FW: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Indiana open source initiative

[Cookie Wolfrom]

Some good information.

 

Cookie

 

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From: open-ils-gen...@list.georgialibraries.org [mailto:open-ils-gen...@list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of Deb Bergeron
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2008 12:09 PM
To: kudos...@ccfls.org; open-ils...@list.georgialibraries.org; ko...@lists.kapito.co.nz
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Indiana open source initiative

 

I apologize for the cross-posting, but thought this may be of interest to all.

http://www.in.gov/library/5408.htm

Deb

--

Deb Bergeron System Admin: User Support
CLIC Consortium
1619 Dayton Avenue, Suite 204A
Saint Paul, MN 55104
O:651.644.3878 C:651.487.7609 F:651.644.6258

[Jesse Weaver]

One thing to keep in mind:

While Evergreen scales up better than Koha does, it doesn't scale down
quite as well; it's more complex than Koha, and harder to set up.
Thus, What kind of libraries need Koha and what kind need Evergreen is
something we have to decide. Neither Koha nor Evergreen is likely to
fit the needs of every library in the state as well as a mix based on
size and activity.

[phasefx]

On Jan 17, 12:28 pm, Jesse Weaver <pianohac...@gmail.com> wrote:
> While Evergreen scales up better than Koha does, it doesn't scale down
> quite as well; it's more complex than Koha, and harder to set up.

Just a bit of Evergreen advocacy here. :)

It's probably also worth looking into exactly what the complexities
are, and how often you're going to be exposed to them. You don't want
things to be overly complex, but neither do you want things to be so
simple that you find yourself in trouble as soon as something breaks
or an unanticipated need arises.

Evergreen can scale down and run on a laptop in a vmware image, and
one volunteer created a single automated install script that will
install Evergreen for you in 15-20 minutes. But that's just scaling
on resource usage on the one hand, and installation time on the other
(something that you usually do only once, since upgrades are different
and much simpler).

Where Evergreen could really use scalability for small libraries is in
the conveniences one can make if you assume there is just one library
or small system (and this is why some products have problems scaling
up). Just as an example, if you only have one or a few libraries, the
"library tree" selector in the Evergreen OPAC is probably not
optimal. A simple dropdown menu would suffice, or maybe you wouldn't
need a library selector at all.

But Evergreen is scalable in another department: development. Because
we're open source, and because we use modern tools, and because we're
in this information age of global communication, we were able to
develop in two years what many vendors have been "cultivating" for
decades. If you want a normal library dropdown menu instead of our
tree selector, we can give it to you, and it won't cause the
developers any pain or negatively impact other users because modern
software development practices separate concerns much better than they
did in the past.

-- Jason