Oracle has purchased Sun Microsystems.

This is significant on many levels.  Many of our library systems run on software or hardware from these companies.  The Voyager library I used to work for used an Oracle database running on a Sun Solaris server.  The clients (Circulation, Cataloging, Acquisitions, etc.) for III’s Millennium system run on Java.

Many web-based software platforms use MySQL (an open-source database project owned by Sun), including many, many blogs (including this one) wikis and CMS.

Many of us use OpenOffice as either their primary or as an additional office suite.

I am not saying that we are at risk for losing these foundations of our library and internet software programs.  The fact that OpenSolaris, Java, MySQL, and OpenOffice are all open source means that we can trust that they will be with us in some form for as long as there is a demand (a trust that cannot be equally placed with any closed source software, which can disappear with the collapse or acquisition of the company holding the software rights).

What I am sure of is that we will see changes.  Oracle has a strategy, or if it doesn’t, it will.  Some of these programs will likely see greater support and resources (hopefully OpenOffice), others will likely see less (hopefully none of them).  Some may become more focused towards a particular segment of the technology world (watch MySQL for this possibility).

Look at what you use, and recognize that today marks a turning point for some of the software.   Hopefully it is for the better.

found via TechCrunch and MetaFilter

I am playing catch-up in many areas right now, and as a result there hasn’t been as much activity here.  Hopefully the time of less activity has reached a middle…

An interesting new feature that has begun to appear in OPACs is the ability to send the location/call# of an item to your cell phone as a Short Message Service (SMS) text.  The Iowa City Public Library has implemented this into their Innovative (III) catalog, as you can see in this example.  It becomes the equivalent of writing yourself a quick note for when you are physically in the library to find the item.

While this service might seem to be targeted to a small portion of library users, I suspect that it is worthwhile to implement. if only because the people who will use it will find it exceptionally handy.

found via The Shifted Librarian

Saw a shelf browse created for an Innovative (III) OPAC that is quite neat.  It lives on a development site for the Cambridge Public Library in Ontario, Canada and integrates Syndetic Solutions book covers into a pseudo-shelf listing.  Here is a direct link to a record.

Note that this has been done without resorting to Flash.  Try turning off the page’s CSS and you will see that it works just fine (just with a different scroll direction).  The page’s html still doesn’t validate, but I suspect that there aren’t any III opacs that validate properly, though I hope to be proven wrong someday.

Someday libraries will collectively understand what a good API can do for our web presence, and then the ILS companies will improve their products accordingly.  At least I hope so….

thanks to Mike Cunningham for posting the link to the Innovative User’s Group list