Thanks for the initial response.  Obviously I can easily agree with Erick's
and Peter's responses.  I do realize that some will not find value in this
approach but many others will.  In fact, I am very pleased with the initial
responses and am reasonably convinced that the interest comes from an
untapped enthusiasm as well as a sober recognition of needs.  I see this as
adding to an overall solution.

We do hope to have a community-driven process for developing high-level
design based on some ideal workflows/services of an academic library.  We
are aware of the other open source projects underway and do not plan on
duplicating their efforts.  Ideally we can call upon their good work by
understanding lessons learned. Meanwhile our end product should be useful to
those communities as well.

It may be that some components of an ideal ILS are already available, some
are under development by academic libraries and some will require new
programming.  We expect that different open-source ILS projects will lead
toward convergence and or joint future activities.

--John

On Jan 29, 2008 11:02 AM, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Jan 28, 2008, at 5:26 PM, John Little wrote:
>
> > The Duke University Libraries are preparing a proposal for the Mellon
> > Foundation to convene the academic library community to design an open
> > source Integrated Library System (ILS)....
>
>
> Personally, I think this is a good idea. Yes, there are existent
> ILSs, but such things are not the be-all and end-all of ILSs. The
> software implementation, whether it be operating systems, text
> editors, or integrated library systems is an iterative process. It
> repeats. Moreover, there are many ways to get there from here; one
> size does not fit all. The process outlined will enable a thousand
> flowers to bloom, or call it friendly competition.
>
> --
> Eric Lease Morgan
> University Libraries of Notre Dame
>



--
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ILS Support Section Head
Duke University Libraries
919.660-5932