[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] The Evergreen of the future

[Jason Stephenson]

On 03/22/2013 01:09 PM, Elfstrand, Stephen F wrote:
> Here's some ideas for discussion.
> -Improve the image and reputation of Evergreen with better QA and
> packaging of complete releases with comprehensive upgrade scripts and
> documentation (see my Latest openILS posting)

Nothing is stopping anyone from participating in these efforts. Feel
free to join in and help. We're mostly a community of volunteers doing
these things. If Evergreen is lacking in these areas, it is because
there is not enough volunteer time to do all of these things in a timely
manner.


> -NCIP will save ILL staff 30-40% of their time interacting with their
> regional resource sharing gateway, it's being tested and beginning to be
> used, but let's include it in the Evergreen releases!

Actually, we're working on that, and if you'd like to see it happen
sooner rather than later, you can put some resources toward it.

> 
> -OLE & Koha are there  ways to cooperate with them? Can the library
> community really support 3 different Open Source library systems?

The international library community can probably support more than
three, and there already are more than three, though most are fairly
small projects.

We do cooperate with Koha. Many of the developers hang out online with
the Koha crowd to see what they are doing. There has been some cross
pollination of ideas and code. Notably, a Koha developer is looking at
importing Evergreen's query parser into Koha.


> 
> -Develop an  OPAC that can be used as a common interface to Web Scale
> Discovery Systems (PRIMO EDS, Summon)  using the APIs
> 
> -Can we create virtual Union catalogs with other Evergreens using API?
> 
> -Add a Patron load API which is -  critical for Academic libraries
> 
> -Course Reserves, E-Reserves access control  - critical for Academic
> libraries
> 
> -RDA Issues

The answer for each of the above is the same. Offer up a plan and
resources, either personnel or money, to get the work done. Nothing is
stopping those who are considering Evergreen from contributing before
they adopt Evergreen in production. In fact, MassLNC was formed before
any of the three consortia had officially chosen Evergreen, and put
money toward Evergreen development before the first consortium was live
on Evergreen.


> 
> -How will Evergreen compete with or evolve into a next gen
> (cloud-based?) system like Intota, ALMA and OLE, Sierra, OCLC etc.?

Whenever a service has the word "Cloud" in the title, I tell people to
replace it with "for Dummies." The cloud is just the mainframe all over
again. With the added benefit of you giving all your data away to
someone else. If you're comfortable with Google or Amazon or whomever
having possession of and control of your data, by all means go for it.


> 
> -Serials & Acq & the OLE Open KnowledgeBase how can we incorporate ERM
> and OpenURL functionality INTO the Evergreen of the future for
> format-independent selection, acquisition, licensing and access control.
> 
> -Ability to accept OpenURL ILL or borrowing requests
> 
> -Linked data models of the future
> 
> -Authorities -  after we get the string matching version working
> correctly let’s look at using  linked data for this.
> 
> -Resource delivery outside my Evergreen instance & ILL - Where is
> FulfILLment and how should it integrate with Evergreen?'
> 
>                 I've never understood why it is a "separate" project. If
> it is open source why isn't it being discussed in the Evergreen user
> community?
> 
> ISO ILL

Again, plans and resources are needed. None of this is happening without
direction and commitment from the whole community. If you want to see
something happen, then you are going to have to make it happen. That is
the way this works. There is no larger organization looking out for
anyone's interests here. It is the closes thing to a free market that
you're ever going to see. You will need to look out for your own
interests. You will need to do more than just advocate for a feature or
whatever. You will need to provide resources to see that your goals are
reached, or your goals will not be reached unless they happen to
coincide with the goals of someone who is actually doing the work.

In case it needs to be said, the above are my own opinions and not
necessarily those of my employer. However, my employer has 35 heads and
as near as I can tell, it has about as many different opinions on every
topic.



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> Comments appreciated
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> Stephen F. Elfstrand
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> Member Evergreen Oversight Board
> 
> PALS Executive Director
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> ML3022
> 
> Mn. St. Univ. - Mankato
> 
> Mankato MN 56001
> 
> 507.389.2000
> 
> http://www.mnpals.org/
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-- 
Jason Stephenson
Assistant Director for Technology Services
Merrimack Valley Library Consortium