[Eg-oversight-board] Koha going Next Gen

Wed Dec 4 13:35:56 EST 2013

Hi Stephen,

I'm a bit perplexed by many of your comments.  I know you're often inactive
in the meetings and may have missed much of what is going on so I'd like to
review a few things to make sure we're all on the same page.  I also don't
see your communications often between meetings so I'm glad to see you pop
in.

I've been an advocate for a more leadership role oriented board since I
began and pushed quite heavily for a change in direction at the last
conference.  It's been less than a year and I've seen change.  While I
would like more progress than we've had I also recognize we have a lot of
inertia to overcome and glad we have continued to make progress.

For the record, the community doesn't need a board.  I think the board can
add a lot of value though.  I think we can help the project achieve more
including reaching new users.  I think we can help remind people that what
is not in their immediate interests (say integration of academic features)
may be in their bigger picture interests.  I've held a contrary opinion to
some that we can do more than remind folks but also go after the grants and
organize funding actively.  In conversations with many of the board members
both within and outside meetings I know this desire to have the board help
the community and move the software as a project forward is fairly common
if not universal.

Kathy and I have both together and separate tackled looking at resource
challenges.  This work is still ongoing including looking at grant
opportunities.  I'm not going to rehash all of them here.  At the last
meeting Kathy also recruited more people to look at grants with us and I've
recruited folks to look at merchandising opportunities - to be honest that
is more for intangible benefits than revenue stream but it won't hurt.

Conversations about how to best proceed with a leadership role led Ben to
proposing the stakeholder meeting which has been broadly supported and
sounds like a good avenue for you voicing your vision.  I should also say
that I share many of your interests there and have been vocal about them.
I agree with many of the particulars.  I have wanted the board to help the
community lay out a long term vision for Evergreen and take an active role
in making goals get accomplished.  This is a radical change for the board.
The laying of the road there may be slow but is getting laid.  So, I agree
on many points and I want to acknowledge good work that has been done by
folks who have been present and contributing at every step.  I point out
Ben and Kathy because they are on the top of my mind but there are others
as well.  I'm not apologizing or justifying the slow pace.  I often work 60
- 80 hour weeks.  I know at least a few others do as well.  Almost all of
my community driven time is on my own time and unpaid.  I've let things
lapse on occasions and have always felt bad about it so I'm part of the
things occasionally getting dropped but I'm here more often than I'm not
and try to push things forward even if it's in a small way.

And I suppose I do take some umbrage with the tone of your email.  It's a
bit incendiary.  It's critical.  And I don't see you putting into the
community between your infrequent emails.  I take umbrage for myself and
others on this list.

Now, we come to the details where I think I disagree with your position.  I
don't think it's the board's role to lay out that vision entirely itself.
I do think we can be facilitators.  I think we can help provide some
shape.  But we are a community driven open source project and only as
powerful as our community engagement so anything we do must build on that
and encourage it further.  Analogies to PTFS, which is a company, and their
contracts, for building what is essentially a closed source fork of an open
source project are flawed at best.  I hold this ground as firmly as I have
the stance opposing a past proposal of your's to have the board appoint
release managers.

Sincerely,

Rogan

On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 5:11 PM, Elfstrand, Stephen F <
stephen.elfstrand at mnsu.edu> wrote:

>  I saw this announcement in the Library Technology Guides published by
> Marshal Breeding.
>
>
>
> << 2013-11-09. US Federal Government awards multi-million dollar,
> multi-year contract to LibLime and PTFS for Koha.  [PTFS] LibLime, a
> Division of PTFS, has been awarded a multi-year, multi-million dollar prime
> government contract for the implementation, software development, and
> support of Academic Koha. Under this project, LibLime and PTFS will deploy
> a *completely web-based next generation ILS platform that manages
> bibliographic and digital collections from a single dashboard*. The
> discovery layer for this platform can search and retrieve on: metadata in a
> variety of formats; full-text documents (electronic content and
> OCR-generated content); geospatial coordinates; and unstructured data
> files. The presentation layer brings resources of various material formats
> from disparate collections quickly to the researcher’s desktop. LibLime and
> PTFS specialists will work closely with government staff to replace their
> legacy commercial bibliographic cataloging system. LibLime has extensive
> experience in implementing, supporting, and developing on the Academic Koha
> platform. LibLime will implement Academic  Koha and enhance functionality
> based upon specific requirements identified by the government. LibLime will
> then support the system over the five year period of performance of the
> contract and provide additional functional enhancements in future
> increments.
>
> Full Announcement:
>
>
>
>   http://www.librarytechnology.org/ltg-displaytext.pl?RC=18587  >>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Evergreen competes with not only Koha but commercial systems as well. I
> have been advocating for some time that we need a product management
> strategy to develop Evergreen into a “Next Gen” system. A development
> agenda that goes beyond the needs of the existing user base and appeals to
> libraries of all types and sizes. One that integrates next gen features
> such as a Knowledge Base for OpenURL linking and ERM, a Discovery layer,
> etc.
>
>
>
> I have suggest that we work with OLE to incorporate their Open Knowledge
> Base, and Villanova to use VuFind as the Discovery Layer rather than create
> our own new OPAC. (It’s fast, using SOLR, it integrates well with Summon or
> other Web-scale discovery services though APIs, and it’s mobile friendly
> too!) Other suggestions include an NCIP gateway, a patron API and updating
> system for college libraries, and better Authority control.
>
>
>
> To accomplish this we need product strategy.  My suggestion is that the
> Oversight Board is the body that should make this happen. To do so it will
> need funds to sponsor strategic development. I have suggested that a
> membership fee could be a source of these funds and that voting on
> community business should be tied to membership. As a public entity, I can
> pay a membership fee but I cannot just donate to worthy causes.
>
>
>
> The announcement shows that LibLime Koha is going  “next gen”. I think
> that Evergreen needs to as well. Most of the discussion on this has been on
> the EOB list so far. The response I’ve received to my ideas has been rather
> tepid, most seem to think that Evergreen is doing just  fine. I think that
> the alternative to a forward-looking product management strategy is to have
> Evergreen stay in the ”last gen” library system category, and be known as a
> good system for smaller and mostly public libraries that don’t think they
> need all the bells and whistles of a next gen system. Eventually Evergreen
> could be eclipsed by OLE, Alma, Intota, and other next gen systems, and
> soon even by Koha.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Stephen F. Elfstrand
>
> PALS Executive Director
>
>
>
> ML3022
>
> Mn. St. Univ. - Mankato
>
> Mankato MN 56001
>
>
>
> 507.389.2000
>
> http://www.mnpals.org/
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> eg-oversight-board mailing list
> eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org
> http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/eg-oversight-board
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://list.evergreen-ils.org/pipermail/eg-oversight-board/attachments/20131204/611c91bb/attachment.html>