLime and Equinox Software lined up to provide support.
Libraries would be stupid to not give serious consideration to transitioning to an open source solution and save thousands of dollars while gaining the latest in cutting edge technology at the same time.

Please read the whole thing and then swing by John Blyberg’s post as well:

http://www.blyberg.net/2007/02/16/strategery/

What if our users decided that the $80-$100 allocated to the library from their property taxes would personally serve them better if it were spent on a Netflix subscription? After all, DVDs constitute the largest percentage of circulated items at our library. Yet, compared to Netflix, our selection is lousy, availability is a joke, and distribution methods? Ha. That’s just one example of many instances where our users are not getting the ROI they may be looking for.

True words.

So, we have a vendor that is rather infamous in the biblioblogosphere adopting a 2.0 tool and some of the most unique and respected voices in our profession saying “Hey, vendors..wake up! The world is changing…” Interesting synchronicity. I wonder if the folks at iii did indeed read the Cluetrain?