[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Late Bloomer

[Don McMorris]

Hello!

The great thing about Open Source is, you can change it as you need!
If you find your patrons need a different interface, you can make it!
You aren't locked in to a proprietary design that has minimal
customizability. If you so desire, you can freely create a whole new
PAC without (intellectual property) restriction! Heck, if you wanted
to, you could run several PACs (say, one that's extremely easy to use,
one that's "typical", and one for "power users").

Also, keep in mind that because you can download, administer, and
support your own install, you aren't forced to! If you DO want to take
it on yourself, there is plenty of free help on our mailing lists and
in our IRC chat rooms (#OpenILS-Evergreen on Freenode).  But, if you
want the peace-of-mind that comes with an expert on a retainer, there
are companies that will support Evergreen professionally.  And, if you
don't want to worry about anything, some companies will even host
Evergreen for you and take call of all the back-end (all you have to
worry about are your records!).

I personally look forward to your contributions! I'm sure there are
many others who are also.  I just want to take this opportunity to
reiterate some of the many ways contributions can be made (there's a
LOT more than just code!).  One example is the Wiki
(http://www.open-ils.org/dokuwiki/).  Development is so rapid that the
documentation will occasionally fall behind.
If you're a "techie" but not a programmer, try installing Evergreen a
few times.  Installation is probably the most difficult part of
Evergreen, and the more people providing feedback on it will mean a
better installer.
Just USE Evergreen! If you spot something wrong, let us know! Maybe
something doesn't quite work the way you think it should? Perhaps
there's something that could be improved? Just drop us a line!
Have a good memory? Keep an eye on the mailing lists.  It's fairly
common on many discussion lists to get repetitive questions.  If you
recognize a repeat and remember when/where you probably saw it,
mention it!

When it comes to these lists, please Be Bold everybody! You aren't
proposing marriage... you're asking a question or making a comment!
There's no stupid questions, and there's nothing to fear.

Thanks for your input Heidi (and sorry I deviated a little bit to make
a broadcast!).  Looking forward to working with you on the lists in
the future.

--Don

On 4/24/07, Heidi (Faculty) Johnson <HJohnso2 at css.edu> wrote:
> Hello!
> The snow is almost gone and tulips are taking the chance to emerge here
> in northern Minnesota, and I have finally worked up the courage to reply
> to Brad LaJeunesse's request for listserv participants to identify
> themselves. My name is Heidi Johnson, and I am a librarian at The
> College of St. Scholastica. I mainly work with students at the reference
> desk and do class presentations on library resources; however, I am also
> earning my second master's degree in Computer Information Systems. One
> way that these two skill sets intersect is with the OPAC, and I have
> been interested for awhile with how the OPAC can interact more
> effectively with patrons.
>
> In addition, Minnesota colleges and universities have been migrating to
> Aleph, an Ex Libris product, to much disappointment. The final straw
> came several weeks ago when they tweaked adjacent phrase searching to
> include "!0" between terms (for example to search for wild rice together
> as a phrase, the search string would be wild!0rice - now try teaching
> that to a group of freshman! :) Needless to say, PINES is an absolute
> dream, and I have been showing it off every chance I get.
>
> At any rate, the stars aligned for my master's thesis, and I have been
> earnestly studying everything I can about open source and advanced
> database techniques and planning how we might be able to actually adopt
> Evergreen here at our college. My fellow librarians, library director,
> master's advisor, and other groups on campus have shown me much
> encouragement and willingness to help out as time and ability allow.
>
> In short, I have really enjoyed reading the listserv comments and
> learning from them. I am hoping to contribute in whatever way I can. So
> far (as required of me for my thesis), I have been very thorough in
> project management and systems analysis and depending on how far we are
> able to go, I think other interested libraries could adopt these
> documents and work off of them for their own implementations.
>
> Finally, I am planning a trip to Georgia this summer and would really
> appreciate the chance to meet with people on this project as well as
> interview staff and patrons at a public library. Does anyone know how I
> might be able to arrange this? Thank you very much for any help.
>
> Sincerely,
> Heidi Johnson
> Assistant Professor
> Librarian
> The College of St. Scholastica
> hjohnso2 at css.edu
> (218) 723-6488
>