The Gordian Knot

SirsiDynix’s strategy at the moment is a little like the recent American Airlines promotion on Rome: Taste, see, watch, with large dash of Frenzy. At least AA has a 2.0-ey website with all the interactive tools our patrons want! AA describes the video of Rome as “fast and funny”. It is midly entertaining until you realize that this is an American view, and sadly reflects many American stereotypes and misunderstandings. Can miscommunication be humorous? Maybe.

The recent OZSDUG meeting, more carefully cited yesterday by David King, and the post from GlowWorm a few days earlier, have really given me pause as to how to best describe the meeting and the situation. As my husband said, you can’t really be serious, you’re not at a loss for words are you???

These are measured words. I can’t get excited about the hype. I told Jim Wilson, VP of SirsiDynix and one of the original founders of Dynix, and said, “I wanted to sit through this OZSDUG meeting and say nothing and make you worry about what I am thinking.” Of course, I didn’t make it past about 5 minutes without raising my hand. I share some of the same passion that Jim has at heart. Which makes it even sadder to see Jim and colleagues seek our understanding and affirmations of loyalty, touting an imperfect solution. We can hardly wait to see what effect OZSDUG will have on the next version of original cowboy poetry that Jim pens (which, actually, was very good, and so good that we could enjoy it and laugh!)

Points I gleaned from the presentations:

• 8.0 was not bad, just not ready
• Vista basically asked the hard question, “Why do you have two systems?”
• Product Management folks from Sirsi and Dynix have learned to play well together, and have been upgrading Unicorn with 8.x-like functionality all along. (Do we believe that?)
• Why should we believe in any promises of SirsiDynix? “No. You should not believe any of our promises. Go see. Go look. Move when you are ready.” [Jim Wilson]
• The lack of movement on a selection of a CEO: “the washing machine is still spinning” [a customer] — was not addressed, but signaled significant red flags to the customers present.
• “I still have it in my heart to do so”; i.e., create the best system possible for our customers [Jim Wilson]
• “We will not announce an end of life for at least four years for Horizon; when end of life is announced, we will support for two more years.”
• It is the intent of the company to try to certify to Sybase 15 for Sybase Horizon customers.
• Regarding the findings of the Gartner report, “Many things are incorporated into the new 3.1 Unicorn that were recommended in the Gartner report, including APIs.”
• “The release time line is more important than the functionality incorporated into the release.” [a SirsiDynix sales rep, not present at this meeting]. Discussion revolved around trying to deliver cleanly and on time, so in essence, this would appear to be true.
• 8.x had scaling problems for the largest sites; didn’t play well with thin client; servers being quoted were too substantial (unaffordable for small sites, and large enough to support “whole third world countries”); parity in functionality was still missing.
• Dynix Classic, and Horizon, in general, cannot be end-of-lifed because they have too many people on it. “We do not have enough people to do it” [the migration]. This led to concerns about the severe impact on Unicorn Client Care performance if Horizon and Classic libraries are moved over to Unicorn.
• Acq data and serials data (patterns) can be migrated to Unicorn; however, later, it was suggested that if you are looking for Acq and Serials functionality, you wait for migration until additional functionality is added to Unicorn.
• Wireless network support people were ones let go recently with discontinuation of that service emphasis.

Jeff Schilling, national sales rep for EPS/Rooms, presented a fast overview of EPS and Rooms capabilities. I have to give Jeff credit, I finally saw a fire of passion in him as he came alive in the presence of the Rare Book Room at Linda Hall Library. What was rather revealing, however, later, in user discussions after the SirsiDynix people had left, was that *no one* in the room had yet implemented EPS on the Unicorn side of the family. Are there reasons why? I understand the limited applicability of Rooms (”the academics won’t like them”), but what is holding sites back from implementing EPS? The age of the design? The overabundance of text? Not 2.0-ey enough? Too complicated to administer? Price? If this is the portal of the future, how is it that midwestern users haven’t raced to embrace it? Or is EPS, too, going to fall by the wayside? How does the VAR relationship with LifeRay dovetail into the EPS application?

After lunch, Scott McCausland presented [”I’ve got 183 slides and I’m not afraid to use them.”] Given that Scott is Eastern Sales (and last time I looked Kansas wasn’t “east”), but wrote the contracts for most of us when he earlier represented the Midwest Sales Region, he outlined future needs and desires of libraries and the company, touching briefly on the HTML web client and faceted and visual searching in screen shots.

Scott wrapped up the SirsiDynix presentation portion of the meeting, asking for feedback on what else libraries need or desire beyond “The ILS, … the tip of the iceberg.” This is where the question of Stephen Abram’s influence on the company came into play, where the “fine line” exists between the SirsiDynix Institute and the ILS side of the company. Kudos to David Pattern for reading correctly inbetween the lines: if Abram can have a list of what should be in Rome, shouldn’t each customer? And shouldn’t the company be listening to the customers even more than Abram?

This led to additional comments on the absolutely abysmal efforts to communicate with directors, administrators, and particularly the 8.x sites over the last three months. SirsiDynix web site design, availability of material, accuracy of current contact (sales) and data, and complete disarray of information was noted. Incomprehensible Rome product comparison documentation was also mentioned. Scott emphasized the Rome Webinars, and continued efforts to take Enhancements from both Unicorn and Horizon enhancement databases. Customers suggested needs and continued interest in touch-screen technology for both opac, staff, and patron empowerment interfaces.

Scott spoke for all four SirsiDynix folks attending, saying they draw strength from attending regional meetings such as OZSDUG. You can’t not go to a meeting and realize how much strength is needed to get through a user meeting. Participants as well as presenters are exhausted at the end of it all. Scott mentioned the upcoming joint UUGI/CODI conference in 2009. All present know the strengths of CODI and UUGI. How do we, as customers, convey to a company [disorganized and inattentive in its current state], that the reason they exist as a company is solely as a result of the customers they *keep* [happy]?

After SirsiDynix personnel departed, the Unicorn and Dynix/Horizon folks hung out together rather than separately. Discussion included:

• Sirsi and Dynix user interests are converging. Group agreed that continued joint meetings under the OZSDUG umbrella were useful, and distinctly useful enough to not necessary be absorbed in the larger regional UUGI structure. Geographically this may push OZSDUG meetings further north in to the KC Metro area partly due to size of meeting rooms, but certainly we have more in common than more to separate us.
• Company should (dare I say, MUST) listen to the user groups, CODI and UUGI both. To ignore CODI, and ignore their organizational independence, will put the company at peril. If the company does not understand this, the company will lose customers. UUGI members present acknowleged that an independent user group is preferable, and that both groups need to continue to lobby their Boards for the best possible solutions and relationships with the company.
• Discussions of the company’s lack of communication and disarray, and what that means to all sites present.
• Discussions on the slowness of the GL3.1 Java client, and how further development of 8x features could impact this problem. Discussions on impact of Client Care, and various support techniques of skirting the problems. What is the true cost of customer service, particularly if it is done poorly?
• Several Unicorn “refreshes” (may or may not correspond to releases) have been added since incorporation of TAOS-functionality; similarly, the last 4-5 “scrums” added Horizon functionality, at least since Talin Bingham’s tenure with the company. Unicorn customers did acknowledge much better patch clusters and much more solid releases in the last year or more.
• Mention of the regional SMUG meeting, coming up July 26-27 in Bellevue, Nebraska.
• Mickey Coalwell of NEKLS (Lawence, Kansas) graciously volunteered to organize a venue and presentation for another meeting later this summer.

Finally, peppered throughout yesterday and today on the Horizon-l Listserv, the efforts of the company, however needed, misguided, or philanthropic the intention might be, to survey its users. It’s too early to tell which is worse: the quality of the interns/telephone support reps whose job it is to contact us, or the state of the customer data that they are being asked to review with us. Further comments today include admissions from the interviewers, who, when asked “‘why [are you] ask[ing] if libraries were searching for other ILS systems?’, he replied that they are no longer asking that question. He admitted it was not pertinent and was really none of their business.” (Thanks, Ruth!) So I guess the company thinks we’re all looking at other systems!

I can only sum up OZSDUG with another key David Pattern-ism (thanks, David!)

h3y d00dz - 4r3 y0u 7h!nk!ng 0f upgr4d!ng y0ur !1$ $y$73m !n 7h3 n3×7 7hr33 y34r$?

How we answer this question, and in whatever dialect, is the choice that confronts both Unicorn and Dynix users. Do we Blog? Shout? Complain? Or vote with our feet? Maybe some day we’ll laugh. Maybe not today.

Kansas Library Association, Kansas Association for Educational Communications and Technology, and the Kansas Association of School Librarians got together this week in pouring rain, damp, dark, and snow, peppered with freeze warnings that have gutted our gardens and frozen our spirits. The spring “Tri-Conference”, as we affectionately refer to it in Kansas, is a good time to thaw out, chill out, and refresh, hosted ably by the fine city of Topeka, lots of area Topeka librarians from Topeka Shawnee County and the State Library of Kansas. The conference could not have come at a better time with all the depressing news from SirsiDynix, which seems to have coincided with the beautiful early burst of spring that has been left dashed, limp, broken, dull, and stripped of blooms. The recent spate of patronizing comments from Stephen Abram hasn’t really helped except to add insult to injury for SirsiDynix customers.

So there was a moment of some joy when I learned that Andrew Pace was our keynote speaker. He was funny and thoughtful and entertaining, and talked a mile a minute but had a lot to say! :_) And of course he probably has been quoted a zillion times on some of these things before, but quotes I am happy to pass on today below:

We have been distracted from the fact that the PAC still sucks.

How very true, and no matter how long ago Andrew said this, the fact that it still *is* true for our ILS systems just shows how much more work there is to be done.

Next Gen and 2.0 … are adjectives for libraries and systems, not our patrons.

It’s fair to say we often lose sight of this as well, and do our patrons a complete dis-service when we completely label and typecast them.

I was relieved to know that Andrew thinks the 800-pound-gorilla is OCLC, not the Pittsburg State University mascot Gus.

Free software [e.g., open source] is like a free kitten, not free beer.

Andrew provided useful information for open source and vendor products in both sessions, with emphasis on the state of library automation, trends in automation and systems, and an overview of a refreshing Endeca perspective. I was happy to hear the “Revolutionary War” problem was really an issue with subject headings rather than struggles between vendors and customers.

Six is more than zero.

I’ll leave that one for you to guess what it was all about. It sounds like a great short story title waiting to be written.

Andrew later told us that in all his travels he had managed to visit 36 states and not actually drive through Kansas. Andrew, I was really glad to be able to meet you, and really glad you now have been to Kansas. Thank you for providing a breath of fresh air to the conference participants today. The Endeca philosophy is surely something each of us should take to heart and examine as we invest institutional dollars in the catalog “of the future”… which is well overdue by about 10 years.

�

“And then we need a bullet in the back of 8.0.” Well, the bullet was delivered. 8.0 is dead. After a day of wild speculation, it’s the morning after. We are only beginning, as sysadmins, to fully understand the implications of this decision and the impact on our institutions. I am not usually the person with my head to the railroad track hearing the commotion down the line and around the bend. What I heard by the end of day was enough to really cause me to wonder.

I’d like to say thanks to the individuals who collectively work and have worked at the company formerly known as Dynix, especially those who have poured their heart and soul into bringing 8.0 to life.

I’d like also to say thanks to former CODI members who came out of the woodwork yesterday to offer support and a kind word. We have a saying at Pitt State, “once a Gorilla, always a Gorilla” (of course, what else can you say when your mascot is a Gorilla!?). I think the same applies to CODI. The people that made target practice of 8.0 probably are jingling more spare bullets in their pocket to shoot off at whatever else gets in their way. I believe CODI members have enough sense about them to take the higher road without much prompting. Kudos to our current Board members in particular. We may be forced to change products and vendors, but we will always be CODI members first and foremost.

“This is a business decision.” Yup, I agree. And probably, given the nature of said business decision, businesses like these have no business in the library.

“Get real. It’s all about 2.0.” You know, I guess it’s all a big game, but the last time I checked, avatars do not pay my salary. Avatars do not assist my library patrons. And avatars do not run my library system.

Today we pick up the pieces. I wish the Unicorn folks well. You’ll like 8.0, I’m honestly glad you’re getting it in a Rome manifestation. Goodness needs to be shared.

See you all on the high road, wherever it leads.

�

Pat Sommers, SirsiDynix CEO, resigns effective immediately.

If any of our “correspondents” at UUGI are available to comment, please feel free to do so :_)

q

A CODI meeting is planned for ALA MidWinter in Seattle:

Saturday 20 January 2007, 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Sheraton Seattle Grand Ballroom B (1 block from convention center)

Meeting agenda:

I. CODI Introductions/Welcome
II. Pat Sommers
III. Talin Bingham - Horizon 8.x update
IV. Conference Update - Amy Terlaga
V. Future CODI projects

If there are any Gordian Knot readers who will be there and could forward your notes (or audio recordings), we’d love to make them available for the benefit of others who aren’t able to make it.  Feel free to post your notes in the comments below, or if you prefer, you may email them to lukethelibrarian at gmail dot com and I’ll post them for you.
Thanks!

August 29, 2006, OZDUG (Ozarks Dynix Users Group) joins forces again with regional Unicorn users in a get-together which will be held at the Kansas City, MO Public Library, 14 W 10th Street. Among guests on the agenda are Talin Bingham, Sr. Vice President of Technology and SirsiDynix Development, Jeff Schilling, SirsiDynix Director of Sales Support, Jan Scheppard, EnvisionWare Regional Sales Manager, Gena Wilhite, SirsiDynix Senior Sales Consultant, Jim Wilson, SirsiDynix VP Senior Library Advisor, and Steven Orton, SirsiDynix Sales Consultant.

Last year’s successful meeting was the first formal “encounter” among Unicorn and Horizon/Classic customers in the Midwest. Our peers and colleagues, most of us know each other through statewide organizations, but haven’t ever really had the same intensity of collegial contact as we do with our fellow colleagues at either SuperConference or CODI. No one’s making us sit in the same room and talk to each other. We do this to understand better our region, and to offer a space for listening and learning.

Traditional OZDuggers from mostly downstate Missouri and Kansas wish to thank Donna Whitner and her colleagues of the Kansas City Public Library for hosting this forum tomorrow. One of the growing pains of joint meetings is the key reality that OZDUG Horizon/Classic people may be better equipped to travel and meet and have the regional site-hopping down to a fine art after about 15 years of doing it, but our peer Unicorn users outnumber us, largely because of their more metropolitan stance in Kansas City area. That said, we’ve never turned anyone down from St. Louis, or Omaha, or Oklahoma, or… well, if you have a car and can drive, we even welcome people who fly in from Plano and who happen to be “in the neighborhood.” But of course, since Unicorn users outnumber us, we have to find bigger venues than Joplin Public Library or Coffey County Library System.

Let’s face it, OZDUG, whether with the “S” for Sirsi, or without, is a state of mind. We meet for reality checks. We meet to understand the struggles of our peer libraries. We meet for therapy. And we meet for food. We meet to give each other a breather in a maddening world, and it just gets weirder and weirder. What is it in the passion for the product that drives us, or makes us drive three or more hours to go anywhere to discuss anything? The product? The service? What does the company provide that others do not?

This is a critical time for SirsiDynix customers. An entire year has passed since the merger. What can we as users say or do to convey the uncertainty and concern expressed by our library administrations? What can we as users say or do to help promote the health of the products we use? What can we as users say or do to assist our peers and fellow librarians? The hype of Library 2.0 must not overshadow the core product functionality. If anything, the core product functionality has to be strong enough to support a kudzu-like 2.0 behemoth of everything for everyone. Are we getting it? Are the vendors getting it? We’ll find out tomorrow, I guess.

I hope that some of our Unicorn colleagues will drop by and leave us some comments. Fundamentally, I believe we have more to share and more to learn from each other than staying apart. I hope corporate understands this. I guess we’ll know more tomorrow — stay tuned!

Sandwiched between two stormy days, twenty-six people met on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 in Pittsburg, KS for OZDUG (Ozarks Dynix User Group) Regional meetings. Presenters included Jim Taylor, of JTData.Com in the morning, and Bill Routt and Steve Orton, Regional Sales Contacts for the South Central and “Mid-Atlantic” regions of Sirsi-Dynix in the afternoon. At least, that’s the region we think Steve is representing, since he’s the Missouri rep, although the folks in Missouri are rather amused that the Mid-Atlantic region appears to reach to the easternmost borders of Kansas! (Do we dare ask “where’s the beach??!) And since poor Steve’s name doesn’t really even make the map, and the map really isn’t on the web site, and very few SD system administrators or directors have even seen the map or know it exists, it’s hard to say what the state of sales is. They’re lovely people and we thank them for coming to see us, but things are in a bit of disarray, we think!

Jim Taylor, who provides value-added products that other customers readily use, provided information on his JTACQ, JTURL, JTDataEntry, and JTMail programs. Jim brought along son Jonathan, who was by far the youngest member of OZDUG to ever sit through a meeting attentively!

Valerie Chase, graciously presented by speakerphone and gave us an overview of the expanded reports now included in WebReporter. The announcement on March 30, 2006 of the release of WebReporter 1.4, while extremely welcome, still raises questions regarding server specifications for it. A handout, provided by sales staff, brought a resounding “thud” to the proceedings as attendees tried to figure out the relationship between the feature designations for “reporter”, “analyst”, and “professional” functionality (dated, by the way, November 14, 2003) and their relation to pricing which was described in terms of “light”, “medium”, and “super”. Yellow highlighting, we decided, just meant these were the most expensive options that the company wanted you to buy! We hope that this particular handout goes back to the drawing board quickly, because while it attempted to address the training packages and licensing, it, in fact, confused us more and managed to completely ignore server specifications.

We were happy to hear that 1.4 would support CSV formated files, and that Narrowcast is now included in all basic packages. SQL gurus were also pleased to see the ability to use free-form SQL statements within the 1.4 functionality.

Server specifications were also lacking for HIP 4.x. We understand that benchmarking has not been completed, but the time frame needed to budget and purchase new HIP servers is not a fast process, causing chaos in the heartland.

Other discussion included where the ISBN-13 hotfix is for classic sites, where the ISBN-13 patch for Horizon sites not on 7.4 is, where the benchmarking for 8.x is, the need for 24×7 support, and the inability to get to a real person and get past the front-line support to a real person who can solve the issue in a timely fashion.

Two philosophical questions were asked, without a real sense of answer, that is, 1) are Dynix reps/developers/support staff allowed/encouraged to attend the librarian meetings at events such as PLA and ALA, or are they severely limited in their ability to attend sessions, see other products, ideas, mingle, and speak with librarians in the profession; and 2) What has become of Jack Blount’s plan several years ago to ensure that staff get “out of the office and into the library” and visit sites, work front desks, and experience library issues on a day-to-day basis in order to improve the work flow and functionality of the software.

Another issue was the amount of communication — on the updates of functionality, software delivery, new products, future products, server specifications, budgeting awareness, training — and the group was sorely disappointed in the amount and quality of communication from the company as a whole. Two members went so far as to rate the company on a scale of 0-10, with 10 being highest, as a “3″ and as a “1″. Which is a shame, really, as there are some wonderful people who work for the company, and who can (and frequently do) assist SirsiDynix customers are great deal in their daily work.

Issues with setup and the “migration” to 8.0 for existing Horizon clients is also a big unknown. This, coupled with both the uncertainty of the delivery date of 8.0/8.1 and the quality of the release functionality for 8.0/8.1 has really left people in a quandry. We did learn one finite fact, that Debt Collect would not be available until at least 8.1.

While the group greatly appreciated the afternoon allotment of time from SirsiDynix reps, and Valerie’s conference call time, the company must realize that when the majority of regional attendees must drive anywhere from 2-5 hours to attend these meetings, we do expect people to be physically present at the meetings and find the prospect of driving for several hours to stare at a speakerphone not the optimum communication experience. We sincerely hope the inability to schedule regular regional meetings or provide presenters of expertise “in the flesh” does not develop into a company trend.

All SirsiDynix presenters should be keenly aware that with Webex, with WebReporter, with any demo of any sort, please SIZE THE FONTS UP. The screen shots mean nothing if the person standing 10 feet away from the projection screen can’t read it. The only thing being worse having to drive 5 hours to listen to someone on a speakerphone is having to sit through a demonstration where you cannot read the details on the screen.

If you participate in other regional meetings and wish to post your comments, thoughts, about them, please drop me a note — this is not meant to supercede the great site set up at http://www.codi.org/newusersgroups.html, but perhaps will provide a way to get more reactions or comments out and about…

Several of us gathered for dinner one evening at CODI and spent some of our time together talking about collection codes (ok, I know what you’re thinking and you’re probably right). But, really, the discussion was pretty interesting!

Two libraries moving to Horizon, one from Dynix (Hennepin County) and the other from a home-brewed ILS (Columbus Metropolitan), had independantly developed similar schemes for collection codes. But more interesting were the ideas percolating for using collection codes as a basis for new title alerts.

By building out the codes using a pattern corresponding to the title’s audience, format, genre and language, new possibilities arise for creating alerts. A list of new DVDs, sure, but what about breaking the list out for kids and teens? Not just new fiction, but new mystery fiction, new romance fiction and so on. Audio CDs are hot, but what about letting patrons see only the new fiction? or non-fiction?

But wait,there’s more. We can’t list every possibility patrons might be interested in, so why not let patrons create their own custom alerts based on their needs? A Spanish immersion teacher might be interested in new children’s books in Spanish, for example. Once the lists are created you’re just one step away from being able to offer the alerts via email or RSS.

If you’ve read this far, you might be interested in playing with a tool we’re using in the backroom at HCL to look at the possibilities.

The pre-selected lists available on the HCL site are automatically updated nightly. Scripts (we use ColdFusion) used to generate the lists run SQL queries against the Horizon database, using the bib and item tables. Titles are stored in a MS SQL db and web pages built from the there to reduce the load on the Horizon db.

Industrious members of the Rolling Prairie Library System have posted a report to their constitutents on the recent CODI conference sessions — if you haven’t found a blogged report yet on the session you missed, check out RPLS/LLSAP User Group CODI Report, complete with photos. Additionally, a reminder: if your regional user group has a web site, posted minutes, or has meeting announcements, please post to the Gordian Knot, or let Luke or I know about your regional news. As you can see, we will be able to track much of this on the blog, but our information is only as good as what we receive. :_)

Congratulations to Bob Gale, Newark Public Library, OH and Bob Rasmussen, Anzio Software, for receiving the coveted “Star of CODI” awards for 2005.