[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] 226 subscribers

[Don McMorris]

Oh, and did I mention I occasionally get long-winded in e-mails? ;)

On 3/22/07, Don McMorris <don.mcmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok Brad... Here it goes!
>
> My name is Don, in case you didn't know by the time you got here ;)  Well, Ok...
>
> I'm 20 years old, living in a rural town in upstate NY.  I work in a
> very small public library, and have since I started volunteering at
> the age of 12.  By small, I mean we serve an area having just under
> 1,000 residents, have a collection of about 18,000 items, and an
> annual circ of under 20,000.
>
> It has always been my belief that information should be free, both in
> ideas and in cost.  It was this that drew me to Linux when I was about
> 13.  I started with RedHat and Mandrake.  It really wasn't for a
> couple of years before I really adopted Linux, however.   At that
> time, I was using my residential broadband connection to host web
> sites for some of my friends.  One friend I met online used this to
> develop skills in PHP/MySQL, which he eventually used in a career.
>
> Outside of computers, I just started getting into amateur (ham) radio.
>  I am an Extra-class licensee, and am pending application for a 1x2
> vanity callsign (my current assigned callsign is KC2QHO).  I would
> eventually like to get into HF work for DX, but for now I am primarily
> on 2m using a repeater.
>
> Anyway, back to Evergreen. In late 2005 I believe it was, I was
> looking for an ILS so that I could automate my personal collection and
> share it.  Now, I don't have a huge collection, but what I do have I
> think can be somewhat rare for the libraries' in the area (can you
> believe there isn't enough space!?!).  Examples include manuals and
> books for outdated products (IE: I have a manual set for NetWare 3.11,
> 2 complete sets of AutoCad R12, plenty of Windows 3.x/DOS guides,
> books about the Internet when the Internet was a luxury item, and the
> like.
>
> Well, here's what my requirements were... Free of cost, functional,
> not very resource-intensive (could dedicate a server, but of fairly
> low power), have a Z39.50 server, support multiple libraries/branches
> w/independent policies (for potential expansion), and some other
> things.  Here's what I tried...
> -> Mandarin M3: The base (cataloging, standalone PAC, circ, etc) was
> free.  However, added functionality (such as Z39.50 server and web
> OPAC) were pay.  Also, it was Windows-only, and I was planning to
> become a Linux shop.
> -> Koha: I tried the stock Koha, but there were some issues.  In
> general, it worked OK... however, there were some language issues that
> I didn't like.  Also, some of the functionality didn't seem to work as
> it should.
> -> A few others, which didn't work well at all
>
> I eventually came across Evergreen in some online article.  At the
> time, it was still being developed (I think Alpha came about 4-6
> months later).  The description of it was a well fit into what I
> wanted.  I felt it had the potential to shake the ILS industry.  In my
> opinion, it was worth waiting for.  I attempted a few installs and
> have helped some others.
>
> I do lack a good understanding of programming, so unfortunately I
> cannot contrib greatly.  However, on occasion, I will correct some
> documentation in the dokuwiki.  For some initial installation issues,
> I can help out.  Call me the first tier of support, if you will.
>
> You can find me monitoring (and occasionally contributing to) the -Dev
> and -General lists.  I am also in attendance of the IRC Channels
> #OpenILS-Evergreen, #GAPINES, and #Code4Lib on the Freenode network.
>
> See you around!
>