I wonder if Marshall gives any other group of folks this much input into his survey  :)

With that being said, I think with the way the library software market is going it would make sense to add a vendor field separate from the "Current Automation System" field.  (since the survey includes questions about the software you use and the vendor that supports it)  It could even have a lovely asterisk that leads you to a footnote similar to this:

"If your library uses more than one support vendor, please list what you consider to be your main support vendor. If you do not contract with a support vendor please list 'Independent'."

Then those people listed as "Independent" could go in and rate their in-house support team with the highest marks and go buy them cookies, or donuts, or pavlova, or whatever ...

Josh Westbrook
Prescott Library Mngr/District Technology Mngr
Walla Walla County Rural Library District
joshw@wwrurallibrary.com
http://www.wwrurallibrary.com


On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 8:47 AM, Chris Cormack <chris@bigballofwax.co.nz> wrote:
On 11 December 2010 05:33, MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> Breeding, Marshall wrote:
>> -With Koha, unlike the other ILS products, I have an association
>> between the product and the support provider.  I'm open to either
>> aggregating them together or to treat the ILS / Vendor pairs
>> separately.  I've already had one inquiry suggesting that they not
>> be aggregated.
>
> Well, the current situation seems absurd, with only 15 of the Koha
> support providers listed and one of those listed under three names,
> while some Koha survey responses are discarded because there aren't
> enough libraries for a name.
>
> I think all Koha official community releases should be listed
> together, with support providers listed separately, just as I think
> you currently record LMS version number separately.

I agree.

>
> If people are running some Koha-based PTFS/LibLime system or some
> bleeding-edge prerelease/maybe-never-to-be-a-release Koha, then that
> probably should be listed separately.
>
> Would other list subscribers be OK with that?
>

I certainly would, grouping libraries running actual Koha (its quite
easy to tell they will be running a version that is an official
release) and those running some variant of Koha in another group.

>> How common is it that a library will sign with multiple support
>> vendors for Koha support?  I'm not aware that this is a common
>> arrangement at all.
>
> At least among the co-op's libraries, it's not that rare.
>
> I think this is more common with a web-based catalogue, where we can
> co-operate with existing library IT support providers rather than
> replace them.  Of course, I'd prefer it that everyone bought internet
> connections and hardware from our partners, but some libraries have
> contracts they won't break and I feel it's not ethical to duplicate
> them unnecessarily.
>
> How would you be aware of it?  It doesn't seem possible for library to
> register this multi-provider situation accurately on lib-web-cats.
> I'm sure I've mentioned at least one library where the co-op is
> providing services but isn't credited as such.
>
Yes, we certainly do it too, HLT for example gets support from
Catalyst and Katipo. There are other of our clients that have similar
arrangements. It is quite common with free software.

Chris
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