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I'm open to seeing new approaches to the ILS in general. A related question I had the other day, speaking of MARC, is what would an alternative bibliographic data format look like if it was designed with the intent for opening access to the data our ILS systems to developers in a more informal manner? I was thinking of an XML format that a developer could work with without formal training, the basics of which could be learned in an hour, and could reasonably represent the essential fields of the 90% of records that are most likely to be viewed by a public library patron. In my mind, such a format would allow creators of community-based web sites to pull data from their local library, and repurpose it without having to learn a lot of arcane formats (e.g. MARC) or esoteric protocols (e.g. Z39.50). The sacrifice, of course, would be loosing some of the richness MARC allows, but I think in many common situations the really complex records are not what patrons are interested in. You may want to consider prototyping this in your application. I see such an effort to be vital in making our systems relevant in future computing environments, and I am skeptical that a simple, workable solution would come out the initial efforts of a standardization committee. Just my 2 cents. - David --- David Cloutman <[log in to unmask]> Electronic Services Librarian Marin County Free Library -----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Schlumpf Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:40 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different Greetings! I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years. And libraries too. Some of you may know me. I am the Avanti guy. I am, perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in 1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I was there when all this stuff was coming together. Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen. There's Koha. There's Evergreen. They are good things. I have also seen first hand how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their crappy software. I believe free software is the answer to that. I have neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it. I want to get back to simple things. Imagine if there were no Marc records. Minimal layers of abstraction. No politics. No vendors. No SQL straightjacket. What would an ILS look like without those things? Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears. I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do. I am getting busy. Peter Schlumpf Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm