For the last two years I have conducted a survey and written a report on the perceptions that libraries form of the quality of the core automation products they use and their satisfaction with the service they receive: Perceptions 2008: An International Survey of Library Automation and Perceptions 2007: An International Survey of Library Automation.

It's time to collect data for the 2009 edition of the survey. This is an opportunity for libraries to register their perceptions of the ILS product they use, its vendor, and the quality of support delivered. Is support getting better or worse? The survey also probes at considerations for migrating to new systems and the level of interest in open source ILS. While the numeric rating scales support the statistical results of the study, it's the comments offered that provide the most insight into the current state of library automation satisfaction.

Please help your fellow libraries who might be in the process of evaluating library automation options by responding to the survey. Any information regarding vendor performance and product quality can be helpful when making strategic decisions regarding automation alternatives. A large number of responses strengthen the impact of the survey and the subsequent report. If you have responded to previous editions of the survey, please give your responses again this year. It's helpful to understand whether things are getting better or worse.

As with the previous versions of the survey, only one response per library is allowed. While all the individuals that work in a library may have their own opinions, please respond to the extent that you can from the general experiences of your library.

How to participate

The survey links each response to the listing for a library in the lib-web-cats directory. This connection provides the ability to correlate responses with the extensive library demographic data in lib-web-cats.

1. Find your library in lib-web-cats:

   Find your library:
   	(hint: for public libraries, enter city or county)

2. Select and view the listing for your library
3. Press the button
4. Complete the form and write in your comments!

When viewing the entry for your library in lib-web-cats, please check for any incomplete or inaccurate information and let me know of any needed changes.

If your library isn't listed in lib-web-cats, please submit its information.

The Queens Borough Public Library has filed a lawsuit against SirsiDynix for matters related to its 2006 procurement of the Horizon 8.0 software. The initial complaint, filed July 2, 2008, posted earlier on this site, contains the accusations of the Queens Borough Public Library. On October 26, 2009, SirsiDynix filed a motion to dismiss many of the demands specified in the complaint. This motion reveals something of SirsiDynix side of the matter.

As supporting evidence, SirsiDynix has filed the License Agreement between Dynix Corporation and the Queens Borough Public Library signed on March 6, 2006. It's rare to get a glimpse of a license agreement made by a library for a major library automation procurement, since in most cases these documents are considered proprietary and confidential. The documents filed also include an affidavit of Brad Whittle, currently the Vice President for North American Sales and Marketing for SirsiDynix who was involved with the sale of Horizon to Queens.

These motions made by SirsiDynix for dismissal are based on complex legal arguments and case law. We make no attempt to summarize or explain. Making these documents available does ensure that both sides of the case have been represented in the documents available to those in the library community following the issue.

This morning I contacted Clifford Lynch, Executive Director for the Coalition for Networked Information regarding the quote that was attributed to him in the white paper authored by Stephen Abram that that has caused a firestorm on Twitter today.

Here is the response that I received and am posting with his permission:

I don't think that I ever wrote those words down in an article; I suppose I may have said something to that effect in an interview or q&a in some conference program like ALA Top Tech, though perhaps no quite as strongly as it's expressed here. I have without question spoken out about my concerns regarding investment in open source ILS development in the last few years. IF I did say this, it feels like it's used a little out of context -- or maybe the better characterization is over-simplistically -- in the report.

Perhaps the most useful thing to do would be to simply and briefly restate my current views on this. You are welcome to quote or share this; it would probably be best to use it in its entirety if you do.

I am very concerned that there are unrealistic expectations about what can be accomplished in terms of economic payoff or improvement in quality of service in the ILS world through investment in the re-implementation of traditional ILS systems; there is a mature, competitive market in such systems, and I question whether the choice to invest in developing an open source ILS makes sense given very constrained resources. The issue here is investment priorities. If we choose to do this, we need to be very clear about what we are trying to accomplish, and how the open source implementation gets us there. Also, there's a lot of confusion among the ideas of open source as a way of disseminating the results of research and allowing others to build upon the research, the idea of open source (or community source) as a means of engineering and developing a system that is conceptually fairly mature and can serve as a collective good, and the possibility and effectiveness of open or community source programs as a means of doing collective research and development.

I think there are still major problems -- many of which we really don't know how to solve effectively, and which call for sustained and extensive research and development -- in various areas where ILS get involved in information discovery and the support of research and teaching. While I'm not opposed to seeing an open source ILS -- who could be? -- and recognize that it could be very useful, particularly as a platform for research and future innovation, open source re-implementation of current ILS functionality will not be a panacea for these still-unsolved challenges.

Thanks for asking about this. I hope this is helpful both in clarifying my thinking on this, and, more importantly, advancing the community debate about the best courses of action here.

Another lawsuit is underway in the library underway in the library automation industry, this time in the RFID and self-service circulation arena. 3M, one of the veteran companies in the use of electromagnetic and RFID technologies for library security systems, self-check, inventory, and other automation functions has filed suit against EnvisionWare, Inc. which has more recently introduced a suite of competing products. The complaint (Case 0-09-cv-01594-ADM-FLN) filed in the United States District Court of Minnesota on June 23, 2009, describes the products and technologies 3M has developed and refers to the patents that it has been awarded. 3M claims that specific EnvisionWare's products infringe upon patents that it has been awarded. Products in question include EnvisionWare's LibraryPDA, selected features in its OneStop self-service circulation system dealing with fines and fees.

The patents which 3M claims have been infringed include: "Applications For Radio Frequency Identification Systems" United States Patent No. 6,232,870, "Applications For Radio Frequency Identification Systems" United States Patent No. 6,486,780, and "Terminal For Libraries And The Like" United States Patent No. 6,857,568.

No specific amount of damages is mentioned in the complaint. A date for trial has not yet been set.