The Gordian Knot

I am trying to take steps to reduce the deluge of spam on this blog. For the time being, only users who are registered on the blog and logged in may comment. I will continue trying to find a better way to manage the issue so that I can remove this requirement at some point in the future. I apologize for any inconvenience. Thanks!

Update: I am also disabling trackbacks and pingbacks at this time.  Those may be more difficult to bring back, because the viable anti-spam tools I’m looking at right now only handle comments, not trackbacks and pingbacks.  If you comment on a Gordian Knot article on your own blog, please leave a comment on the appropriate article in Gordian Knot linking to your post — so that the conversation can continue far and wide.  Thanks.

Some folks have already asked me about the “deeper significance” of the name of this blog. Yes, the name is a riff on SirsiDynix’s post-merger PR campaign based around knots. And yes, Alexander the Great did ultimately undo the Gordian Knot — with one tremendous blow of his sword. But no — that does not mean this is an anti-merger blog, nor that I think that the solution is for them to be divided again. On the contrary, this is a blog about making the merged SirsiDynix the best company it can be.

The story of the Gordian Knot is more than a historical anecdote — it contributed something to our language. Today,when we refer to a “gordian knot” we’re talking about an extremely complex and multifaceted problem that might seem totally unsolvable — but one that can only be resolved by creative, decisive action. To me, that’s library automation — whether you’re a vendor or a customer, a sysadmin or an end-user, the world of library automation is tangled and confusing, always with different interests pulling their strands in different directions.

We need new thinking — creative, decisive, bold actions. We need to cut through the entanglements and the red tape, the excuses and the bad habits. And most importantly, we need to do it together — public libraries, academic libraries, special libraries, Dynix libraries, Horizon libraries, Sirsi libraries… all of us, together with the merged company. I hope this blog can be a place where we can talk about — and better yet, highlight examples of — that kind of bold, innovative thinking.

My name is Kevin Smith and I write the Fiddling Librarian blog. I am also the assistant director of the Cass District Library in Southwest Lower Michigan. We are about to migrate from Classic Dynix and WebPAC to Horizon 7.4 and HIP 4.?. I will be posting here about what I learn during the migration process. Our go live date is November 10th, so wish us luck.

Welcome to The Gordian Knot, a collaborative weblog on library automation and innovation that we hope will be a place for customers of all Sirsi & Dynix customers to get together, discuss the present, and look to the future. You can read more details about this blog here, but to reiterate: this is an independent weblog — not sponsored or hosted by SirsiDynix, CODI or UUGI. It’s open to the public to read and comment. If you’re a SirsiDynix customer and would like to join our intrepid band of article contributors, please create an account for yourself and then email me at lukethelibrarian [at] gmail [dot] com. If you have any other questions about the blog, please feel free to use that same address.

We’re hoping to give this blog a good strong kickoff by collaboratively blogging the 2005 CODI conference in Minneapolis that will take place 7-9 November 2005. That way, all of you out there who can’t make it to the conference (or to a session or two) can still get plenty of details about what happened. If you’re going to be at CODI and would like to help us blog the various events, please let me know.

Thanks, and enjoy the blog!