[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Greetings -- I have a question...

[Don McMorris]

Hi Vic.  I've addressed the issues after the questions.

On 12/29/06, Vic Kelson <vic.kelson at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am not from a library, but I am an experienced
> Linux/MySQL/PostgreSQL/Perl/C/Apache person (and the author of a GPL'd
> groundwater flow model code). I'm fascinated by your project. After
> reading about Evergreen, I have an idea for an application that's
> probably outside your experience. Basically, I want to know if this is
> even possible.
>
> Our family lives in Bloomington, IN, a progressive town very similar
> to Athens (we have several good friends in Athens, the "Bloomington of
> the South"). We're also active in our community; I've just been
> elected to local office, and my wife is working on global warming and
> other issues. We have a _lot_ of books and other media in our two-Ph.D
> home, and some months ago my wife started me working on a database of
> all those resources (I've been an SQL admin since the late '80s).
>
> We are members of an eclectic group of home-schoolers, and when my
> wife mentioned that I was building a database, other families were
> immediately interested, and particularly wanted to share resources.
> When I saw the Evergreen software described at LinuxToday, I had an
> idea...
>
> Can we use Evergreen to build a "community library system" of sharable
> resources among a group of interested participants? I envision an
> "interlibrary loan" arrangement between families, as opposed to
> libraries. I've looked at the descriptions and the end-user demo, and
> the whole system looks very promising. I'm sure I have the computer
> skills to deploy the software, and I have access to a place to host a
> server, but I need to know if it's even worth trying:
This is something that can absolutely be done.  It is something I've
been considering also, but haven't taken the time to start yet.

>
> How hard is it to enter the data? I assume there's an editing facility?
A copy of the staff client for demo is available at
http://www.open-ils.org/cvs.html.  After you download, the hostname
for the current stable demo is demo.gapines.org, and the hostname for
the "bleeding edge" development cluster is dev.gapines.org.

There are facilities to enter data in the staff client.  Evergreen
uses MARC21 bibliographic data format, which can seem complex but
allows extreme flexibility.  Evergreen also supports the Z39.50
protocol, which would allow you to download bibliographic records from
remote systems.  The Library of Congress offers free access for a very
large amount of bibliographic records.  OCLC offers a subscription
service for bibliographic records, and many libraries offer Z39.50
interfacing (but may not be allowed to offer access for bib record
sharing due to vendor contract).

>
> Would I need to deploy multiple instances on multiple servers, or can
> I deploy several "libraries" on a single server? Remember, our
> activity levels will be small, at least initially.
Several libraries can be entered on a single system.  If volume
exceeds the single server, clustering is very very simple because of
the OpenSRF system (also developed by the GA PINES staff for
Evergreen).

>
> Can a mere mortal like me make this thing work? I'm not a Library
> Science guy, but I have three friends who are, and I'm sure at least
> one of them would be willing to help.
Getting the system to work shouldn't be much of an issue for you.
Once running, some of the terminology may seem alien, but is easy to
adjust to.  One of the biggest issues for a non-librarian I would
guess is the bibliographic record entry and maintenance.

>
> Anyhow, please let me know if I'm barking up the wrong tree (wouldn't
> be the first time). If I think big, I can envision a community of
> users, not just our home-school bunch, who are willing to share their
> collections of books and other resources. A distributed community
> library... wouldn't that be great fun?
Evergreen is made for big thinkers!  Your plan is something I've
dreamed of also (a system for community-area "home users" to share
their resources simply).  Depending on how far you would like to share
your items, you may even eventually consider lending items via
Inter-Library Loan (ILL) so that other libraries can request your
items or even joining an ILL consortium such as OCLC.

>
> THANKS for listening! At any rate, your system looks very good -- keep
> up the good work!
That they will!  If you have any further questions/comments/etc.,
please contact the list again.

> Vic Kelson
>

--Don