I have yet to have a job where I can play with beta browsers - I always have to make sure I’m viewing web sites as the majority of our users. I mention this because I’ve been pining away waiting to try out Firefox 3. Today I read that the release candidate is ready - which means we’re that much closer to the final release of Firefox 3. Those of you that can test the RC, please do - make it so that I can play with it that much sooner

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.

If you can’t wait for the official release of OpenOffice 3.0, you can download the beta which is now available for download. This via DownloadSquad:

So what’s new under the hood? Here are some of the highlights:

• OpenOffice.org 3.0 is the first version to run on Mac OS X (there are also Linux and Windows versions)
• OpenOffice.org Start Center gives you a one stop shop for creating documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, databases, or templates
• Support for collaborative spreadsheet editing
• Improved Writer notes features
• View multiple Writer pages while editing a document
• Improved crop features in Draw and Impress
• Support for ODF and MS Office 2007 formats

Sounds worth trying out … now if I could just find some time to test it out!! If you get to play with it, feel free to let us know how it works.

Guillaume Lebleu has written a tool to help decide whether or not to open source your software.

By elaborating on the simple notion of “why giveaway something you can charge for”, I developed the chart below to help me discuss the decision with my colleagues. The idea is to not view open source as an all or nothing strategy, but rather as a marketing technique to segment your market and maximize revenue, except that in the open source case, the revenue is mostly intangible.

Via Code4Lib:

The OpenLibrary.org <http://www.openlibrary.org> team has just finished its latest release on the long path towards “one web page for every book ever published.”

What’s new?

• added another 6 million book records (13.4 million total) with 18 million more records waiting to be integrated

• built an API <http://www.openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api> to the data which allows you to query the database for objects matching particular criteria or to GET an object from the database
• added internationalization support <http://www.openlibrary.org/i18n> - we have already started on Spanish, Italian and a few other languages, but users are now able to translate the site into any language
• search the full text of 230,000 scanned books from the advanced search <http://www.openlibrary.org/advanced> page
• started merging library MARC records and non-library book data crawled from the web (still some kinks to be worked out!)

OpenLibrary is a work in progress, so please help us build it! The site, the code and the documentation are all open, so if you’re interested in helping as a librarian or a programmer, join us - there’s lots left to do!

You can join the OL mailing list at: http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-discuss

And I’d especially like to thank our awesome team:

* Edward Betts
* Anand Chitipothu
* Karen Coyle
* Rebecca Malamud
* Paul Rubin
* Aaron Swartz

Thanks,

Alexis Rossi
Internet Archive

Not Your Average Geeks has a post reviewing 9 open source e-commerce applications.

• OsCommerce
• Zencart
• VirtueMart
• Magento
• Cubecart
• X-Cart
• LiteCommerce
• Shopify

Read all about them.

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!!

Thank you Chrissy for posting your paper! I wish more students would post stuff like this.

Many library and information professionals feel that open source software aligns with public library values and First Amendment rights. Tammi Moe, a librarian working for the open source consulting firm Re:Evolve, explains, “The Open Source community shares common goals with the library community… Both work to maintain free access to information” (2004, 291). Freedom of expression and the right to seek information represent core values of the library profession (American Library Association). According to Moe, “Open Source is driven by the desire to create superior computing technologies,” rather than for profit (2004, 291). Libraries also strive to provide excellent resources to meet customers’ informational needs, not for profit but for the benefit of the community.

Read the entire paper here.