There's been a lot of chatter in libraryland and now even in the open source community outside of libraryland about a SirsiDynix article written by Stephen Abram. The article had been released over the last few months to a few select SirsiDynix customers but was leaked around Halloween.
Roy Tennant has provided some must-read words of wisdom for Library Administrators. Here's my personal favorite:
#4: Maximize the effectiveness of your most costly technology investment -- your people. As technology itself falls in price per unit, your staff is likely to get more expensive. So pay attention to what is required to make the most effective use of them. This means getting them the training and resources they need to do their job well.
"BibLibre wants to push libraries who call us to do development work, for Koha or any other piece of software, to write in the RFP itself or the contract that all the code produced will both: have an open source license; and be accessible on a public repository."
"The three large networks in Massachusetts--NOBLE, C.W. MARS and Merrimack Valley--have been working on an Open Source solution that could be shared between their organizations. The Tri-Network Committee has just recommended Evergreen as the platform of choice. That decision has to be ratified by the three network boards, but they have already been awarded a joint $412,000 LSTA Grant specifically to develop an Open Source alternative for the state..."
Jerry Kline is launching a new company called SkyRiver (website launching today). Jerry is the owner and co-founder of Innovative Interfaces. The new company "aims to expand the market and offer an alternative bibliographic utility for cataloging that could save libraries up to 40 percent off their expenditures for bibliographic services."
As reported by Marshall Breeding in the 10/6/09 issue of Library Journal (New Company SkyRiver Sparks Cataloging Compe
Dan Scott is offering an Evergreen Developer Basics Workshop at the Free Software Open Source Symposium (FSOSS) being held in Toronto on October 29th, 2009.
Here's the workshop description:
Over the past year, Evergreen has been adopted by a number of libraries in Ontario.
From the OITP website: The ALA Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) has released the official version of its policy brief, “Fiber to the Library: How Public Libraries Can Benefit.” The purpose of this paper is to assist libraries in understanding the benefits of fiber optic technology and to suggest strategies they can consider when exploring how to obtain fiber connectivity.
Wow! Kudos to King County Library System and Bill Ptacek who won't take no for an answer. They got an award for $998,556 from IMLS for their project entitled "Empowered By Open Source." I'm proud to say I was involved in the writing of the grant, but I also have to admit that I recommended we go for a "planning grant" of $100,000 first rather than trying for the bigger award off the bat.
If you are trying to make sense of what is going on with Liblime and Koha. This is the article for you (by Kathryn Greenhill at her blog Libraries Matter Librarians Matter):
The Equinox Promise: An Open Letter to the Evergreen Community
We at Equinox Software feel it is timely to share an evolving document we call the Equinox Promise.
We invite engagement and feedback from everyone, and encourage other vendors to come up with similar statements, or join in on ours.
The Equinox Promise
In 2007, Equinox Software was founded by a group of dedicated people who believe that open source software offers libraries unheralded opportunities to engage in the process of designing the tools they use.
A software company can never speak for the open source communi