[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Evergreen Newsletter, December 2008

[Karen Schneider]

 Evergreen Newsletter

*The newsletter for Evergreen open source library software*

Volume 1, Issue 2
December, 2008
The newsletter so nice, we publish it twice!

Thanks for the warm welcome to the first issue of the Evergreen Newsletter.
Does it need a better name? In any event, as a reminder, we will post this
newsletter to the Evergreen general discussion list (see all Evergreen lists
at http://evergreen-ils.org/listserv.php) and to the Evergreen blog (
http://evergreen-ils.org/blog ). Cross-posting and forwarding is encouraged.

In This Issue…

Evergreen Events, Evergreen Aggregator, Two Evergreen Releases, Z39.50
Targets, New OPAC Imminent, SOLINET Classes, Evergreen Conference,
Documentation Update, Evergreen on Facebook, Evergreen Down Under,
Newsletter Administrivia.
Save These Dates

*Evergreen at ALA Midwinter 2009*: There will be an Evergreen social
function (Birds of a Feather Nosh Together?) Saturday, January 24, 5:30 pm -
7:30 pm, at a very nice locale near the Denver convention center. We'll open
registration for this soirée in early December. For right now, if you would
like to RSVP email events at esilibrary.com


*Evergreen at Ontario Library Association 2009*: Expect a Birds of a Feather
get-together, plus enjoy the Evergreen-related programs.  Dan Scott has an
excellent post describing the Evergreen programs at OLA:

http://coffeecode.net/archivessoir%C3%A9e/171-An-Evergreen-track-at-the-OLA-SuperConference-2009.html

*NEW! Evergreen at Code4Lib 2009*: Evergreen developers and fanfolk will
surely offer a lightning talk or two and will host at least one Birds of a
Feather at this popular annual conference (see
http://code4lib.org/conference ). Note that Equinox Software Inc. is a proud
sponsor of Code4Lib at the Silver level ($2,500).

*Evergreen Conference 2009: May 20 – 22, 2009*. Our first global conference!
See more about this exciting event below.
Introducing a convenient aggregator, Planet Evergreen

The seemingly tireless Dan Scott of Laurentian University has created an
aggregator that pulls together feeds from various Evergreen-related
resources: http://planet-evergreen.coffeecode.net/  Consider this in "beta"
at this point and try it out, then let Dan know of any additions or changes
you'd like to see (denials at gmail.com). Bravo Dan! Also let Dan know if you'd
like to take responsibility for this feed (sprucing it up, maintaining its
feeds, etc.).
Evergreen 1.4 Marches On; 1.2.4 Released

The second release candidate for Evergreen 1.4—with the warm, cozy name of
1.4rc2—became available November 19th, 2008, and developers released its
Windows staff client shortly thereafter. The feature list is here:
http://open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=feature_list_1_4_0 See the
Evergreen download page, http://evergreen-ils.org/listserv.php for the
1.4rc2 source code, Windows staff client, and, courtesy of Dan Scott of
Laurentian University, this VirtualBox image of Evergreen 1.4rc2 on Ubuntu
(Hardy Heron).

Take 1.4rc2 out and give it a spin! The techspeditious among you will surely
download the code and look it over, but you don't need nerd credentials to
get a look at this bleeding-edge version of Evergreen. Just download the
corresponding 1.4rc2 staff client and point it against the development
server at http://dev.gapines.org.

One caution: the Evergreen staff client needs to match the server version,
so if you're exploring 1.4rc2 and you are already running an earlier version
of the Evergreen staff client, you may want to download the 1.4rc2 staff
client into a separate directory so you can keep your current staff client
running.

Also, on November 11, Evergreen developers released 1.2.4,
http://open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=feature_list_1_2_4 , the latest
current stable release of Evergreen, and probably the last significant
release in the 1.2 series. Features in 1.2.4 include improved low-count hit
estimations in the public catalog, the ability to charge deposit and rental
fees based on item configuration, and the ability to require staff
verification of hold captures during opportunistic (check-in time) capture
based on shelving location. Bill Erickson, a developer at Equinox,
commented, "We'll continue to backport relevant bug fixes as necessary."

1.2.4 is currently powering the Michigan Evergreen catalog, and is also in
use on the demo server, demo.gapines.org.
Wiki Update: Z39.50 Targets

A big heartfelt thanks to Melissa Belvadi, Emerging Technologies and
Metadata Librarian at the University of Prince Edward Island, for
contributing Z39.50 targets to the Evergreen wiki. See the targets here:

*http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=z39.50_targets *

If you have targets to contribute, post them to one of the lists, send them
to Karen, Equinox Community Librarian (kgs at esilibrary.com), or consider
requesting a wiki account so you can add and update them yourselves.
New OPAC Skin Imminent

As of this writing, a very attractive, user-friendly interface for
Evergreen's discovery layer (aka public catalog, aka OPAC) is very close to
debuting on the development server—by early next week, if all is well. A
HUGE thanks to Georgia Public Library Service, which is funding this design
work. Watch for the announcement!
SOLINET Evergreen Training Classes an Instant Hit

SOLINET's Evergreen classes and guided tours have been a smashing success,
thanks to members and support from Equinox/Evergreen. A number of students
have attended the online courses (Evergreen Circ and Evergreen Cataloging)
since these classes first launched in October, with reported great results.
The next scheduled class is Evergreen Admin and Statistics, to be held
online December 17th.


Every month, SOLINET also offers a guided tour and demo of
Evergreen—absolutely free of cost! Participants range from those who have
migrated to Evergreen and those who are interested in all Evergreen can do.

SOLINET is developing a new Evergreen class this winter: an advanced
cataloging class focusing on batch importing and buckets. SOLINET's
Evergreen instructors are Jennifer Bielewski and Jenny Liberatore. For more
information on classes, contract for classes, to recommend a class or
questions in general, please contact the trainers at 800-999-8558 or email
at jbielewski at solinet.net or jliberatore at solinet.net. They'd love to hear
from you!

For more about SOLINET's Evergreen training offerings, see:

http://www.solinet.net/Classes%20and%20Events/Tracks/Open%20Source%20Evergreen%20Software%20Track.aspx
Evergreen Conference, May 20-22, 2009

We won't rehash every detail in this blog post
http://evergreen-ils.org/blog/?p=176 , but the Evergreen conference planners
have a great line-up for this first-ever global Evergreen conference. The
conference will take place at the Classic Center in Athens, Georgia, a very
attractive university town with great restaurants and pubs, just one hour
from the Atlanta airport.

As planned so far, Evergreen conference activities include a day-long
hackfest, a vendor reception, three program tracks (Tech, Admin, and The
Front Line), keynotes, lightning talks, Birds of a Feather sessions,
networking dinners, pub crawls, and pleasantly long breaks between events so
you can network with friends old and new.

A webpage is imminent. Please do comment if you have questions about the
conference or events you'd like to see happening. Start thinking about the
hackfest, lightning talks, programs, Birds of a Feather, or other events
that YOU can make happen at this conference!

The 2009 Evergreen Conference is being jointly coordinated by Georgia Public
Library Service, Equinox Software, SOLINET, and several others in the
Evergreen community, including Catherine Lemmer of Indiana Evergreen.
Documentation Update

We have made progress on all four active documentation projects (more are
imminent). Soon notices will go out on the Evergreen discussion lists and
related lists requesting feedback on this documentation.

The four topics in work right now are reports, cataloging, acquisitions, and
the importer-exporter. If you would like to be included in reviewing drafts
of this documentation as it proceeds, watch the lists/blogs or reply to this
newsletter.

We continue to investigate using DocBook for the "formal" documentation and
appreciate the feedback we have to date for using this format.
Evergreen on Facebook

Evergreen has a Facebook group at the not-so-mnemonic address of
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6396639614 . We are now posting events
to this group, such as the Evergreen conference and the ALA Midwinter
get-together, as well as press releases for new Evergreen libraries and
systems and other related news. The group has over 200 members. If you're on
Facebook, join our group. If you aren't on Facebook and you don't think
you're the Facebook "type," give it a try. You might be surprised by who's
on Facebook!
Evergreen Down Under

Karen Schneider, Equinox Community Librarian, spoke about open source and
the history of openness in libraries at five state libraries in Australia,
crisscrossing this huge country with fellow presenter Lizanne Payne of
Washington Library Research Consortium. The "good news" of Evergreen was
well-received by librarians and library workers in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth,
Adelaide, and Melbourne. See the Evergreen Flickr set for pictures (
http://flickr.com/photos/evergreen-ils/ ) and why not share a few of your
own?
A Few Reminders

*Webinars and videos*: Don't forget the section on the Evergreen wiki devoted
to community-contributed documentation and
tutorials<http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=community_tutorials>.


*Evergreen 2.0*: As noted earlier, development for Evergreen 2.0 (planned to
include acquisitions, serials, and reserves) is on an intentionally slow
track through early January while the Evergreen developers focus on other
development priorities, but will resume production for a roll-out targeted
by late May, 2009. In the meantime, if you haven't done so already,
see the Evergreen
acquisitions roadmap<http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=acq:timeline>.


Evergreen also has a Flickr set and Delicious bookmarks:

Delicious: http://delicious.com/evergreenils

Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/evergreen-ils/
New Evergreen Libraries: Welcome Aboard!

Below are the newest Evergreen libraries — the Evergreen installations known
to have taken place in November, 2008. Also see the growing list of
Evergreen libraries at:

http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=evergreen_libraries

Michigan Library Consortium: Traverse City http://catalog.tadl.org/

British Columbia: Invermere http://catalogue.bclibrary.ca

If you'd like to follow along as libraries join the Evergreen community, you
can subscribe to the Equinox press release feed, which will announce most
known Evergreen implementations (or follow the Facebook group mentioned
above). The Equinox press release feed
<http://esilibrary.com/esi/news.rss>was recently tweaked to make it
easier to track and share the releases.
Newsletter Administrivia

Feel free to forward, share, etc.!

The deadline for the Evergreen newsletter is the last working day before the
first of the month… feel free to submit items earlier. The co-wranglers for
this newsletter are Karen Schneider, Equinox Community Librarian and John
Fink, Digital Technologies Development librarian at McMaster University.
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