Nashville Hosts Sirsi Users

CEO Patrick Sommers kicked off Sirsi's users' group conference on Sunday, February 27, by characterizing Sirsi as not merely a software company but as "a long-term technology partner" for libraries. He committed the company to delivering on its strategic vision: improving both the experience of users and the productivity of libraries. Sommers sees librarians facing several challenges, including the diversity of communities they serve, the web, differing expectations of NextGen users, managing collections and materials selection, and budgets.

Keynote speakers included best-selling author David Baldacci, who discussed global literacy; Mary Lee Kennedy, executive director of the Harvard Business School Library, who addressed information use; and Stephen Abram, Sirsi's VP of innovation, who looked at the competition libraries face.

The four-day conference, which drew more than 1000 attendees, reinforced Sommers's vision of Sirsi by offering a mix of presentations: some addressed big-picture issues about libraries, society, and technology while others focused on specific Sirsi products. The biggest buzz was over the vendor's Normative Data Project (see LJ 2/15/05, p. 24), which takes transaction-level data and associates it with geographic and demographic data to create industry norms on transactions, circulations, and other measurements.

A two-day "executive track" focused on the information consumer. Lee Raine, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, discussed the social impact of convergence in technology, "when everything meets everything." Raine believes librarians are well positioned to own this digital future because they can manage information, grasp standards, and assess content.

He challenged libraries to be the "watchdogs of this new system," evaluating, for example, how search engine algorithms work and leading the debate on copyright. Other speakers included Michigan State's senior information technologist Rich Wiggins, who updated participants on the impact of wireless technologies.