[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Holding Subfields

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi Don,


On 01/31/2015 05:50 AM, Donald Butterworth wrote:
> I must have been really tired yesterday, since I danced all around it 
> but never specifically said ... can we please, please, please, include 
> the ISBN as one of the Holding Subfields of the Provider record, and 
> use it when populating the PO. Please.

Maybe?

Evergreen is an open-source system, which means it's possible to add any 
new feature you need or want, provided that it is implemented and coded 
well. Getting community consensus around the new feature, especially if 
it is a large enhancement (I wouldn't consider this one to particularly 
large) also helps.

However, saying please on the mailing list is probably not the most 
effective means of getting your wishlist feature added to Evergreen. I 
won't say it never leads to the new feature. In fact, one of the first 
e-mails I sent out to this list asking for feedback on a new feature 
(improved support for LC call number sorting) was one that made it into 
the code within a matter of weeks. However, this feature was one that 
was of interest to Evergreen developers who also worked at institutions 
with LC call numbers and had already been planning to do this work.

You have to remember - our small developer community is primarily made 
up of two different groups of developers. We have our "volunteer" 
developers. I put "volunteer" in quotation marks because they really are 
working for a library organization when they work on Evergreen. 
Therefore, much of the work they do for Evergreen is directly related to 
the needs of their own library organization.

We also have developers who work for companies or are self-employed and 
do development on a contract basis.

It's not to say that these developers won't do work that's outside the 
scope of what they've been hired to do. It happens quite a bit, either 
because its best for the future direction of Evergreen or is a feature 
they just want to see happen or because it's a small bit of work for 
something that's a clear win for everyone.

All of the above is just a long way of saying the most effective means 
for getting your wishlist feature into Evergreen is to a) hire somebody 
or grow talent within your own organization to start making small code 
contributions to the project or b) allocate a small portion of the funds 
budgeted for your previous ILS' maintenance contract to hire private 
contractors to implement development projects that meet the needs of 
your library. We have a list of companies/developers that work on 
Evergreen available at 
http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=faqs:evergreen_companies.

Kathy