Best of both worlds
Over on LibrarianInBlack.net Sarah Houghton says
RedLightGreen and Talis have partnered up. They’re sharing the “find it at a library” data directory and they point out that participation in this open library project, unlike Open WorldCat, does not require that the library be a FirstSearch subscriber and pays to put their records into the database. Libraries are included, for free (free, I say it again) in RLG’s “find it” database. I’ve found RLG’s database to be smaller in terms of titles, but with a better interface, better authority control, FRBRization (which is awesome), a faster search engine, and more features. Can’t we have the best of all worlds in one product?
That’s a great question. Why can’t we have the “best of all worlds” in one product.
I don’t think the “best of all worlds” in one product will ever be achieved by a single supplier working in a defensive and closed manner, it simply doesn’t make economic sense.
But it can be and will be achieved by vendors adopting a mature approach to collaboration between competitors and other organisations such as RLG. Through collaboration and competition costs can be driven out of the market allowing vendors to achieve better services and more innovation for less cost. This has got to be good for the ultimate customers.
Talis first raised this vision in the Silkworm white paper and we immediately started to walk the walk by engaging with all our main competitors including OCLC, and have created Talis Additions and Talis Connexions partner programs. We have had a very positive response from our direct competitors (two have already signed up to the connexions program) but almost a brick wall from OCLC. It is frankly surprising that a not for profit organisation is less willing to collaborate for the benefit of shared customers than our direct head to head competitors. Just to make it clear, we would love to collaborate with OCLC.
In fact we have had such a positive response to the Silkworm ideas from the industry and vendors that we have developed this vision further into what has been labelled Library 2.0.
