Ian, This issue came up with Evergreen recently and someone suggested creating an "Vendors Module." They wrote up how it would work....maybe some useful ideas there.
See http://egdev.mvlcstaff.org/Vendors_Module Lori =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lori Bowen Ayre // Library Technology Consultant / The Galecia Group Oversight Board & Communications Committee / Evergreen (707) 763-6869 // [email protected] <[email protected]>Specializing in open source ILS solutions, RFID, filtering, workflow optimization, and materials handling =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 2011/11/5 Ian Walls <[email protected]> > Dear Community, > > > In the last few months, I've seen more and more interest in developing > Koha support for integration with third-party commercial services. These > services usually require some kind of special coding to achieve that > integration, instead of using a global standard for data transmission. To > be fair, I think this is often because there IS NO global standard for the > kind of data they want to transmit. But I'm still wary of this. > > All the external services we have now (Amazon, Babelthèque, Baker and > Taylor, Google, Library Thing, Novelist Select, OCLC, Open Library, and > Syndetics) are very self-contained; they have system preferences which just > control whether or not a block of HTML/Javascript API code gets put into > the template. This is pretty benign; it's template code and some database > data (nothing structural), and can be completely disabled if the > preferences are turned off. This seems like good integration to me. > > But other services require something a bit more heavy-weight. Things that > would involve writing a fair block of Perl code, or altering Koha's data > structure to store a new kind of information (new table columns or tables, > instead of just entries in existing tables). Changes like this concern me, > particularly if the service requires a subscription, is > geographically-limited or has closed licensure. Perhaps I'm just being > paranoid, but it seems that if we start letting these external services > influence the development of Koha, we could eventually wind up with an ILS > that is no longer in the interest of the global community. > > Am I being crazy? Is this a valid issue? Are the advantages of being > able to talk to more external products greater than the risks of a few > specific company's products getting hardcoded into our ILS? > > Thanks for any feedback you can provide, > > > -Ian > > > > _______________________________________________ > Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org > [email protected] > http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha > >
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