[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Proposed change in Vendor Listing Policy

[Rogan Hamby]

I'm only speaking for myself here but I don't think it's necessary but nor
is the listing itself.  It's a nice thing to do as a community to help
people find resources in a way that's hopefully a bit more curated than
just heading to Google (or Duck Duck Go or whatever).  To me if we're going
to curate there is a point of balance to find between burdensome and
providing the value of that curation.

Since the users are going through the listings on an Evergreen vendors
listing to find their Evergreen services it makes sense to me to link
through to those services directly.  You're correct that users could write
separate emails and go browsing through each site for content but that's a
lot more cumbersome than clicking through and the purpose of the curated
list is convenience to me.  If not, why are we doing it?

One point you brought up I'm not clear on.  You ask, " Isn't the onus of
reviewing such companies on potential customers seeking support/development
work?"  There is nothing in this proposal about reviewing the content on
the vendor's sites.  The accuracy or veracity of their claims of what they
can support is not covered here.  There was a similar topic brought up
because of a vendor and a letter written to the board that we still need to
discuss and decide how we would handle it as a community but for now that
issue was lessened in urgency by the vendor themselves taking their site
offline.  If I misunderstood what you're asking let me know.

I don't see this is as an issue that is particularly intersectional to the
RFP process.  I think a vendor listing page may be used for a lot of
reasons and one of them maybe to find folks they invite to an RFP but there
are a lot of scenarios that are much less, well, intensive also.  And being
friendly to that range of uses is important I think.




On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 9:41 AM, Sharp, Chris <csharp at georgialibraries.org>
wrote:

> (I just posted this separately to the EG Oversight Board list and Rogan
> asked me to share my comments here.)
>
> Hi all,
>
> I wasn't officially on the Board when this subject was discussed, so I
> didn't feel that it would be appropriate for me to speak up during the last
> meeting.  However, I do have a couple of questions/concerns about this
> proposed policy:
>
> Is there a particular situation that makes this proposed requirement
> something people feel is necessary?  Why doesn't the description on the
> wiki page suffice, assuming that an interested party would contact the
> vendor for more information, allowing the vendor themselves to determine
> how their potential customers would be able to receive that information?
> I'm working from a position that we probably don't want to get into the
> business of micromanaging vendor websites.
>
> I'm also working under the assumption that the vendor listing page is
> intended to be a handy finding aid for people seeking paid support or
> development from companies/entities that provide such support.  Isn't the
> onus of reviewing such companies on potential customers seeking
> support/development work?  I realize not all libraries/potential
> Evergreen-using entities have good RFP-style processes in place, so I would
> go more towards the direction of educating people about *that* rather than
> policing the entities that add entries to the wiki page.  Are my
> assumptions off base?  Maybe there's more information about this situation
> than I'm aware of?
>
> Thanks for listening!
>
> Chris
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Rogan Hamby" <rogan.hamby at yclibrary.net>
> > To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" <
> open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org>
> > Sent: Sunday, September 7, 2014 9:24:36 PM
> > Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Proposed change in Vendor Listing Policy
> >
> >
> > We (the Evergreen community) have had the vendor listing policy on
> > the Evergreen community web site for a little over a year now. In
> > discussing possible changes one proposed change that we (the
> > Evergreen Board) was favorable to was one that I have proposed. I
> > have proposed that on the vendor listings we require a link back
> > from the vendor listing on our site to their description of
> > Evergreen related services.
> >
> >
> > I see this as a positive feature so that when community members are
> > browsing the vendor listings they can easily link through to the
> > most up to date information on the vendor's site as to what they
> > offer, success stories, whatever marketing they want to use beyond
> > the brief they give us for the listing.
> >
> >
> > However, like the original vendor listing policy we didn't want to
> > make this decision without involving everyone the community as a
> > whole.
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> >
> >
> > Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA
> > Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services,
> > York County Library System
> >
> >
> > “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to
> > suit me.”
> > ― C.S. Lewis
>
> --
> Chris Sharp
> PINES System Administrator
> Georgia Public Library Service
> 1800 Century Place, Suite 150
> Atlanta, Georgia 30345
> (404) 235-7147
> csharp at georgialibraries.org
> http://pines.georgialibraries.org/
>



-- 

Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA
Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services,
York County Library System

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit
me.”
― C.S. Lewis <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis>
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