[Eg-oversight-board] more Re: Call for agenda items - 21.08.14 meeting

[Ben Hyman]

Thanks for sending this along Grace, and for raising the issue, Rogan. And for commenting, Kathy.

Will definitely add this to our upcoming agenda.

IIRC, we modelled the vendor page loosely on http://koha-community.org/support/paid-support/how-to-get-listed/
In part, we were motivated by a lack of resources to effectively monitor. Perhaps this is a cop-out?

Looking forward to the conversation.
Cheers
Ben


On Aug 18, 2014, at 11:52 AM, Grace Dunbar <gdunbar at esilibrary.com> wrote:

> Thanks for mentioning the vendor listing, Rogan, as I have a piece of business that serendipitously feeds into that.
> The lovely folks in Granville, NC had a very challenging time with an Evergreen vendor.  The people at Greenville were so upset at the poor service they feel that they received that they wrote a letter of complaint.  They delivered that to me, as a member of the EOB, and have asked that we consider removing this vendor from the vendor listing page.
> Please see their letter of complaint, which is attached.
> 
> I know that this is a challenging issue.  We don't want to be put in the position of policing vendors or getting caught in disputes between vendors and their clients.  However, I also feel some responsibility comes from even having the vendor page.  The question foremost in my mind is whether we should be proactive or reactive (or inactive) in this kind of situation.  In other words, should we change the vendor listing policy to ask for references from live Evergreen sites who are serviced by that vendor prior to listing them?  Or should we take on the role of possibly removing a vendor if it becomes clear they have caused "irreparable" harm to a client.  'Irreparable harm' being data loss, excessive downtime, or something fairly serious.  Or do we see our role in the EOB as not being responsible for ensuring that the community is pointing potential Evergreen sites at vendors who are capable of doing the work - caveat emptor.
> 
> There are, of course, many sides to this issue.  I look forward to the discussion!
> Grace
> 
> p.s. In the interest of full disclosure, Granville contracted with Equinox earlier this year to fix many of their lingering issues.  It was a limited term consulting contract that is no longer in effect.
> 
> 
> On Mon, Aug 18, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Rogan Hamby <rogan.hamby at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wanted to chat about the Evergreen vendor listing.  It's been a year since we adopted the current policy and there's been discussion about it a couple of times.  I've always said we should wait a year before we entertained any discussion of change and it's been that year now.  One minor thing that I'd like to do is require that we link to the description of Evergreen services on an entry.
>