Librarians Stake Their Future on OSS 178
Systems Librarian writes "Linux.com is running a story entitled 'Librarians stake their future on open source'. It details a group of librarians at the Georgia Public Library Service that have developed an open source, enterprise-class library management system that may revolutionize the way large-scale libraries are run. The system is Evergreen. The element of this project that has the participants especially excited is the speed. Previously, if users wanted changes to their systems, they'd be put into an 'enhancement queue'. Now, some features are implemented overnight. From the article: 'In fact, the catalog has many features and innovations that are lacking in non-free systems. It does on-the-fly spellcheck and gives search suggestions and adds additional content, such as book covers, reviews, and excerpts. The Shelf Browser shows items ordered along a virtual shelf built out of the holdings of the entire system. Patrons can create bookbags, which are lists that contain a selected collection of annotated titles. Bookbags can be kept private or shared as a regular Web page or as Atom or RSS feeds.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
Those Librarians must be gifted! (Score:1, Interesting)
The system appears to be pretty complex from the description above. If indeed, it's the group of librarians that developed it, they must be very very gifted. I am trying to see how any of the librarians at my former university would develop a system even half as complex. They did not seem to be all that IT savvy! And by the way, mine was a "prestigious" university in the USA.
But I guess the definition of "enterprise-class" is in itself, subjective.
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice! (Score:3, Interesting)
Our library consortium uses something called Polaris, by Gaylord Information Systems. It's among the worst pieces of software I have ever had the opportunity to use, and it is completely proprietary and Windows based. It's a pain in the ass to get anything done, and is missing several key features (such as customizable reports) that would make our lives much easier. Coming from a company called "Gaylord" what can we expect, eh?
Hopefully Evergreen gains enough steam to get our consortium to at least consider it, however considering that most of the IT people employed by the consortium can't even figure out how to manage Windows servers it's likely they'll opt for something easer for them to administrate.
Re:Those Librarians must be gifted! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Those Librarians must be gifted! (Score:2, Interesting)
When I inquired who the new computer savvy guy was they wondered how I could tell, but yes, there was a new guy and yes, he seemed to know something about these computer thingies so they were having him spiff up the section a bit.
So far he seems to be doing a fine job of not only cleaning out the dross but buying exactly the right titles to replace them. I wonder if he reads Slashdot.
KFG
Any smaller scale solutions out there? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:it's data entry and physical work, not software (Score:4, Interesting)
This seems irrelevant, as most libraries already use computerized systems. So, we're not talking about conversion from a card catalog. The data would already be in a database, and that could be converted pretty easily. It's a much simpler process to change software than to move from card to computers.
Upgrading from other systems? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Upgrading from other systems? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:it's data entry and physical work, not software (Score:3, Interesting)
Where you get into the proprietary stuff is in the location databases: the databases which say that, say, Nicomachean Ethics is available in the Jefferson or Adams Building General or Area Studies Reading Rooms.p>But really, let's be realistic. The major OPAC package is Voyager, which runs on top of Oracle, so runs on anything that runs Oracle. Libraries that don't have Voyager are pretty much all just wishing they could afford it (and the Oracle licenses).