it might kill the opac, although other people are already doing that (many named in the column), but it won't kill the inventory control aspects of the ILS. - DJF

I'm much more interested in the possibility of killing the commercial Discovery Layer products - copystar

Mita, I'd support that venture also. - Marie

isn't inventory control all by itself a much easier problem? - RepoRat

commercial inventory control systems are optimized for a predominantly one-way flow of many copies-of-items. the library inventory control system is a continuous two-way flow of mostly unique items with a steady addition of new items. It's not as "special snowflake" as librarians necessarily think, but it's also very different from standard systems. - DJF

What DJF sez. Having done it in the past, I can attest that library inventory control is a bitch and a half and that attempts to solve it using standard commercial methods have typically been expensive failures. - walt crawford

Interesting, thanks. - RepoRat

I heard a bit of this from talking to the head of acquisitions. Even just library purchasing is weird in higher education. Campus purchasing departments are used to buying lots of pens, postits, and even lots of desks. But the idea that every single item I buy is unique, even if they're all "just books", weird. - DJF

yeah, I would think they'd give approval plans a sideeye too. - RepoRat