Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Dear EXLIBRIS-L:
As a current student in a MLIS program, the trend of outsourcing libraries and companies such as LSSI are a bit disconcerting to me and my future. I am trying to learn more about the company, LSSI, but the deeper I delve the more perplexed I become. Does anyone know the origin of the company, as well as the source(s) of their current funding and operation? From what I can tell, the Follet Publishing Company is a big player in creating this service but I can't find any information on LSSI from the Follet websites. This conversely holds true with the LSSI website.
Being a newbie to the information industry, I don't know the history behind the varying forms of Follet (Follet Corporation, Follet College Stores, Follet Publishing Company, Follet, Foster and Company, Follet Software Company,BWI), and what I found was not from Follet websites. Is LSSI one of the many divisions of Follet? Dare I say, is Follet becoming the Wallmart of the publishing and ILS industry?
Adhering to the adage, "there are two sides to every story," I welcome feedback from all sides. Is this good? Is this bad? Or, is it just plain ugly? If this discussion is inappropriate for the listserv, please respond to me off-list.
Links to Follet history:
{http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Follett-Corporation-Company-History.html}
{http://www.careerbuilder.com/Jobs/Company/C27M36YW8KX4FWK87W/Follett-Corporation/}
Follet branding:
{http://www.follett.com/index.cfm}
{http://bwibooks.com/}
{http://www.fsc.follett.com/}
{http://www.sagebrushcorp.com/}
LSSI:
{http://www.lssi.com/index.html}
Many thanks,
Bridget Sullivan Whittenberg
MLIS Student. Expected graduation - Summer 2008
bwhitten@du.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Menec <menecraj@SHAW.CA>
Date: Thursday, November 29, 2007 7:37 pm
Subject: [EXLIBRIS-L] Outsourcing Libraries
To: EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
> http://onthecommons.org/node/1226
>
> Outsourcing Libraries
>
> by David Bollier
>
> On The Commons (November 06 2007)
>
> There may be no more eloquent statement about the erosion of our civic
>
> connectedness than the news that public libraries around the country
> are
> starting to outsource their daily operations. Yes, public libraries
> are
> being privatized. This should not be entirely surprising, given how
> jails,
> highways and even military operations are being privatized these days.
> Yet
> it does raise the distressing question - If libraries are vulnerable,
> where
> will this momentum for dismantling our civic institutions end?
>
> Julia Silverman of the Associated Press reports {1} that about fifteen
>
> cities and towns around the country have outsourced their libraries by
>
> signing on with Library Systems and Services, Inc (LSSI), a privately
> held
> Germantown, Maryland, company. Among the cities that have privatized
> their
> library management are San Juan and Leander in Texas; Redding and
> Moorpark
> in California; and the Jackson-Madison County library system in Tennessee.
>
> The reason given for outsourcing library services is always the same:
> cost
> savings. But rarely do calmer-minds-in-charge stop to ask how those
> savings
> are achieved and what they communicate to the public. The first step
> in
> privatization is the hiring of new employees and the laying off of
> existing
> public employees and union members. LSSI also shortens library hours,
>
> sometimes dramatically. To reap new efficiencies, one can imagine a
> standardization of book acquisition. Will the new management really
> care
> about local needs and sensibilities?
>
> The biggest loss from privatization may be the changed image of the
> public
> library. A civic institution serving public needs becomes a
> quasi-business
> dedicated to profit. That, in turn, changes our commitment to it.
> Would you
> volunteer and sacrifice to help out a local library that is run by an
>
> out-of-state corporation?
>
> "This is a shift from the public trust into private hands", one
> librarian
> lamented after his library was privatized. "Libraries have always been
> a
> source of information for everyone and owned by no one". Libraries are
> not
> just another "cost-center" on a budget sheet; they are symbols of a
> community, democratic culture and equal opportunity. The privatization
> of
> libraries symbolizes our political unwillingness to provide for the
> common
> good.
>
> Most cities and towns have financial troubles at one point or another,
> and
> any responsible government has to make ends meet. But it is telling
> that
> this necessity is not being met with belt-tightening or higher taxes -
> or
> some other community-based solution - but with a surrender of the
> institution itself to a private contractor. Our problem may not be
> with
> municipal finances per se (although much could be done there), but
> with our
> waning sense of the commons ... at least, in fifteen cities and towns.
>
> Link:
>
> {1} http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20071005/a_libraries05.art.htm
>
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