[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Late Bloomer

[Dan Scott]

Along the same lines that Don has expressed, Art Rhyno and I recently
gave a presentation (1) at the OLITA DIgital Odyssey conference in
Toronto, Ontario on Evergreen. My part of the talk focused on the
business case for adopting an open source library system (2). An open
source library system might not make business sense for every library
- but it's incredibly important that the decisions we make be based on
sound business reasoning and a good discussion of the pros and cons of
the different options we have for library systems today.

1. http://odyssey2007.wordpress.com/2007/04/22/art-rhyno-and-dan-scott-on-evergreen-notes
2. http://coffeecode.net/archives/123-Evergreen-and-the-business-case-for-choosing-an-open-source-ILS.html

Dan Scott

On 25/04/07, Don McMorris <don.mcmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Lynne:
>
> The beauty of full-blown Open-Source software is community
> contributions.  Right now, the majority of Evergreen is coded by the
> small team of full-time developers and a project manager.  However,
> community input is appreciated, and is starting to become more and
> more popular as of late (if you look at the -dev list, you'll see some
> recent bug reports and fixes being sent in).
>
> Suggestions of improvements are always accepted! A small list of the
> more major enhancements is posted at
> http://www.open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=development_proposals , a
> list of "software bounties" is at
> http://www.open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=sofware_bounties , the
> feature request procedure is at
> http://www.open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=pines:feature_request_procedure
> , and the contribution procedures/conventions is at
> http://open-ils.org/documentation/contributing.html .  As always, you
> (or anybody) is welcome to ask as many questions as you want to either
> of our lists (whichever you feel is more appropriate for the topic).
> "Have you considered..."-type questions are no exception to this!
>
> >From the beginning, Evergreen was designed for scalability.  Of course
> you can use a single server for a single location library.  But, the
> system has no problem supporting a system with hundreds of branches!
> PINES, for example, is more than 250 libraries all running on
> Evergreen.  If you need more capacity, you can add more "cheap"
> commodity computers to the cluster.  No need for a huge, proprietary
> server!
>
> Also, being open source, if there's something that doesn't suit your
> particular library quite right, you are free to change it!  You aren't
> forced to file a request for enhancement with your proprietary vendor
> and hope they build it in eventually... you can actually add it
> yourself!  Or, if a particular module doesn't function in the most
> efficient way for your configuration, you're able to change it!
>
> Now, I've pushed a lot about how YOU can modify and control your
> system however you please.  But, if something goes wrong, you are NOT
> ALONE!  A common misconception with Free Open Source Software is that
> nobody is there to help you if it hits the fan.  But, with Evergreen
> (and many other Open Source projects), there is a user community to
> offer help and companies you can contract with for service.
>
> So, for example, if you can no longer check out items (oh dear!), you
> can call a service vendor for this product to figure it out for you.
> Many will offer flexible service contracts to keep your system
> maintained and to begin troubleshooting/fixing the system within a
> certain period of time if something were to go wrong, or you can
> purchase service as-needed by the hour.  In this aspect, you have the
> support that you get with a proprietary ILS (dare I say, even BETTER
> support), but you don't HAVE to use it if you don't want it.
>
> One more thing before I go... you do NOT have to be a code-junkie to
> use Free Open Source Software such as Evergreen (this is another
> common misconception about Open Source).  Go ahead and take it for a
> testdrive! The Online Public Access Catalog for PINES is at
> http://www.gapines.org, or at http://dev.gapines.org for the "bleeding
> edge" development version.  To try out the staff client, you can
> download a copy at http://www.open-ils.org/cvs and connect to the
> "stable" demo (demo.gapines.org) or the "bleeding edge" demo
> (dev.gapines.org).  A list of valid demo usernames and passwords is
> available at the same page you download the staff client from.
>
> Thank you for your e-mail to the list.  Please don't hesitate to ask
> us any more questions you may have!  We're more than happy to answer
> them!
>
> Sincerely Yours,
>
> --Don McMorris
>
> On 4/25/07, Lynne Welch <welchly at oplin.org> wrote:
> > Heidi - and anyone else who would care to venture an opinion, please do
> > chime in!
> >
> >     Yesterday I attended a meeting of Ohio librarians regarding the
> > feasibility of adopting an Open-Source ILS throughout much of the state,
> > especially for small to medium-sized libraries affected by the recent
> > SIRSI Horizon decision. My question to you-all is:  if the librarians
> > got together and prepared a list of must-have's and would-like's, would
> > it be feasible for a group of masters-level students and teachers at
> > either one or several state-funded universities to collaborate on a
> > tweaked version (for example of Evergreen) that would work for various
> > sizes of libraries throughout Ohio?
> >
> >     For example, Kent State offers a partnership program between the
> > schools of Library Science and those involved with Business Management
> > and Computer Science, leading to an advanced degree in "Information
> > Architecture and Knowledge Management" -- what would be the likelihood
> > of several classes and faculty working together as a requirement of
> > graduation, to maintain, upgrade and monitor developments elsewhere
> > vis-a-vis Evergreen? They would get real-life experience, the library
> > community would achieve a usable system at a lower cost than paying
> > developers (and possibly with the added benefit of knowing that the
> > school is not likely to close its doors without sufficient advance
> > warning to its clientele) - and since our (the public's) tax dollars pay
> > for the schools, the schools could provide a useful service that would
> > allow libraries to spend more of their tax dollars on equipment,
> > materials, and overhead. A win-win solution, to my way of thinking.
> >
> >     But since I'm not an academic, and my understanding of the work
> > involved in coding is at a minimal level, I wanted to solicit the
> > opinion of Those Who Know These Things ;-)      before I propose it to
> > our State Librarian and the people at the library school for
> > consideration. What do you-all think?
> >
> >
> >       Lynne
> > Lynne Welch
> > Herrick Memorial Library
> > Wellington OH USA
> >
> > Heidi (Faculty) Johnson 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
> > >
> > >
> >
>