Hoorah!

[altivo]

All over but the shouting. The library rebels win!

The Big Messed Up Consortium has backed down on virtually all its demands. They will allow us to break our contracts with them for online catalog services and remain with our existing system and provider. They will settle for a penalty fee about equal to our reserve fund, which has already been in their possession for almost three years so we will hardly miss it. They will return our servers and backup hardware.

The rock-headed consortium director suddenly changed his tune on Tuesday. I think he talked to a lawyer who advised him to give in because his chances of winning what he demanded in litigation were infinitesimal. That's what I've been saying all along. ;p

The majority of the libraries in our original group, prior to the forced merger that was started in 2004, will remain separate with us. Two tiny ones are going to stay with BMUC, and three larger ones (but two of those three have never been supportive of a good online catalog so we will hardly miss them.) This agreement requires ratification by the administrative council tomorrow, but they will almost certainly pass it on their director's recommendation and the lawyer's advice.

Time for a celebration. (Even though it's Wednesday, I have to work late, and I've got all those plumbing issues at home.)

Comments

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Hooray! I know that's what you've been hoping for, so yah for good news!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, life may settle down a bit now (I hope.)

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, one thing done, another appears in the wake.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

Does that mean it'll have to change its acronym to LMUC? (L for Little)

Hooray! A champagne toast for the horsie!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nope, they're still the BMUC. Nine libraries withdrawing from a group of 92 still leaves something much too large and unwieldy, which is part of their problem. (But no longer ours. Yay.)

Now we have to name ourselves. Somehow I doubt that LNLMUC (Little No Longer Messed Up Consortium) is going to fly. Neither will BMUC Jr.

[songdawg.livejournal.com]

How about "The Little Search Engine
That Could?"

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I like that concept, but probably not. There is apparently some prejudice against anything cartoonlike, and it lacks a pronouncable acronym or nickname.

On the locomotive theme, I think I'd go for Tootle, the bad little locomotive (the one who left the tracks to play in the meadow every day) but again, no cartoon characters. Alas.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

CIL
Consortium of Independant Libraries.

Other variations
Association of Independant Libraries "The AIL"
Amalgamation of Independant Libraries (but that's kind of a paradox I guess)
Plus then you can add the area the libraries service too, I think you're out of the Chicago area but if you were still part of that municipality you'd get something like CAIL (pronounced Kale) :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

AIL makes me think of "ailing" ;p

We're well out from Chicago, but even Chicago's own system, which used to be the CLS or Chicago Library System has renamed itself as MLS or Metropolitan Library System in recent years.

I could be tempted to propose YAHOOS but that's already trademarked...

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

How about something terribly generic like "The Library Network"?
Oh, wait, no. The Wayne-Oakland Library Federation changed to that one years ago. Imagine giving up an acronym like WOLF for *that*!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I definitely prefer WOLF. I wonder if I could manufacture an excuse for it?

Western Outlands Library Fellowship? That's a stretch I'm afraid.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Hooray!! Viva el revolution!!

Bask in the glory of victory for the future is bright, the plumbing leaking and the ducks frozen to the ground.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No frozen ducks. We've missed that particular entertainment this year.

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Viva Le Resistance!

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Viva La Revolution, even.

Viva paper towels....

[altivo.livejournal.com]

VaVaVoom! (Wasn't she a cartoon character?)

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I don't know, although I get a ton of hits from Google on VaVaVoom, but none of them seem to turn up a cartoon character.

Congrats on your victory!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I can't find the reference either. Of course it's an expression used to describe a slinky, oversexed female. But I seem to recall that an actual character appeared at least once. I want to say it was a female version of Bugs Bunny (or else Bugs himself in drag) who was introduced as Miss Vava Voom.

[dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com]

Congratulations.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It was a team effort, but I was definitely an "instigator."

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

Yep, congrats! Hopefully things will work a bit more smoothly in the future now, when those meddlers in between have been neatly removed. ^^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I just want to get off their mailing lists. For the last six months my mail has been full of duplicate copies of them arguing over nit-picky nonsense. As a "department head" I was forcibly subscribed to several lists. Often they duplicate pointless announcements to two or three of them so I get multiple copies of the same junk.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

Well, a couple well-crafted mail filters would probably handle that problem in the future... "When "meeting" in message from "Consortium", move to junk mail AND play a little happy melody". ;-)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Duh. You're right of course. I'm using Thunderbird at work, so I'm sure I can tell it what to do with those if they don't stop sending them.

Congrats

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry about the cartoon-phobia news. ;-) But MAJOR CONGRATS on pushing this and reminding the PtB aware that we *can* make it work. We're better off shot of those particular large libraries anyway....

Cat.
(and good luck with the plumbing issues...what a pain!)

Re: Congrats

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Congrats to you too. We're mighty glad you're still with us.

And we're all looking forward to getting off those irritating mailing lists where they repeat the same stuff over and over and over and over and...

[octatonic.livejournal.com]

Goooooo ALTIVO!

*applauds*

So can you still intra-library loan with those in that consortium
or is it a total break?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, we can still interlibrary loan with anyone. The mechanism for doing it changes a bit, but we can cope with that. In fact, we still are a "member" of the BMUC as far as the state is concerned. We just do not participate in their online catalog. So BMUC will have to continue to provide other services to us, such as interlibrary delivery, training classes, group purchasing, and so forth. I think we win all around.