I am at the NISO OpenURL/Metasearch Workshop, and in almost every way it's going well. I don't have a whole lot to say about the workshop content itself. It's very informative and helpful, but I've really got nothing of value to add or comment upon.

Except one thing.

Today was "Metasearch" day and just after lunch was a panel presentation of David Lindahl and Jeff Suszczynski of the University of Rochester Libraries and David Walker of Cal State San Marcos Library on "Innovative uses of Metasearch". And these are two inspirations in the field of metasearch development. Anyone with a metasearch engine (and, sadly, I am not one), please look at these schools' work in regards to how they are leveraging their metasearch implementations.

Both of them spoke at some length about what sorts of incredible engineering feats that they had to accomplish to overcome the shit environment that we have found ourselves electronically. During the Q&A session, Peter Noerr, of MuseGlobal (a vendor), basically admonished these three visionaries because vendors are creating tools to do all of the work that they are doing.

Are you kidding me? They are doing the things that they are doing despite the fact that vendors make it damn near impossible for us to easily provide these services.

There was a very thick tension that set upon the room at this point. You could almost sense that the librarians, finally driven to the edge by their corporate masters, were ready to rise up, break the chains and slay the dragon that torments them so.

Almost.

But then, we're librarians.

And the tension passed.

And then we had a nice break. No chairs were thrown. No blood was let.

Oh well, maybe next time.