The new SirsiDynix entity, for example, will have a workforce totaling over 725 personnel with as many as 185 dedicated to software development. Companies on this scale have the capacity to develop systems we don’t all hate.

However, two large collegiate university library systems (New York University and Oxford University) have recently signed with a comparatively very small company (VTLS Inc.) that has a customer support staff of less than ten staff members. Why is it that these large library systems (that are comprised of a group of consolidated libraries) prefer an ILS vendor that is dwarfed by their own size? Is there a new trend where large library systems will be seeking out smaller vendors with whom they can be assured will design and develop around their specific needs rather than needing to consider a large customer base in each decision. If this is the case, will we see small vendors flourish while the larger vendors roll out one size fits all software? Will small libraries be left out in the cold? Either being lost in the crowd of a large vendor client base or being ignored by a smaller vendor whose focus is their new mammoth client? It seems the only way for libraries to win is to band together, either as consortia, union databases, or through user group organizations.

I think a lot of people are coming to this conclusion. A lot of the thinking is how to integrate dynamic library content into the web structure of the larger institution (if no further). I think we’re rapidly moving from a search box on the library’s home page — something of an innovation on library websites in the past few years — to the search box (or some kind of access) at a higher and broader level.

To take an obvious example (inspired by talking with Eric Lease Morgan), new titles in any particular subject ought not simply to appear on the library’s home page but on the corresponding departmental page — and yes, in the corresponding RSS feed.

We need systems then that allow hooks to make this kind of “broadcasting” possible. This is important to keep in mind with talking to our favorite OPAC vendors during ALA.