[OPEN-ILS-DEV] ***SPAM*** Evergreen Newsletter, January/February 2010

[Jason Etheridge]

 Evergreen Newsletter, January/February 2010

*The newsletter for Evergreen open source library software*

*Volume 3, Issue 1 – January/February 2010*

As a reminder, we post this newsletter to the Evergreen general discussion
list <http://evergreen-ils.org/listserv.php>, development list, and
the Evergreen
blog <http://evergreen-ils.org/blog/>. Cross-posting and forwarding are
encouraged.
 In This Issue

Evergreen Out and About, Evergreen Development and Documentation Update,
Evergreen People, Evergreen Libraries, Evergreen Jobs, Evergreen Statistics,
New Evergreen Libraries, Planet Evergreen, A Few Reminders, Newsletter
Administrivia
 Out and About: An Evergreen Calendar

Do you know of Evergreen events you’d like to share here? Please contact us
at newsletter at evergreen-ils.org
 Conferences

The 2010 Evergreen International Conference will be held April 21-23, 2010
at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids Michigan. The Conference
website contains general information, schedule, exhibitor information,
sponsorship information, a link to the Grand Rapids Convention and Visitors
Bureau, a link to the Amway for online reservations, and a link to the
registration site. Please join us for an exciting 3 days of learning,
sharing, networking, and fun in Grand Rapids! http://www.evergreen2010.org/

Equinox will be exhibiting Evergreen at
PLA2010<http://www.placonference.org//general_information.cfm> (booth
1407) in Portland from March 23-27, and also at
TLA<http://www.txla.org/conference/conf.html> in
San Antonia from April 14-17.
 ClassesEquinox

Equinox Software <http://esilibrary.com/>, Inc. is now offering training for
Evergreen users. For more information or to register, send an email to
training at esilibrary.com

Currently, Equinox Software is offering the following classes:

Acquisitions PreviewMarch 31 — 1pm-3pm EST

In this class, we will review the plans for the Acquisitions module, examine
current functionality, and tour the most recent development. This class
would be useful to administrators, prospective Evergreen users, and others
interested in Acquisitions development.

The Evergreen OPACApril 7 — 1pm-2pm EST

In this session, we will explore the Evergreen OPAC from the perspective of
both patrons and staff members. This class would be useful to front line
information services staff.

Circulation in Evergreen (Part 1)April 12 — 1pm-2:30pm EST

In this session, we will focus on patron services in the Evergreen
circulation module. This class would be of interest to front line
circulation staff.

Circulation in Evergreen (Part 2)April 27 — 11:30am-1pm EST

In this session, we will focus on item management in the Evergreen
circulation module. This class would be of interest to front line
circulation staff.

Booking in EvergreenApril 29 — 11:00am-12pm EST

In this session, we will focus on booking in Evergreen. We will discuss how
to create and pick up reservations for bibliographic items. We will also
discuss the reservation process for other item types, such as laptops and
meeting rooms.

Lyrasis

Evergreen Cataloging Module (Live Online)

3/3/2010-3/4/2010 2:00pm-4:00pm EST

Evergreen Administration and Reports Module (Live Online)

3/10/2010, 10:00am-12:00pm EST

LYRASIS <http://www.lyrasis.org/> (created from a merger of SOLINET, PALINET
and NELINET) has taught dozens of Evergreen classes. Lyrasis is dedicated to
training and instructing Evergreen, and they welcome your comments and
suggestions for courses. All of their current course offerings are
continuously updated, and Lyrasis plans to add more courses in the future.
For comments or questions, contact Lyrasis instructors
Jennifer.Bielewski at lyrasis.org or Jenny.Liberatore at lyrasis.org
 In the past, so how did it go?

* February 22, 2010 – Evergreen was the focus of an afternoon pre-conference
for CODE4LIB 2010 <http://code4lib.org/conference>.

* February 24, 2010 – Customizing and Extending Evergreen: a guide for
geeks<http://www.accessola.com/superconference2010/showSession.php?lsession=8&usession=8>
is
a half-day workshop that Dan Scott <http://coffeecode.net/> lead at the
Ontario Library Association Super Conference.
 Evergreen Development and Documentation Update New Releases

A new bugfix release of Evergreen, version 1.6.0.2, was released on February
18th. It includes many fixes and updated translations, including new
translations for English (UK), Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese. For a
complete list of the new fixes and features, see
http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=feature_list_1_6_0

On February 8th, a new version of OpenSRF was released, version 1.2.2, which
includes important fixes for high traffic environments. If you are running
Evergreen 1.6+ you are strongly encouraged to upgrade!
 A peek in the Trunk

This is a look at some of the current differences between trunk and the 1.6
branch. It’s not comprehensive. Most of these features need testing,
feedback, and/or polish, but may one day get backported to 1.6 or show up in
the next major branch release.
CatalogingBucket Notes

Toward allowing arbitrary notes for buckets and bookbags.
Copy Location Order

Allows you to define display positions for copy/shelving locations. No
longer has to be in alphabetical order.
Mint Condition flag for Holds and Copies

Optionally allows us to give a “good quality” or “mint condition” or
“pristine” or “complete with all pieces” type designation to items, and
allows holds to optionally be filled only by items in that condition.
Update leader in MARC record when deleting or undeleting the record

This sets the leader/05 appropriately.
CircAuto Checkout-attempt into renewal

If an item is already checked out to a user and the circulation is past a
configured auto-renewal interval, attempt to treat the transaction as a
renewal instead. Option for doing this with offline transactions as well.
Backdating

Action for backdating checkins that have already happened (e.g. checkin the
item, notice that you should have backdated, and then do so after the fact)

“Scan time” field shows the true time that an item was checked in,
regardless of backdating. We also record the specific workstation for all
checkins.
Billable Transaction Summary with Billing Location

An augmented view of billable transaction summaries. Toward filtering by
location in the billing interface.
Cap Max Fine at Item Price

Org-unit setting for capping fines at the item price. Existing Percent of
Item Price functionality for fine caps trumps this setting.
Circ Counts By Year

Reportable abstraction of this data.
Circulation “Chain” Summaries

In Evergreen, renewals show up as circulations, though you’re able to select
or filter for these based on renewal flags on the circs. Circulation chains
allow us to group together a logical sequence of original checkout and
subsequent renewals as one entity.
Circulation permit check based on claims returned threshold

Allows you to set a number for how many claims returned items are allowed on
a patron’s account before requiring override for new checkouts.
Circulation receipts

Can now include patron money summary information (amount owed, etc.) in
checkout receipts.
Credit Card Payments

We’re able to interface with Paypal for taking credit card payments.
Custom copy status for returned items

Allows you to designate a copy status for post-claims returned items.
Fine generation

An Evergreen installation normally has a periodic process for generating
fines. To supplement that, we now generate fines for a given circulation at
the time of checkin, to handle certain boundary conditions.
Floating Collections

Basic support for floating collections where items can stay where they land.
History Buckets

For supporting clearable patron and/or staff facing record of checkouts.
Hold Request Cancel/Un-Cancel

Interface toggle and related org unit settings for showing and manipulating
canceled holds.
Hold Request Notes

Free-text staff notes that can optionally be printed on hold slips.
Hold retargeting trigged by certain copy updates

Checks to see if an item status change warrants a retargeting of related
hold requests.
Negative Balance list

Dedicated interface for listing patrons with negative balances.
Offline username

Org-unit setting for treating patron barcodes in offline transactions as
usernames based on barcode format.
Patron Claims

Can mark a circulation as Claims Never Checked Out, which changes the status
to Missing.

Org-unit setting for changing the copy status to something arbitrary for
Claims Returned items.
Patron retrieval by internal ID

Config setting which allows retrieval of patrons by their internal DB ID.
Pending Patrons

Staging area for patron data from self-registration, migrations, external
systems, etc.
Pre-cat improvements

Circ modifier and ISBN field for pre-cataloged items. The circ modifier will
carry over when/if the item is cataloged. And of course, you can create
circulation rules based on an item being a pre-cat with consideration of its
circ modifier.

Org-unit setting for setting the circ lib of a pre-cat. For example, you
could checkout a pre-cat item at BR1, but have it’s circ lib be BR2, so that
upon checkin, it’ll transit to BR2.
Top of Queue flag for Hold Requests

Brings a hold to the front of the line, or at least next to other Top of
Queue holds.
MiscEvents interfaces

View (and in some cases Edit or Cancel) triggered events for patrons and
copies. These can include notices, etc.
Setting Types

Better support for defining/categorizing different user and org unit
settings.
Ubuntu Karmic

Pre-requisite installer target for Ubuntu’s Karmic Koala distribution.
Evergreen People

Dan Scott, Systems Librarian at Laurentian University, will be flying down
to Connecticut in February to teach Bibliomation staff how to write
postgreSQL queries for the Evergreen system. Dan is tailoring his lesson
plan to Bibliomation’s specific reporting needs. Dan will be contributing
his course materials to the Evergreen community. Class dates – February 18th
and 19th.

Bibliomation, King County Library System, the SITKA Libraries (British
Columbia), and the PINES Library System (GPLS) have partnered with the
Seattle-based web design firm, FGI, to develop some functional
specifications and a project plan for an Evergreen children’s catalog. This
catalog will have graphical images to guide children to the appropriate
reading material. FGI is the same company that KCLS is currently using to
design the new interface for the Evergreen adult web catalog. For more
information, you can email Amy Terlaga at Bibliomation (terlaga at biblio.org).
 Evergreen Libraries

The Ontario Library Association (OLA) awarded two of its 2010 OLA and OLA
Divisional awards<http://www.accessola3.com/index.php?app=blog&module=display&section=blog&blogid=9&showentry=681>
to
Project Conifer:
– The Ontario College and University Library Association (OCULA) Special
Achievement Award
– The Ontario Library Information Technology Association (OLITA) Award for
Technical Innovation

These rewards recognize not only on the partner libraries that are part of
Project Conifer, but the entire Evergreen community without which Project
Conifer could never have happened.
Evergreen Jobs

Equinox is currently looking for a Project
Manager<http://esilibrary.com/esi/careers.php>
.

Do you know of Evergreen related jobs that you’d like to share here? Let us
know at newsletter at evergreen-ils.org
 Evergreen Statistics By Bob Molyneux

*Summary Data for Evergreen Library Installations, by year* *
* *New libraries by year**
**
**New Public Libraries by year*  *
**Public Libraries* *
**
* *
**
**
**
* *
**Total**Systems* *Outlets**
**
**Systems* *Outlets**Pop served**Circulations**2006* 46248
452464,564,757 17,177,872*2007*4 8
4 867,658319,871 *2008*3989
3787962,758 6,943,043*2009*98 199*
*75 1491,687,92410,725,430 *
*






*Total Evergreen prior to 2010**187* *544*
*161* *490**7,283,097**35,166,216*

Evergreen has grown rapidly and I have been keeping track as best I can by
maintaining a list of the libraries running Evergreen that I can identify
and, where possible, integrating that list with published national-level or
provincial data.

The first table (New Libraries by Year) summarizes this growth. Bear in mind
that there are uncertainties about some details and most of the published
data are for 2007 so “outlets” (central library + branches + bookmobiles)
may have changed but the count of systems is current.

We can see here that in 2006, the first 46 (including the State Library)
systems in PINES migrated to Evergreen. There were 248 outlets by my
count—not org units as Evergreen users usually report.

2007 was a slow year—the calm before the storm—with 4 new public library
systems using Evergreen. This year also saw the first non-PINES libraries go
live in British Columbia in what is now called SITKA.

In 2008, the pace quickend with 39 systems and 89 outlets. The first
academics went live with Evergreen this year with the University of PEI.

2009 was crazy. 98 systems and 199 outlets ran Evergreen for the first time.
Conifer also went live so the number of academics also increased. Conifer
also has a number of academic special libraries such as health and law
libraries.

The total at the end of the 2009 was 187 systems and 544 outlets using
Evergreen.

Most of these are still public libraries. The second table (New Public
Libraries by Year) has some summary data from these public libraries. Public
library data are about the best we have; academic data are fragmentary.
There are two numbers that public librarians will cite: population service
and total annual circulations. What I have done here is to total these
numbers from the latest figures (mostly 2007) for the libraries using
Evergreen. 2007, as you can see had those four small systems go live. As I
have pointed out numerous times, the story of Evergreen is a story of small
public libraries but in a scalable environment. Each year since then, more
libraries, more types of libraries, and bigger entities have chosen
Evergreen.

Wait until this year: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
New Evergreen Libraries: Welcome Aboard!

* Natural Resources Canada Library <http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/library> completed
its second and final phase of their migration on January 15, 2010. Their 13
locations across Canada are now all running Evergreen.

* SC LENDS <http://sclends.lib.sc.us/> in South Carolina welcomed three new
libraries to their Evergreen consortium in January 2010: Anderson County
Library, Fairfield County Library, and Florence County Library.

* The Indiana Open Source ILS
Initiative<http://www.in.gov/library/evergreen.htm> has
already welcomed five new libraries to their Evergreen consortium since the
start of 2010: Greensburg-Decatur County Contractual Public Library, Kirklin
Public Library, Ligonier Public Library, Linden-Carnegie Public Library, and
Roanoke Public Library.

* Kirtland Community College <http://www.kirtland.cc.mi.us/> in Roscommon,
MI went live with Evergreen in January 2010.

* SITKA <http://sitka.bclibrary.ca/> in British Columbia welcomed the Mackenzie
Public Library <http://mackenzie.catalogue.bclibraries.ca/>into its
consortium on February 25, 2010.
 Planet Evergreen

Can’t get enough news about Evergreen open source software? Subscribe to or
read Planet Evergreen <http://planet.evergreen-ils.org/>, an aggregator for
Evergreen-related posts. Have a blog that talks about Evergreen? To add your
blog to the Planet Evergreen blog aggregator, send email to Dan Scott at
dan at coffeecode.net
 A Few Reminders

Evergreen has a Flickr <http://flickr.com/photos/evergreen-ils/> set and a
Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6396639614> group.
 Newsletter Administrivia

Feel free to forward, share, etc.! Jason sits at the top of the blame map,
but we have direct edits from:

Amy Terlaga, Bibliomation, Inc., terlaga at biblio.org

Dan Scott, Laurentian University, dan at coffeecode.net

Jason Etheridge, Equinox Software Inc., jason at esilibrary.com

Mike Rylander, Equinox Software Inc.

Warren Layton, NRCan Library / Bibliothèque RNCan

And special thanks to Sally Fortin and Bob Molyneux from Equinox Software
Inc. for contributions.

You can reach volunteer newsletter wranglers at
newsletter at evergreen-ils.org<newsletter at evergreen-ils.or>
Licensing

This newsletter is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
Share-Alike license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, which
is an open “copy-left” license similar to that used by Evergreen. If you
contribute content that is copyrighted or copyrightable, please let us know
if you do not agree to have it released under this license. Thanks!
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