Map of/Excerpts from Sept. 2, 2014, Interview of Jorge Fernandez and Randy Menakes
Link to complete unedited audio recording of interview
(There seem to be problems with moving to a different place in the recording under Chrome; IE and Firefox are OK.)
We apologize for the restaurant background noise -- though it at no point drowns out the foreground conversation.
[Highlights
h:mm:ss
0:06:40 Northwestern-Venezuela Project (to produce Venezuela National Bibliography) (1978)
0:11:40 Jorge: hand-written documentation: “given keys to copy machine”
0:24:10 Diana (Jorge’s wife) “had vision that Venezuela was not going to be good for kids in the future”
0:28:30 Jerry: “You can’t imagine how shocked I was when you came to Evanston on day one with your wife and seven kids!”
0:33:20 Earthquakes
0:37:00 Randy: “… how kind of collegial that whole time was”
0:38:50 Randy at Wayne State; U. Windsor “in meltdown”, works all night to fix
0:43:30 Jerry: KeyNOTIS “If anything went wrong (hardware/SSX), I had to handle it”
0:47:10 “Jerry M.”: Jerry S., in clown costume, has to fire
0:54:00 Why was NOTIS as successful as it was?
1:00:20 Randy: “How gracious Jim Aagaard and Velma were in just handing it over….”
1:04:05 Jerry: Jane: “good manager; brilliant marketer;…”
1:20:00 National Library of Venezuela still using NOTIS in 2012 ]
Complete map/excerpts
h:mm:ss
0:00:00 Intro
0:00:00 Jerry [Link to Jerry’s history]
0:00:50 Jorge
0:04:50 Randy
0:06:40 Northwestern-Venezuela Project (to produce Venezuela National Bibliography) (1978)
0:11:20 Jorge becomes involved (1979); comes to Evanston
0:11:40 hand-written documentation: “given keys to copy machine”
0:12:10 NOTIS installed (temporarily) on service bureau computer
0:13:40 NOTIS installed in newly-constructed Data Center in National Library
0:15:10 1983 NUGM
0:18:20 Randy’s first day on job
0:19:25 Randy’s first solo install (UT—EL Paso; VSE/SSX)
0:21:20 Jorge starts as VSE Systems Engineer
0:24:10 Diana (Jorge’s wife) “had a vision that the country [Venezuela] was not going to be good for kids in the future”
0:26:00 Jorge offered job
0:28:00 Jorge and family move to Evanston (Nov. 1985)
0:28:30 Jerry: “You can’t imagine how shocked I was when you came to Evanston on day one with your wife and (I believe) seven kids!”
0:31:00 “I’m surprised how much of a distinction there was between MVS and VSE Systems Engineers”
0:32:30 Rapid growth (1985-8); how incredibly busy we were
0:33:20 Jerry experiences Whittier earthquake on NOTIS business in Long Beach (1987);
0:34:20 Jorge, Randy earthquakes
0:37:00 Randy: “… how kind of collegial that whole time was”
0:38:50 Randy at Wayne State; U. Windsor “in meltdown”, works all night to fix
0:39:40 UTD asks Jorge to configure VM; “I had to get the VM book and start learning how to do it”
0:41:30 printed dumps sent by customers; difference in Support, then vs. now
0:42:15 Randy: first encounter with World Wide Web; John Kolman
0:43:00 Jorge: TCP/IP vs. SNA
0:43:30 Jerry: KeyNOTIS
0:44:30 “If anything went wrong (hardware/SSX), I had to handle it”
0:45:30 Wisconsin KeyNOTIS sites; tape problems
0:47:00 Jorge: installing KeyNOTIS at Mt. Angel Abbey (in Oregon)
0:47:10 Jerry M.
0:47:10 Jerry S., in clown costume, has to fire
0:48:20 came well-recommended
0:48:40 lures Jorge to strip club
0:50:20 “disappears”; couldn’t reach him; “tardiness”; “knee problem”
0:52:00 Randy: “that was one of the smartest moves you ever made” (giving Jerry M. $20 for cab fare … to get him to leave)
0:52:30 Randy: “I thought he’d been in jail.”
0:54:00 Why was NOTIS as successful as it was?
0:54:50 Randy: “Really good statistics”; ARL statistics
0:55:30 “RLIN capabilities”; GTO
0:56:00 Cataloging/Authorities especially strong
0:57:50 Jorge: “NOTIS was originally developed not for selling;… developed for library’s needs”, over 12 years
0:58:40 Other universities’ development of local systems; very few made it….
1:00:20 Customer contribution to NOTIS programs/functionality
1:00:20 Randy: “How gracious Jim Aagaard and Velma were in just handing it over….”
1:02:00 Jerry: “They never had the goal or envisioned system being used all over the country.”
1:04:05 Jerry: Jane: “good manager; brilliant marketer;… has some very big fans among customers”
1:04:30 Doris pinning day-glo superball to map showing where Jane was; “dot party”
1:05:40 Reasons for NOTIS’ outperformance
1:06:30 Jorge: Aagaard forced to write system very efficiently
1:09:30 Jerry: Public libraries … “not worth the trouble”
1:10:00 Patuxent River Naval Air Station
1:12:00 Shared IBM MVS computers
1:13:30 Other important things:
1:13:30 Jorge: “Service we were providing them;… very personalized service”
1:14:20 Randy: “Always standards-based”: MARC/MARBI, AVIAC, RSS
1:15:00 Jerry: Really good software companies have really good customers
1:17:40 Randy: RSS; “RSAS”
1:20:00 National Library of Venezuela still using NOTIS in 2012
1:21:20 expixtech
1:23:30 <end>