On Tue, 27 Mar 2007, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:

> On Mar 23, 2007, at 4:37 PM, Laurence Finston wrote:
>
> I feel for your situation. Really. Not having a job or a means for
> supporting computing project is stressful, to say the least. Such a
> thing is one of my biggest fears. Sigh.

Thank you.

> When you say things like:
>  I don't think a GUI is necessary for this package, but one
>  could be written.
>
> and
>
>  There are a lot of free tools, libraries, etc., for some of
>  the tasks involved, notably `libxml' for handling XML data
>  and YAZ for accessing Z39.50 servers."
>
> I know you are on a track others will appreciate. All I can say is
> "Good luck, sincerely."
>

I think that many libraries, etc., would be happy to use the package
if it was ready to use, but that it will be much harder to find an
institution that's willing to make the investment in developing it.
I believe this is so, even though the investment would be fairly
modest, i.e., hiring one person, namely myself.

Nowadays, a project like this wouldn't require any software or hardware
that a library or computer center wouldn't have anyway, or couldn't obtain
easily.   Nonetheless, I think the way people are hired nowadays is making
it difficult for me to find an employer to support this project.

Programmers in the library field and related fields may see the value
of my approach, but I suspect that they probably aren't doing the
hiring.  The head of the programming dept., if there is a programming
dept., may never even see my application.

It's only too easy to imagine someone saying "sounds great, but let
someone else pay for it".  The problem is, if no one's willing to
support the project, or at least hire me to do something else,
it's not going to get off the ground.

I wish I could have done more and had more to show.  Much of what I
would need to do now, if I could work on the package instead of
sending out applications, is reading up on the various free packages
and libraries that I plan to use instead of the Microsoft products.
This wouldn't show up immediately in the code, though.

I haven't gotten a response from every institution to which I've
applied, I'm still sending out applications, and I haven't given up
hope yet.

Thanks again.

Laurence Finston

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