Fourth Thought: Open Souce Software

When it comes to open source software, my most satisfactory experience has been with OpenOffice. Found here, this free software is an alternative to Microsoft Office and other commercial word-processing suites. For my purposes, which has mainly been word processing and some spreadsheet dabbling, OpenOffice is great. Additionally, I do all my browsing with Mozilla’s Firefox and I read all my pdfs with their Foxit reader. I switched to Firefox when they introduced tabbed browsing and for its general faster performance than Internet Explorer. I started to favor Foxit when Adobe Reader's Text-to-Speech started slowing down every file I loaded. (I think they changed this some time ago but old habits die hard.)

The only limitations of open source software is that it is the work of diehard volunteer programmers which makes updates and patches less predicable then the yearly releases from commercial software companies. Likewise, customer support really only exists in the form of questions posed on website message board which are,in turn, moderated by volunteers. I think the only major downside with open source software is that it requires designers to donate more of their time if they want software that remains current. OSS needs to be either a perfect standalone product (unlikely) or the fruit of collaborative and ongoing efforts.

Third Thought: Content Enrichment

From a technological standpoint Content Enrichment is the next logical step. The limits of MARC records were the limits of hardware capacity and speed. With these limitations demolished by the capacity of modern servers, a catalogue augmented in the way is able to offer a wider array of features and give better insight into what a resource is about. I would have carted far-fewer books home on the bus during my undergrad if I was able to immediately screen the sources.

The only real issue (I think) is that creates another niche service to which libraries will be forced to subscribe. Book vendors and e-subscription providers now have content enrichment groups for company in the network of groups that charge libraries a premium so that they can, in turn, meet patron expectations. I will not call CE a necessary evil, but it is a necessary trend. Even the academic publishing market has become so inflated that a librarians would be forced to devout large amounts of time and effort to achieving the same result as is being offered by the private and specialized firms. In the long run better service always has a price.