Galen Charlton writes

> Lock-in doesn't have to be absolute to be effective, it just has to has
> raise the bar sufficiently high to make users think twice about migrating
> away.

  I fully agree with this. 

  In general, lock-in is pervasive in the use of any information product. 
  It even appears in the informational use of non-information products.
  Example: a supermarket provides you with your groceries. It's not
  an information product. Yet, you will prefer to use a supermarket
  that you are familiar with because you know where to find what you
  want. Lock-in reduces competitive forces. 

  An important advantage of open-source solutions is that they reduce
  lock-in. They can't eliminate it because it is generic to the nature
  of information.

> As a general statement -- and I know that this battle has been bitterly
> fought in the ILS space -- 

  It is not bitterly fought elsewhere because people just don't think
  this far. They think, say, "oh Google gives me such a great
  infrastructure for my email. And I don't care about the spying
  thrown in for good measure. So let me go for it." But twenty years
  from now will you have an archive of your mails?  If you change
  providers, do you migrate the email archives? These are important
  questions to ask.

  I have not used Google mail, neither have I used libguides, so I
  have no idea how easy or how hard it is to migrate. But it is
  important to keep this is in mind when choosing between
  informational products.

> I believe that *all* library software services, whether based on
> F/LOSS software or proprietary software, should provide a way for
> the library to obtain a full dump of their data, in an accessible
> format, at no additional charge.

  I could not agree more. I don't think this is given enough
  prominence.

> I see that LibGuides advertises the ability to make local backups of
> individual pages and also provides (via a paid add-on module) an XML export
> function.  I don't know if SpringShare will also provide free one-time
> exports on request, but I would hope they do.

  Spot on Galen, you raise the important (IMHO) issue.


  Cheers,

  Thomas Krichel                  http://openlib.org/home/krichel
                                              skype:thomaskrichel