1 / 12

New ILS Directions: Open Source Options

New ILS Directions: Open Source Options. Beth Longwell Sage Library System OLA/WLA Conference Vancouver/ Friday, April 26, 2013. About Sage. Library consortium of 75 academic, public, school, and special libraries in Oregon Consortia-wide resource sharing with courier service

lenka
Download Presentation

New ILS Directions: Open Source Options

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. New ILS Directions:Open Source Options Beth Longwell Sage Library System OLA/WLA Conference Vancouver/ Friday, April 26, 2013

  2. About Sage • Library consortium of 75 academic, public, school, and special libraries in Oregon • Consortia-wide resource sharing with courier service • Serving communities in 15 counties thus far • Shared governance and multi-level membership • Software support and training

  3. Sage Libraries

  4. Types of Libraries • 1 University library • 4 Community College libraries • 45 Public libraries • 23 Schools • 3 Special libraries (museum, medical)

  5. Why Open Source? • Improved data access • New features without a product/module purchase • More choices on how to spend limited budgets • Flexibility of software integration • Cooperative development partnerships

  6. Why Evergreen? • Reviewed Koha and Evergreen • Needed software that handled multi-type consortia • Needed software that featured high scaleability for future growth • Evidence of active development community and growing software adoption rate

  7. Things we learned • No matter how much you try to prepare there will be settings and configuration changes at go-live time • If your staffing is inadequate before migration, it will be more acute post-migration • To gain ground in the long-term sometimes it is necessary to take a couple steps back

  8. More insights • Making a change in your ILS is a good time to evaluate current policies and practices • More freedom in the budget stimulates discussion of direction – strategic planning • In our consortia we took a new look at governance structure and membership levels and made changes to strengthen the system

  9. Takeaways • Change can be positive but it isn’t always easy • To accept open source solutions you need to embrace the vision of what it offers and recognize that, like any software, it will improve over time. • Open source adopters have a strong voice in determining the ultimate product

  10. More takeaways • Don’t scale back to much at the front end – make sure your hardware is adequate • Recognize that it will take time to feel settled with the new system • Tap the resources that are out there. Don’t be shy to ask questions. All who consider and/or adopt open source ILS solutions have been where you are at one time.

  11. The Big Question If you had to do this over again, would you still go with Evergreen? Answer: Yes The system is not perfect (none are) and not everybody is happy, but the majority feel we made the right decision and that we need to move forward making things better for patrons and staff.

  12. Contact Information Feel free to contact me for additional questions: Beth Longwell blongwel@eou.edu 541-962-3867

More Related