I've never really grasped the whole "meme" thing that seems to be so popular in library blogs. When I see a new meme emerge, I feel as though I've already missed the boat—like the cliche of reading about trends in Time, by then it it too late.

As a lover of words and phrases, though, I am intrigued by what I would call lots of pre-meme activity—the use (and often over- and mis-use) of words that become part of the growing library lexicon. Recent examples include: seamless, disintermediation, open, and the like.

Borrowing liberally from Entertainment Weekly's "What's hot":

Currently, there are three words that strike my fancy—workflow, life cycle, and governance. Mostly, I've been thinking about governance. The not-very-well-thought-out musings (what else is blogging good for?) were spawned by two seemingly unrelated things. The first was a conversation with Roy Tennant about his recent move to OCLC; the second was this well-written post by Care Affiliate's Carl Grant.

Carl's post reminded me that the open source crowd often talks about "ownership" in sometimes dangerously loose terms—mainly vendor vs. free software provider. I think that the pejorative nature of the discussion plus the mis-alignment of "vendor" with "proprietary software" confuses the notion of software governance. What are Equinox, LibLime, and Index Data if not vendors? They cannot by the very nature of their wares "own" the software that they service. They can (and do, for the most part) govern the software that they support.

I've said many times that who owns a company is an important factor to consider when choosing software. I think that what I always really meant was that who governs the company is what matters. I have said this other ways—"not all equity companies are the same"—and danced around the touchy subject of ownership. But regardless of who owns the companies or owns the software, what we really want to know is who runs them.

The other angle on this has me thinking about member-governed organizations—ALA, LITA, DLF, NISO, and yes, even OCLC. Because I have had some level of involvement with all of the above, I've been giving lots of thought lately to the areas of "overlap," which is a nice humanistic euphemism for "competition." It occurs to me that the overlapping problems of these organizations are also solved by the thing they have in common—governance.

Why is it that membership in a group grants unfettered license to complain about the organization but creates no clear responsibility for fixing its perceived problems? Seems all too convenient.

Granted that scale, scope, reach, and even bank-account size of those listed above are all different. Nevertheless, whether proprietary or open, member-driven, board-directed, publicly or privately owned, the nimble, innovative, and well-governed will win the day.

No, I did not drop off the face of the planet, and I recognize that 13 days without a post is the blogospheric equivalent of digital disappearance. Vacation, followed by vacation recovery, was the cause of my absence. Summer is coming to an end. Classes at NCSU start today. My kids go back to elementary school next week. We made it through another summer. In the meantime, there have been some library automation happenings of note.

I think we made it through the entire summer season without the loss, merger, or acquisition of a single ILS entity! Some attrition at ILS giant SirsiDynix continues, but the firm did appoint a new COO. Matthew Hawkins will be responsible for the company’s Client Care, Implementation, and Consulting & Education organizations. He will be based in Provo, Utah.

A long, hot summer still has room for some acquisitions. The Berkeley Electronic Press (BePress) announced that it would be purchasing Digital Commons, a turnkey Institutional Repository (IR) solution, from ProQuest. This is not a huge surprise given the rise in IR awareness and the fact that BePress created the software in the first place.

Don't go thinking that ProQuest is going anywhere. On one of its many other fronts, AquaBrowser (owned by Bowker, which is owned by ProQuest) announced today that it would be setting up dedicated sales and support in North America, namely New York City. And who better to lead that group than the person who led AquaBrowser sales for The Library Corporation? Jimmy Thomas, former Director of Strategic Products with TLC, will become the AquaBrowser Library Product Director, North America. Of course, this does reposition TLC's exclusive distributorship deal with Medialab, the former owner of the AquaBrowser software. Quoting from the release:

"The Library Corporation will remain an external AquaBrowser distribution partner of Medialab in the U.S. and Canada. New AquaBrowser customers now have the choice to purchase AquaBrowser either directly through the new dedicated AquaBrowser team in the U.S., or through the proven services from The Library Corporation."

It seems moderately odd that AquaBrowser would juxtapose its "new-ness" against TLC's "proven-ness." But who am I to judge? AquaBrowser has even more to be happy about with the incorporation of LibraryThing data in its interface.

Making stranger bedfellows is a deal between Care Affiliates and WebFeat for the latter to provide its library of database connectors for Index Data's Masterkey federated search solution. This could very well be a model for open source and proprietary software collaboration, in that open source metasearch solutions have a "last mile" problem in connecting to databases for which there is no standard connection protocol. Whether the connectors themselves will now be available as open source remains to be seen.

SirsiDynix gets a CEO
I am speeding off to D.C. for ALA, but I would be remiss to not get this announcement out first, since I have been clamoring for it both on- and offline. SirsiDynix has named a new CEO (pdf). Interesting news is that it will be a name that some librarians will recognize—Gary M. Rautenstrauch. Rautenstrauch recently held several executive positions at Baker & Taylor, including CIO, VP of Operations, and CEO. Rautenstrauch was replaced by Richard Willis when the company was sold to Willis Stein & Partners back in 2003. He followed B&T with short stints as CEO at Blackwell's Book Services and Advanced Marketing Services.

It's good to hear that Mr. Rautenstrauch will be at ALA this year, given SirsiDynix's recent (and somewhat controversial) decision to abandon Horizon 8.0 development for improvement of the Unicorn platform, rebranded Rome (Rome, a product code name, still awaits final branding). SirsiDynix will likely need Rautenstrauch's market experience to get them through a time of difficult transition.

Rautenstrauch will be joined in the Provo, Utah, office by a new CFO, Douglas R. Maughan. Look for more news and announcements from SirsiDynix in the booth at ALA!

Someone cares
Speaking of names familiar to librarians . . . Carl Grant, most recently of VTLS, has resurfaced after a very brief hiatus to join the open source provider community. Care Affiliates will be led by some familiar names from the vendor community—Grant, Lou Leuzzi (formerly of Endeavor), and Ron Passmore (Dynix, Ex Libris, and VTLS).

Care has turned to Index Data as a technology partner, and lists open source affiliates Thornton Staples (UVa. and FEDORA developer) and information architect Ezra Schwartz. Care will offer consulting and technology services based on open source software solutions.

“Lou Leuzzi and I want to build a different kind of company, one that works as partners with libraries to jointly develop great ideas, provide needed solutions in an open environment, and to do it in an affordable and caring way. The company name is a deliberate reflection of the approach we will follow in working with libraries. We Care.”

This makes the growing library open source industry very interesting. Care joins service and technology companies Index Data, LibLime, and Equinox. In fact, Care will even be sharing a booth with both Index Data and LibLime! Anyone in this space should envy the executive leadership that Care will offer. In my experience, successful open source technology solutions benefit from strength in leadership, marketing, and operational experience.

What a fun time to be watching the ILS industry!

This is the third and final installment of "What's Next" for the library automation marketplace. Time to review: Major consolidation of the library automation market, the emergence of viable open source software solutions and new business models for supporting them, and a somewhat rancorous and impatient customer base that fears that profit and efficiency have out-gunned innovation and service. This is the making for a dangerous cocktail. What's a vendor to do? What's a library to do?

The Prod
IMHO, I suspect that most libraries are going to sit tight. As have been mentioned many times, the pain and expense of moving systems is in the move itself. This gives vendors a little time (a little time) to breathe and think. If you want to make an organization move, you have to use more carrots and fewer sticks. So far, I see mostly sticks.

Some vendors, including the open source providers, will still be moving quickly to capitalize on discontent, and they will likely reap some rewards from that. Some libraries will want to take some risks, make a statement, or just try something new. Witness: University of Washington and WorldCat Local, British Columbia and Evergreen, the eXtensible Catalog project led by the University of Rochester, and PennTags.

Business Is Business
Back to consolidation and a dirty truth that no one ever wants to talk about: Most humans have an instinctive self-preservation reaction to change. The mergers and product announcements instill selfish reaction—"How will this affect me?" How do you think it feels to be working for a vendor when this happens? Dozens of people have lost their jobs in the last several months. And there will be more. We can be disappointed about a development opportunity missed, another path trod down a dead end, and time wasted, but at least most of us are not looking for new jobs in a shrinking market.

Ken Chad, a colleague who has been around the ILS (or LMS, as they say in the UK) block a time or two, has been writing and commenting on equity ownership in the marketplace. He has also asked the question of why equity firms are interested in a market that is not that rich.

So why would these underperforming companies be of interest to, for example, private equity investors who will need a good short-term return on their investment? Well precisely because they are underperforming there is scope for cost savings through product rationalisation and staff reductions especially when a merger takes place.

–Ken Chad, CILIP Gazette, March 2007

It has been suggested to me, on occasion, that ownership does not matter. I don't believe this. Though it's true that equity ownership in this space is nothing new, I think who owns your vendor is important. I also do not mean to lump all equity firms together in one pile, just as I would not talk about two founder-owned CEOs interchangeably (despite the fact that I think these folks share several characteristics...but that is a topic for another day). I only mean to say that ownership structure and motivation are important factors in assessing directions for libraries.

Private equity firms will no doubt add to a company's efficiency and (perhaps) profitability (keeping in mind that some of "efficiency" is a euphemism for "downsizing"). Other privately held companies will be competing with those that are cost cutting and still providing competitive product. Will any of these companies innovate? Can they afford to? Someone will ask....do we need them to?

My answer to that last question remains a firm "yes." Not every library is going to embrace open source or try to build something on their own. Some still want a "library-in-a-box" and not a platform that supports openness, modularity, and integration with 2nd-tier products and services. On the other hand, a lot of libraries want all of those things. I think the chips will go to the company that can do both. I don't think either the open source side or the proprietary side are there yet.

Who will fund research and development in this new era? If we're already paying a vendor, how much of that money is going into R&D and how much into operations? Is this new era one of continued co-dependence or co-development? If it's the latter, how do we make sure that we are asking for the right things?

No Sitting on Hands
The challenge for libraries is realizing that perfect is the enemy of good. We will have to take the risks that matter. We will have to formulate exit strategies for IT solutions, or embrace decisions to stay the course. I myself have to tear down the poster on my wall that reads: "Indecision is the key to flexibility."