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Kent County’s Quest, or, The Evergreen Fairytale. Karen Collier, Public Services Librarian Andrea Buntz Neiman, Technical Services Librarian. Once upon a time…. But What About…?. Consortial Capabilities Support & Hosting Costs Hardware Costs. $. Matthew, Birth and 1 Year.
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Kent County’s Quest,or, The Evergreen Fairytale Karen Collier, Public Services Librarian Andrea Buntz Neiman, Technical Services Librarian
But What About…? • Consortial Capabilities • Support & Hosting Costs • Hardware Costs $
The story behind the fairytale • We can’t make this stuff up! • Money is tight for everyone • Administrators need to do more with less • Private software firms have tried to expand profit margins (guess who pays for that?) • Our budget was a large factor in deciding to go with Evergreen
Open Source in Libraries • Howard County (MD) Public Library – makes wide use of Open Source in several areas • The Open Source movement and libraries share many concepts & ideals • Information access = free • Public domain = a good thing • Public knowledge = a better thing • Collaborative projects = go team! • More with less = par for the course
Common myths about Open Source • Too much of a “techie” thing • Truth : even beginners can do it! • Too fractured • Most OSS projects have standard versions • Too much work • Global community of support • Too “different” • “The way we’ve always done it” is no excuse
Advantages of OSS for Libraries • Cost savings vs. proprietary software • Flexible, user-centered development • Staff ownership of open source software • Giving back • Freeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!
Catalogers & OSS : a love story? • They say we’re compulsive, but we really just like things to be in order, and make sense • Many ILSs currently on the market are based on ideas & structures that are 20 or more years old (MARC is even older) • OpenGovInfo.net – 04/27/2009 – “Ten reasons why cataloging librarians make natural programmers”
Thick book Comfy pillows Cat 1, Miu Cat 2, George Happiness (my personal version)
Happiness (my professional version) • Evergreen 1.4 • Modern architecture that’s completely scalable, built using the Mozilla engine & OpenSRF • Intuitive staff interface that supports workflow • FRBR-ization (edition rollup) • Sophisticated & powerful context menus • Bookbags – for personal & professional use • Native z39.50 that doesn’t make me crazy • Importer that can handle batches • Batch deletes that don’t crash the system
Changes in Evergreen 1.6 • More highly customizable search interface • Scoped searches for electronic resources • Z39.50 holdings support • Holdings export on all record formats • Administrative UI improvements • Serials support & MFHD support • Acquisitions module preview
Open Source in KCPL’s future • Open Office • GIMP (photo editing software) • Groovix PAC (PC management) • Drupal (content management) • LibraryFind (federated search) • Maybe even full Linux!
Some of our favorite OS sites • Open-ILS, home of Evergreen • http://www.open-ils.org/ • Equinox Software • http://esilibrary.com/esi/ • oss4lib (Open source systems for libraries) • http://www.oss4lib.org/ • Open Sense Solutions • http://open-sense.com/ • Howard County PL Open Source Blog • http://hclibrary.org/opensource/
Thank you! • http://catalog.kentcountylibrary.org • Karen Collier, kcollier@kent.lib.md.us • Andrea Buntz Neiman, aneiman@kent.lib.md.us Original material in this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.