[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] congrats Natural Resources Canada

Tue Jan 26 14:02:55 EST 2010

Hello Tara,

I can't comment in any detail about other department interest (I'm liable to put foot in mouth), but let's just say that there's some interest, and I'm willing to bet that at least one other shop comes on board with either a silo or shared EG implementation within 2 years or sooner. IMHO, the big challenges in the federal system relates to the relative sense of disempowerment that many libraries seem to have vis a vis their technology decision-making, as well as the relative lack of support offered to those who see business justification for using open source.  Add to that the usual faulty pre-suppositions about "risk" and other "fear factors" PLUS a challenging procurement environment, and you have lots of gridlock and/or 'default' commitment to the existing ILS in use. [1]

We have some unique circumstances here at NRCan that have helped us along more than other shops, but I am feeling pretty confident that much is and will be changing in how GC.CA uses open source. I think that there's a cultural shift in the works, but also think that all of the social and collaborative software that has been implemented across departments in the last few years has got to have changed some minds ("hey, free software works!"). The proliferation of wiki's & blogs and the like are all on OSS platforms, Drupal is taking off in several *big* departments (including DND and here at NRCan) and we have our social platform for all Federal government employees ( "GCConnex") now running running on open source Elgg - http://elgg.org/. [see also 2] 

There's even some very interesting - but still nascent -- moves toward government-wide computing platform infrastructure and cross department collaboration projects being implemented. And open source figures prominently in every one that I'm aware of (e.g. GCConnex, GCpedia, IRCan.gc.ca, etc.). But still a long way to go IMHO...

Cheers,

George

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[1] FYI - there are 4 departments with *active* ILS RFPs nearing completion. IMHO, open source ILS will not figure into any of those shops selection for reasons I won't get into here.

[2] eg.  

http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/fap-paf/oss-ll/position-eng.asp
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/02/canadian-government-eyes-open-sources-asks-for-feedback.ars
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3659/196/

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From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Tara Robertson
Sent: January 26, 2010 12:50
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] congrats Natural Resources Canada

Hi George,

Any rumblings in other federal government department libraries about what you've done? Are folks supportive, do they still think you're nuts?

Having all the federal departmental libraries on the same ILS would make it much easier to move things around when the departments are rejigged. Not only would it be cheaper (and therefore better stewardship of taxpayer money) it would be much more practical, easier (and cheaper) for library staff to make the libraries reflect the new department boundaries.

Good luck with the Drupal stuff too!

Tara

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 6:02 AM, Duimovich, George <George.Duimovich at nrcan-rncan.gc.ca> wrote:

	Thanks Tara!

	Yes, we are now 100% Evergreen ILS, having migrated from both Unicorn and more recently Millennium in the context of our department's library amalgamation (we used to be a consortium of 3 library networks serving different sectors, but now operate as single business unit).

	Our contributions to the French language edition (working with Dan Scott) should pick up later on for the new content strings (e.g. Acquistions module, etc.) as the migration itself was a bit of a handful especially going from Millennium. But it feels good not to be working all those late hours!

	Next on deck: our Drupal launch this Spring, so I'd be interested in hearing from anybody working on Drupal + Evergreen integration.

	More updates from NRCan in one of the upcoming EG newsletters.

	Thanks to all for making this community rumble!! 

	George Duimovich
	NRCan Library / Bibliothèque de RNCan 
	http://catalogue.nrcan.gc.ca/

________________________________

	From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Tara Robertson
	Sent: January 26, 2010 00:28
	To: Evergreen Discussion Group
	Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] congrats Natural Resources Canada

	I didn't see an announcement on this list, but stumbled across this on the page of Evergreen libraries (http://open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=evergreen_libraries)

	Natural Resources Canada Library migrated their locations across Canada in two phases. Nine of their 13 libraries migrated to Evergreen as of June 8, 2009, and the rest went live on January 15th, 2010.

	Awesome! Congratulations! I can only partially imagine how much work it would've been to migrate from two different systems, in two official languages, across 5? (5.5?) time zones, for a government department that was also overhauling their cataloging processes.

	tara

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