This from Sharon Moreland at the MaintainIT Project Blog:

1. It’s web based.
2. The simple search box can be added to our Web site, making it a one-step process to find a book.
3. Patrons can keep track of what they’ve checked out - they can choose to keep their circulation history information. No more initials in the books, although I think my westerns will always be ‘branded’ by my manly readers.
4. Everyone in the NExpress consortium will open up their entire collections - so we’ll have access to at least 23 more copies of best sellers and can get to Nortonville’s video game collection.
5. Search results can be sorted by popularity, author, title, call number, publication date or acquisition date. With Sirsi, the hit list is organized based on the last time a bibliographic record was edited. That just makes absolutely no sense to me.
6. There are pictures and reader reviews from Amazon.com, complete with the star rating system.
7. Patrons can leave comments!
8. There are plot descriptions.
9. There will be seamless connections to the Kansas Library Catalog for patron-initiated ILL’s.
10. With the “Editions” tab, you can find the title you want and then pick how you want it - audio, large print, mass market paper back, or hard cover.

Very cool!! Keep up with Sharon’s story at the MaintainIT Project Blog.

While I’ve talked to lots of people about their open source experiences, I have yet to hear from people about their specific migration experiences. So, when I saw this guest post by Sharon Moreland on the MaintainIT Project blog, I had to share it with you all.

Sharon is the Director at the Tonganoxie Public Library in Kansas, and a contributor to the Cookbooks. Sharon will be a regular blogger for MaintainIT, telling the tale of her experiences with Koha as her library starts a new chapter with open source.

Keep an eye on this blog for more of Sharon’s story as their library makes the switch!!

John Stromquist, Executive Director of the WALDO Consortium talked to us about their decision to go with the Koha ILS and LibLime. WALDO is a multi-type library consortium. Of their membership, there are 12 full members (this means they have a shared ils), 11 associate members (this means they share a union catalog), 500+ regular academic members, and 400+ public members. WALDO helps libraries with vendor contracts, John said that “anything that saves librarians time is worth it.”

WALDO’s ILS History

From 1983-2004 the WALDO libraries used the PALS ILS (an open source forerunner that was owned and operated by librarians), but support was dropped in 2004 and they had to find a new alternative.

They decided not to follow the traditional procurement process for libraries which is to write the biggest RFP you can imagine - no less than 12,000 questions will do - the problem with this is that the vendors can lie faster than you can write - the problem with this is that after the fact you remember the things you forgot. This didn’t sound like the best option for finding a solution for their member libraries.

Instead they decided to assess the marketplace for the top 2 or 3 vendors, interview current customers (what a great idea), negotiate contracts with top vendors, and then make the award to vendor with best overall contract offering. The problem was that the second ILS they chose also ended up being sold out.

For the next decision making process, the executive board found other legacy systems equally undifferentiated and really not worthy of a migration efforts - what else could be considered? They decided that they needed to seriously consider open source - especially after Georgia PINES success with Evergreen, like WALDO, they are a large consortium with heavy loads.

Choosing Open Source

Requirements:

• functionally equal to current system
• hosting services
• software maintenance (bug fixing)
• applications development
• 24 x7 help desk

Tipping points in choosing open source:

• open source model itself - control and collaboration
• standards based architecture
• modern development capability (younger and capable of rapid development - have to be careful what you say to josh
• because you make a suggestion and he goes home that night and implements it)
• protection against vendor lock in

If they didn’t go with open source:

• outsider ownership of legacy companies
• troublesome legacy business models
• near certainty of migration anyway (if you stay with the vendor you have)
• diminished service levels (people aren’t happy with the level of service and they’re very vocal about it)
• likely impact of open source commercial vendors (if they don’t go with open source, what will happen to legacy systems as open source becomes popular?)

John mentioned the same thing that Bob did, not many academic libraries are using open source. Right now, open source seems to be used more in the public arena, but WALDO wanted academic library support since that was their primary audience.

They had demos of both Koha Zoom and Evergreen. Koha Zoom presented the best architectural fit for WALDO by offering data and policy independence for each library. John also chose Koha because it was a more mature package overall.

Working with LibLime

WALDO and LibLime worked collaboratively during the initial meetings after making their decision. One day was spent with the librarians talking, sharing their needs with the LibLime folks and the other day was spent with LibLime addressing those needs and telling the librarians what they could do.

After these meetings, LibLime came back to WALDO to work with 6 libraries to make note of all of the requirements to meet their needs.

WALDO set pretty high expectations on LibLime, but the company stood up to the test and came back with what was requested in time. In the end, the time and cost proposals looked favorable to those at WALDO and so they made their final decision.

The Future

In addition to their contract for support with LibLime, WALDO is also paying for over $600,000 worth of development (course reserves - call slip processing - music collection requirements), $200,000 of which is being held for other uses like an ILL module. All of the development that has been planned will be done by August 2008 and then shared back with the community.

In addition to this initial development plan, WALDO is asking new subscribers to contribute to an open source development fund. The initial contribution level will be at 15% of direct subscription service costs. In the end the funds could exceed hundreds of thousands of dollars, all to be put toward developments that will later be shared with the entire Koha community.

Conclusions

John’s talk was pretty impressive. When you see the amount of money being thrown into proprietary systems that are fostering the culture of work arounds that Josh mentioned, and then you see what that same money can do in the open source environment, it’s amazing!! I’m really excited to see what other consortia like WALDO to for the open source community over the next few years.

Technorati Tags: waldo, valenj, koha, liblime, open source

Next up, LibLime’s Joshua Ferraro. Josh talked to us about why LibLime was started and what both LibLime & Koha could do for libraries.

Originally uploaded by nengard

Why start LibLime?

Josh would often hear librarians saying that they liked the idea of open source, but we have no way to support it. So, Josh started LibLime to offer libraries support for open-source software in hopes that once the company was started that particular objection would disappear.

How LibLime Works

Open-source software is freely avaiable for download on the web - so why do we need LibLime? Like many other open source products (Linux for example) there are commercial entities that offer services for the software in question. LibLime is around to assist libraries in data migration, hosting, development, customization, training and support.

LibLime offers services for multiple open-source products. The key product to this day’s event was Koha, an open-source library system. As a customer of LibLime, ultimately you steer development for the system - if someone sponsors a change or upgrade, it gets rolled right back into the community - meaning we all benefit from each other’s participation. Another great thing about open source solutions like Koha is that implementation of these upgrades usually happen in days and week instead of years and decades (like some proprietary packages).

Has LibLime Worked?

Ask anyone in an open-source company and they’ll tell you that they’re very busy (I’ll tell you that I’m very busy!). In 2005, LibLime had 1 employee and 1 customer, as of March 2008, they have 18+ employees, hundreds of customers - a 400% growth (compounded for 3 years).

Customers are getting actively involved in the process. Freedom to innovate gives us a chance to change the culture in our libraries - we have become used to living in a culture of work arounds (us working around the way our software products are built) - open source gives us the chance to actually have software do what we want!

Conclusions

Josh mentioned that librarians often ask him, “Isn’t open source risky?” Josh answers “Isn’t any decision you make on an ILS risky? Especially in this environment with vendor consolidation - etc etc?” I totally agree - who knows where your ILS will be next year - or who will be controlling the development and the money! Why not have a product you can take with you to whomever you’d like as the landscape changes?

I have heard Josh speak several times - obviously - so I already knew I’d like this talk and agree with him - based on the question and answer session that followed his talk, I think others felt similarly.

Technorati Tags: liblime, koha, valenj, open source