So the OCLC is starting to become THE one stop shop, next thing you know they will be making an offer on LibGuides.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 2, 2014, at 8:43 PM, "stuart yeates" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> It's worse than that.
>
> The price we were quoted for hosting seems to have been picked so it can
> be offered with a 90% discount when bundled with a package deal with
> other OCLC products; buying into the on-going balkanization of the industry.
>
> cheers
> stuart
>
>> On 01/02/14 16:24, Roy Tennant wrote:
>> When it comes to hedging bets, I'd sure rather hedge my $50,000 bet than my
>> $500 one. Just sayin'.
>> Roy
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 6:04 PM, BWS Johnson <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>>
>>> Salvete!
>>>
>>>       Tisn't necessarily Socialist to hedge one's bets. Look at what Wall
>>> St. experts advise when one is unsure of whether to hold or sell. Monopoly
>>> is only ever in the interest of those that hold it.
>>>
>>>        Short term the aquarium is enticing, but do you enjoy your
>>> collapsed dorsal fin?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Brooke
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 6:10 PM EST Salazar, Christina wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I think though that razor thin budgets aside, the EZProxy using community
>>> is vulnerable to what amounts to a monopoly. Don't get any ideas, OCLC
>>> peeps (just kiddin') but now we're so captive to EZProxy, what are our
>>> options if OCLC wants to gradually (or not so gradually) jack up the price?
>>>>
>>>> Does being this captive to a single product justify community developer
>>> time?
>>>>
>>>> I think so but I'm probably just a damn socialist.
>>>>
>>>>> On Jan 31, 2014, at 1:36 PM, "Tim McGeary" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Even with razor thin budgets, this is a no brainer.  May they need
>>> decide
>>>>> between buying 10 new books or license EZProxy?  Possibly, but if they
>>> have
>>>>> a need for EZProxy, that's still a no brainer - until a solid OSS
>>>>> replacement that includes as robust a developer /support community comes
>>>>> around.  But again, at $500/year, I don't see a lot of incentive to
>>> invest
>>>>> in such a project.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 3:55 PM, Riley Childs <[log in to unmask]
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> But there are places on a razor thin budget, and things like this throw
>>>>> them off ball acne
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 31, 2014, at 3:32 PM, "Tim McGeary" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> So what's the price point that EZProxy needs to climb to make it more
>>>>>> realistic to put resources into an alternative.  At $500/year, I don't
>>>>> even
>>>>>> have to think about justifying it.  At 1% (or less) of the cost of
>>>>> position
>>>>>> with little to no prior experience needed, it doesn't make a lot of
>>> sense
>>>>>> to invest in an open source alternative, even on a campus that heavily
>>>>> uses
>>>>>> Shibboleth.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tim
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:36 PM, Ross Singer <[log in to unmask]>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not only that, but it's also expressly designed for the purpose of
>>>>> reverse
>>>>>> proxying subscription databases in a library environment.  There are
>>>>> tons
>>>>>> of things vendors do that would be incredibly frustrating to get
>>> working
>>>>>> properly in Squid, nginx, or Apache that have already been solved by
>>>>>> EZProxy.  Which is self-fulfilling: vendors then cater to what EZProxy
>>>>> does
>>>>>> (rather than improving access to their resources).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Art Rhyno used to say that the major thing that was inhibiting the
>>>>>> widespread adoption of Shibboleth was how simple and cheap EZProxy was.
>>>>> I
>>>>>> think there is a lot of truth to that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -Ross.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Kyle Banerjee <
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> EZproxy is a self-installing statically compiled single binary
>>>>>> download,
>>>>>>> with a built-in administrative interface that makes most common
>>>>>>> administrative tasks point-and-click, that works on Linux and Windows
>>>>>>> systems, and requires very little in the way of resources to run.  It
>>>>>>> also
>>>>>>> has a library of a few hundred vendor stanzas that can be copied and
>>>>>>> pasted
>>>>>>> and work the majority of the time.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> To successfully replace EZproxy in this setting, it would need to be
>>>>>>> packaged in such a way that it is equally easy to install and
>>>>> maintain,
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> the library of vendor stanzas would need to be developed as apache
>>>>>> conf.d
>>>>>>> files.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This. The real gain with EZProxy is that configuring it is crazy easy.
>>>>>> You
>>>>>>> just drop it in and run it -- it's feasible for someone with no
>>>>>> experience
>>>>>>> in proxying or systems administration to get it operational in a few
>>>>>>> minutes. That is why I think virtualizing a system that makes
>>> accessing
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> more powerful features of EZProxy easy is a good alternative.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> kyle
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Tim McGeary
>>>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>>> GTalk/Yahoo/Skype/Twitter: timmcgeary
>>>>>> 484-294-7660 (cell)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Tim McGeary
>>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>>> GTalk/Yahoo/Skype/Twitter: timmcgeary
>>>>> 484-294-7660 (cell)
>
>
> --
> Stuart Yeates
> Library Technology Services http://www.victoria.ac.nz/library/