[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] May 2012 Evergreen Newsletter: Conference Edition

[Lori Bowen Ayre]

Excellent Amy!  Thanks for pulling all this together and for doing it so
promptly!  I'm still not caught up from being away!

As I read this, I realized there was probably lots more that people might
want to contribute to the collected stories about the conference.  Can we
add this as a blog post and invite comments there and here?

Lori


On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Amy Terlaga <terlaga at biblio.org> wrote:

> Hello, friends – here is our May Evergreen Newsletter:  Conference Edition
> ****
>
> ** **
>
> Amy****
>
> ** **
>
> May 2012 Evergreen Newsletter:
> Conference Edition****
>
> ** **
>
> Two-hundred-and-seventy-one members of the Evergreen community convened in
> Indianapolis during the last week of April for our fourth annual Evergreen
> International Conference.  This was a sizable increase from last year’s
> number of 180 attendees.  Our community continues to grow up and out, with
> representatives from Mexico, Finland, the Netherlands, Canada, Wales, and
> the U.S. in attendance.****
>
> ** **
>
> Jim Corridan, Shauna Borger and their crew from the Indiana State Library
> kept us all busy, informed, and entertained during the four days of the
> conference.  Here are some of the highlights:****
>
> ** **
>
> Hackfest / Interest Group Day (Wednesday)****
>
> ** **
>
> The Wednesday Developer Hackfest proved to be very fruitful.  A number of
> projects were tackled including making Syndetics content appear in TPAC and
> a Mexican-Spanish translation of the catalog.  Dan Scott showed the others
> how to sign off on patch contributions, too.****
>
> ** **
>
> The Documentation Interest Group (DIG) meeting was led by *Yamil Suarez*of Berkeley College of Music in Boston.  DIG is looking for proof-readers
> to review the documentation that has been approved for the website.   If
> interested, you can email documentation at evergreen-ils.org.****
>
> ** **
>
> IN THE SPOTLIGHT:  Reports Interest Group, by Jenny Turner, PALS
> Over 30 individuals interested in reports in Evergreen met ; attendees
> were from a variety of libraries with various experience using Evergreen's
> reports interface. ****
>
> Meeting attendees broke into groups according to interest.  Jenny Turner
> (PALS) convened a Q&A session for Evergreen Reports newbies and
> investigators.  Jessica Venturo (Bibliomation) lead a group that discussed
> staff client report ideas, new features in 2.2, and brainstormed items to
> add to the Taskforce's wish lists<http://open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=evergreen-reports:taskforce_wish_lists>.
> Amy Terlaga (Bibliomation) met with current and interested SQL reporters to
> share ideas on how this form of reporting may be used.****
>
> Following the small group meetings, Darrell Rodgers of Emerald Data
> Systems shared wireframes of development his company intends to do for GPLS
> to create a user-friendly interface for management-level reporting.  These
> wireframes are now available on the Evergreen website:
> http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=evergreen-reports:reports_wireframes.
> ****
>
> Notes from the Reports Interest Group's meeting will be made available on
> the Reports Taskforce's website in the near future.  Watch the Evergreen
> General<http://libmail.georgialibraries.org/mailman/listinfo/open-ils-general>and
> Reports<http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evergreen-reports>mailing lists for news about our upcoming meeting - all are welcome!
> Interested in learning more about our work?  Contact Jenny Turner at
> reports at evergreen-ils.org. ****
>
> ** **
>
> Conference Opening Remarks:  The State of Evergreen (Thursday)****
>
> ** **
>
> IN THE SPOTLIGHT:  The State of Evergreen, by Tara Robertson, Systems and
> Technical Services Librarian, Emily Carr University of Art + Design
> I was asked to participate in The State of Evergreen because of the unsung
> heroes project. I loved the series of blog posts that Chris Cormack has
> been doing to highlight Koha community members and adapted his idea for the
> Evergreen community. I learned two things. First, people were reluctant to
> promote themselves and write bios listing all their accomplishments. I
> shouldn’t have been surprised by this. It was more effective to ask
> someone’s coworker, colleague or boss to highlight their contributions. I
> like that our community values humility, but know that most people enjoy
> being recognized for work that they are proud of. Second, some people felt
> that the work that they did was insignificant and not worthy of being
> recognized. Almost all of these people were women who had been nominated by
> other people in the community. After an email or two all of these people
> agreed to be profiled. I want to help foster a culture where we recognize
> and value all sorts of contributions that are key to making the community
> strong, sustainable and an enjoyable place to be. What do you want this
> community to look like? Why do you put your time and energy into making
> Evergreen better? ****
>
> ** **
>
> User Programs (Thursday and Friday)****
>
>
> The user programs were varied, covering a wide range of topics –
> everything from “Evergreen Basics” for newbies to the nitty gritty of
> circulation rules settings with “Down the Rabbit Hole: In-Database Approach
> For Circulation/Hold Policy Configuration.”****
>
> Tony Bandy of OHIONET had this to say about the Template Toolkit OPAC
> Customizations: Nuts and Bolts program on Friday:  "Learning about the
> Template Toolkit OPAC and all of the coming options for our consortium,
> (COOL, http://www.cool-cat.org), I'm excited about the many changes on
> the way."****
>
> ** **
>
> IN THE SPOTLIGHT:  PROGRAM - Resource Sharing in Evergreen
> Grace Dunbar, Tara Robertson, and Mike Rylander teamed up to discuss the
> many different Evergreen objects that could be shared, both within your own
> library system and beyond, with the whole Evergreen community.  Especially
> exciting was the announcement that Equinox will be establishing a central
> object sharing service that they will host for the community.  Objects such
> as report templates and serial prediction patterns could be uploaded and
> downloaded whenever libraries wanted to share the fruits of their labors.
> Pending some development in the related Evergreen modules, the link to
> this shared server would be seamless; if a library searched for a report on
> their own server and did not find it, they could automatically be directed
> to the shared server.  There will also be a built-in description and rating
> system to ensure that well designed templates and reports are more
> discoverable.****
>
> ** **
>
> Team Indiana is in the process of collecting all PowerPoints from the user
> programs.  You will be able to eventually find them by starting here:
> http://evergreen2012.org/conference-programs-posted-on-blog/****
>
> ** **
>
> Fun in Indy****
>
>
> There was no end to the good time fun during the evening hours; when the
> sun went down, the dine arounds, receptions, good drinks and good
> conversation could be had by all.  One of the big hits was the Friday Night
> Pub Crawl which began at The Ram Brewery, with a surprise private brewery
> tour.  Participants learned about specialty brewmaking with exotic
> ingredients like bacon.  No bacon beer was left to partake, as
> unfortunately it had a very limited run due to its overly aggressive bacon
> mouth feel.  The night ended at The Slippery Noodle where a blues band
> played into the wee hours, leaving Matt Carlson of KCLS to tweet, ”Band at
> the Slipperynoodle tearing the Blues up right now, amazing. Think i've
> found the best place in Indiana”****
>
> ** **
>
> Board Update / Developer Update / Community Meeting (Saturday)****
>
>
> Elizabeth McKinney led the Evergreen Oversight Board update which included
> the introductions of the new Board members Rogan Hamby, Kathy Lussier, and
> Ben Hyman.****
>
> ** **
>
> Galen Charlton, assisted by most of the Evergreen developers, did a bang
> up job with the Developer Update.  He explained that Evergreen releases
> will all now have release managers and that Evergreen 2.2.0 will released
> by June 8th.  He also explained the Evergreen developers’ participation
> in the Google Summer of Code project which will lead to some really nice
> customizations when the individual projects are completed.   (Look for more
> information about the Google Summer of Code project in an upcoming
> newsletter, later this Summer.)****
>
> ** **
>
> IN THE SPOTLIGHT:  Community Meeting, by Lori Ayre, The Galecia Group****
>
> Lori Bowen Ayre led the community discussion.  Topics discussed included
> finding ways to break out of the various “silos” the various Evergreen
> committees and groups find themselves working in. For example, developers
> tend to communicate on the IRC and the developers mailing list.  Plus there
> are special mailing lists for DIG, the Web Team, Report Task Force, the
> Oversight Board and (just announced) Catalogers. Also, many libraries are
> gathering info about development work that they may undertake in the future
> and sometimes there are duplicate efforts underway. Some working groups
> didn't have any structure (e.g. a mailing list or working area on the web)
> such as translators and Sys Admins.  And in some cases, we just plain
> needed more people involved (e.g. on QA and user interface).  ****
>
> Ideas for improving the feedback loops between various community members
> that have arisen during the course of the conference are:  get the
> newsletter going again (this will be implemented), do more community IRC
> meetings, establish a community manager/coordinator, have the Release
> Managers and Maintainers communicate more frequently on the General Mailing
> list (this will be implemented), rework the website on a platform that is
> easier for everyone to contribute to and which provides targeted areas for
> communication and resource-sharing among and across all the different
> working/interest/user groups.  An offer to host a "Technical Share Server"
> by Equinox kicked off a lively discussion about the need for libraries to
> step up and provide some community services  for ourselves.  ****
>
> There was general consensus that we need to find a way to find a way to
> connect the silos and keep relationships with everyone in the community
> clear, transparent,  productive and consistent with our values. ****
>
> But what are our shared values? Here's what came up from the group:
>  openness, transparency, collaboration, sharing, respect, all contributions
> are valued, creative ways to do old things, creating a quality experience
> for patrons, the guiding principle is the user (where the users are patrons
> and staff).  Also, to be crazy awesome!****
>
> The Web Team was tasked with sorting out the differences between "Interest
> Groups" and "Working Groups" in terms of their purpose, what resources are
> set-up for them (e.g. mailing lists, website space, wiki space).  In
> addition, the Web Team will stage a proof-of-concept website using Drupal
>  to provide the communication and information resources (or at least a
> place for them) needed by all the users identified during the Web Teams
> needs assessment work (many of which are represented by the "silos"
> discussed earlier).  The goal would be to make the website easier for all
> the user communities  to find what they need, to communicate with each
> other and with the larger community, and to share resources with one
> another. The new Drupal stuff would not replace the wiki, just supplement
> it. The community will be asked to provide feedback on the proof-of-concept
> site offered up by the Web Team.****
>
> Finally, the group decided that a community purpose statement will be
> drafted by a group of volunteers for feedback by the community.  Volunteers
> were John Houser, Angela Kilsdonk, Jed Moffitt, and Beth Longwell.
>
> ****
>
> That’s it for this conference edition.  I’ll end with a couple of quotes
> from two conference attendees:****
>
> ** **
>
> “[I ] took away several things of value: new contacts who I can go to for
> information, and who in return can come to me; the opportunity to help out
> Equinox with their Millennium connector for Fulfillment, and important
> information on networks and how they interact with Evergreen.” – John
> Boggs, Peninsula Library System****
>
> ** **
>
> "From keynote to classes and even after hours, being at the Evergreen 2012
> conference helped me to become more familiar with the system and the great
> contributors to the project." – Tony Bandy, OHIONET****
>
> ** **
>
> Registration is already open for the 2013 conference in Vancouver, British
> Columbia:  http://eg2013.evergreen-ils.org/.  See you all there!  ****
>
> ** **
>
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>
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>
> +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+****
>
> Amy Terlaga****
>
> Assistant Director, User Services****
>
> Bibliomation, Inc.****
>
> 32 Crest Road****
>
> Middlebury, CT  06762****
>
> 203-577-4070 x101****
>
> www.biblio.org****
>
> ** **
>
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