The Gordian Knot

Hey, SirsiDynix, remember us? The people that pay maintenance? The people that use your product? The orchestra that is supposed to play your Symphony?

Recent excitement over the new “Symphony” name, which was unveiled Saturday morning at ALA and on the website as early as Saturday at 6 a.m. central time, apparently led to the failure of the company to remember that not every customer (including customers in the rest of the WORLD) attends ALA. Certainly the average director doesn’t regard Marshall Breeding’s Technology Guides as the first line of communication with SirsiDynix, however helpful they can be. Blogs, especially those by industry and private individuals, including Stephen Abram, are not, or should not be the first and ONLY line of communication with the customer. RSS feeds have their place, but I don’t think that’s what we’re after here.

We have customer records, hierarchy of contacts and responsibility, and directors and managers who, at the very least, would like an email from the company explaining the name du jour and the CEO selection. It’s called communication. It’s in rare commodity these days, apparently.

I’m sure the new CEO and the new management team would be delighted to email an appropriately formal communication to all their customers at some point. I understand the new CEO has a lot to do the first week on the job, and I wish him well, but……… press releases really lack that personal touch. So, hastily, today, six days later, customers finally received an email… that seems to resemble half press release, half functionality list, announcing the name change. Whatever happened to the good ole days of seeing the CEO’s signature at the bottom of the page, and calling you by name rather than “Dear Customer”?

Sort of like asking the percussion section of the orchestra to know what’s going on from the green room by shouting “hey, you, there, with the drumstick — we’re on measure 63!”

What happens if the percussion section goes on strike? Can the Symphony still be played?

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On the heels of the new SirsiDynix CEO announcement, today’s riddle is as follows:

What do Franz Schubert, George Bizet and SirsiDynix all have in common?

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Enough serious stuff for this blog! I visited David Pattern’s blog the other night and idly gave the 2.0 Idea Generator a workout for some inspiration. Coming the week after OZSDUG and on the three-months anniversary of the 8.0 cessation announcement, I found the ideas generated to be, um, well, psychic.

“Idolize the Flying Librarians of OZ!”

“Vigorously shake the perpetual beta using the OPAC.”

“Raise a toast to SirsiDynix and then claim it isn’t all about technology.”

“Write a song about a perpetual beta and post it to your blog.”

“Mashup SFX links and retire to a safe distance.”

It seems like a safe thing to do, for someone who wonders if ILS products generally are always in beta, or the librarians who are testing them, are always in beta-mode.

Thanks for some great stress relief, Davey!

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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.

It’s been a little over two months since the announcement by SirsiDynix to abandon the 8.0 Horizon product line. Six groups of customers remain in its wake:

• 8.0 customers, who were live, beta, or in process of meeting paid milestones as early implementers of the 8.0 product;
• Horizon customers, who, more or less, save about 50 4.0 HIP installations, were on what they thought was a stable, anchor product;
• Dynix Classic customers, mostly large consortia, who know they’re on a stable product, but were waiting for 8.0 to be delivered in order to more smoothly migrate to a consortial-designed product;
• Sirsi customers, who, in retrospect, were either amused, attentive, or angered over all the attention the 8.0 Horizon product was getting, possibly to the detriment of their own Unicorn line;
• the rest of the ILS customers of vendors around the world, who were waiting to see if 8.0 might be what they have been waiting for;
• and then, well, the vendors and VARS, in their own right, the “customers” of Dynix, for whom VAR relationships and add-on products and services to core Dynix and Horizon customers, are, to be blunt, their business.

A shroud of legality envelopes many of the first- and last-bulleted customers above, leaving the rest of the folks to wonder what the heck has hit them. Several libraries are probably still wondering after rounds of “vendor demos”, as probably are most of the vendors who came in to do the demonstrations.

Now all eyes are encouraged to wait for ALA; Washington, DC, an unlikely wayside layover on the path to Rome.

Ever so slowly, regional user groups are once again meeting to test the waters, to see what, if anything, can be demonstrated; what, if anything, can be believed; what, if anything, can be achieved. OZSDUG, the morphed OZDUG with an “S” for Sirsi, meets next week, Tuesday, June 5, at the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City has been aptly coined a “crossroads” city, and so over 50 people from Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Utah will convene — Dynix, Horizon, and Unicorn users — close to the point where the Overland Trails branched west to new opportunites and new frontiers.

Notice I didn’t say “new vistas”. We have great sunsets in Kansas, as I’m sure the Oklahoma and Missouri people would agree. We really don’t have vistas, and rarely have summits. (Sometimes we’re just lucky enough to find a cafeteria tray and have a hill nearby for sledding!) We have opportunities and frontiers. We understand the “road to x” analogies. Most of us, from smaller towns than Kansas City, have broad, long, main streets. Only a few have the requisite sleeping dog in the middle of the intersection. We are proud of our small towns, and frequently watch the beauty and power of nature descend on our streets.

Some of us, on the 8.x frontier, sort of got hung out by the sunset a few months ago, as the sun slammed into the earth and plunged us into a very long night.

Will customers of Dynix be happy to travel down the Road to Rome? The tenor of OZSDUG next week will point the way. For more information on OZSDUG, contact Natasha Stephan at http://www.lindahall.org

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.

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Andrew Pace writes at the Hectic Pace.

“the decision about Rome is essentially a “time to market” decision. It’s a choice between a sexy platform that is unstable and a stable platform that is unsexy.”

Lots of interesting comments on the piece.

“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.

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Dave sez … this.

And Talis UK sez … this.

This could be a very interesting day.

Pat Sommers, SirsiDynix CEO, resigns effective immediately.

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

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