My colleague and I have been discussing library management systems and we have agreed that if we were running the library of a large organisation we would us an open source system like Koha. Librarians often forget that a library management database is just basically not much different from any other databases and there are millions of customer interfaces and stock management databases and database experts in the world so it is not that much of a specialist area. It seems to us that outsourcing your LMS is outsourcing your core expertise. If the LMS is unsatisfactory then it is the responsability of contractors to fix it not you, which is a great comfort to library managers however is not necessarily a good attitude to have since really it is the responsibility of the managers and they have contracted out that responsibility to others who may or may not be reliable and have the same agenda or priorities as the library.
Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance is one of my favourite books and in it Robert Pirsig argues that you should always take the time to learn how to mend your own motorbike because anyone can do it if they take the time and trouble to do so and consider it a priority, and nobody can understand and mend your own bike as effectively as you can. Library systems are like motorbikes, they are pretty vital and it is worth ensuring that a team of people in your own organisation has the skills to understand them and tinker under the bonnet. Moreover they are much easier to build than motorcycles and a really good team could probably knock one up themselves starting from scratch in a couple of months. And there is no necessity to start from scratch.
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