[Dspace-general] Broad concept question

[Glenn Bunton]

If you will bear with me, I have a question only peripherally about Dspace
but one I think this community can really help me with.

I work in a general liberal arts university library so you know the
environment from which this question arises. Obviously in such an
environment the integrated online information system (online catalog) has
been the pre-eminent information access and management system in use. While
I don't know "real" numbers I suspect a significant, if not majority, of
similar libraries hold the same perspective of the online catalog being, if
not the be-all end-all information access system then at least being the
focal point for everything the library provides.

My question, then, is this. How does one answer the question of why
something like Dspace (or any other repository or information management
software) be used instead of just dumping everything into the online
catalog? Catalogers, of course, argue they can put anything into MARC with
a little effort and online catalog vendors are more than willing to sell
all kinds of add-on modules for big bucks that supposed do everything.

Thanks in advance for any ideas. I've been fighting this battle for years
and have run out of ideas of my own.

==================================
Mr. Glenn Bunton
Head of Systems Development
Old Dominion University Libraries
Norfolk, Virginia 23529
gbunton at odu.edu
(757) 683-5952
===================================