KCLS Switches to Open-Source Library Catalog

Lansdowne writes: King County Library System, the public-library system in Microsoft's backyard of King County, Washington, has begun replacing its proprietary online library catalog with the open-source Evergreen catalog. In the transition FAQ, the library says they had numerous change requests that the catalog vendor was only willing to make at up to $20,000 per request, so they decided to go with OSS to give themselves "beneficial control over the development, maintenance, reliability and adaptability of our most essential system and the associated costs." Evergreen has been covered on Slashdot before.

What OSS Software?

[jmitchel!jmitchel.co]

I know that there are open source library packages, but not what they are. Anybody know how many bibliographic records we're talking about? As a professional library upgrader I recognize the caveats in the FAQ, and wish these kids the best of luck. May whatever god or gods you believe in protect you against librarians who can't be bothered to read and patrons who... And for my part I'm just glad that it's not one of my employer's actual or potential customers.