Art Rhyno confused my by calling it ERP, but he just rocked his code4lib presentation and I realized he’s talking about the same thing that’s been itching me: libraries are not unique, but our software and standards are unnecessarily so.
In my introduction of WPopac I made the point that I didn’t want to replace the ILS — certainly not the acquisitions management functions or other business processes. Art today explained that he wouldn’t want to have to develop or support those features either, but that we don’t need to. He reminded us that other people have to buy stuff too, and that buying books really isn’t so different from buying plumbing supplies or toys.
The market segment is called ERP, enterprise resource planning, and Art pointed out a few open source solutions. I’m waiting for his slides to go online, and I’m hoping we hear more about this.
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[...] Now think about this in the context of libraries. Think about it in terms of our acquisitions workflow, think about it in terms of our online catalogs. Break down the walls that divide libraries from the rest of the world, look for and embrace larger standards, and benefit from the community of work that already supports them. [...]
[...] I’ve talked about this before (here, here, here, and here, among others), and I’ll be talking about it more yet. Most exciting for me, I wasn’t alone in my plea, as Art Rhyno made some great points about how our acquisitions and accounting processes are substantially similar to what’s called ERP in the outside world. [...]
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