Oppenheimer Film Discussion for Philosophy and Film
Implementing a shared instance of the Evergreen ILS for an academic library consortium in Ontario
1. Project Conifer
Implementing a
shared instance of
the Evergreen ILS for
an academic library
consortium in Ontario
Art Rhyno
Leddy Library, University of Windsor
A presentation for the NELINET Open
Source ILS: Relevance for Academic
Libraries seminar - Dec. 9, 2008
2. What is Conifer?
Project Conifer is the joint project of
Laurentian, McMaster, Windsor, and Algoma to
adopt Evergreen as our common library system
One union catalogue
One shared set of servers
One step towards greater cooperation among
Ontario libraries for ILS functions
4. An ILS with a growing track
record for consortia
5. The trip to here…
1989-1993 worked on a SPIRES-based ILS at Memorial University and
wrote my first MARC editor
1993-1995 joined Windsor, a beta partner in the development of Notis
Horizon, one of the first client/server library systems
1995-1997 scrambled when Ameritech pulled the plug on Notis initiative
with less than 24 hours notice, scraped what was left of the budget to go
back to the marketplace and became one of the first customers of
Endeavor Voyager
1999-2002 spent side hours developing java-based library system called
PYTHEAS, some of the mappings ended up in Koha via work with a
developer in BC, wrote my second MARC editor
6. The trip to here…
2005 highly problematic Voyager upgrade, IBM hardware costs squeeze
budget, agree in strategic planning to look for new ILS options
2006 operational strategic plan targets one day symposium on the State
of the ILS
2007 officially join forces with Evergreen, work with Evergreen coders on
beginnings of acq/ser layer, participate in a quot;meeting of the interestedquot;
university libraries in Guelph, Project Conifer is born!
2008 take on increased development role in Knowledge Ontario to secure
more funds for Conifer project, partner with developer at Windsor on
reserves module
7. Lessons & Pledges…
I will:
not underestimate the issues in data migration in any
ILS implementation
remember that consortium dynamics can take some
time to work themselves out
remember to be extremely cautious when anyone
fixates only on financial savings in an OSS project
I will never:
totally trust the stability of a commercial library application
write another MARC editor in my natural life
15. The Shocking Slide from the
ILS Symposium
Alpha release (Online public access catalog,
Cataloging, Circulation) debuted in July 2005.
Beta release in early 2006
All PINES libraries migrated to Evergreen
software on September 5, 2006
All of the above was promised and delivered
on schedule
That's right, on schedule.
Really...
I am not making this up
19. In other words…
linux-based servers
commodity hardware
communal documentation
widely understood software
stack for 80% of the application
20. Relationship to OLE
“With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a
multinational group of libraries is developing the design for
an Open Library Environment (OLE), an alternative to
the current model of an Integrated Library System. The
goal is to produce a design document to inform open
source library system development efforts, to guide future
library system implementations, and to influence current
Integrated Library System vendor products.”
23. Evergreen’s relationship to
OLE
“Do the current open source ILS
products provide a new model of
automation, or an open source version
of what we already have?”
- Marshall Breeding, Overview of the state
of library automation: Framing the OLE
Initiative, OLE Project Core Partners
Meeting, September 9, 2008
24. Do you already have…
well-documented and unfettered
access to your records?
web savvy conduit for mixing and
matching applications?
the ability to change how your ILS
works?
25. Evergreen’s hidden asset
“Given the modest size of the library community, it is
gratifying to note that Evergreen is not the only open
source ILS, nor the only successful one…Yet, Evergreen is
of special interest not only for its scalability, but also for its
architecture. Evergreen utilizes a jabber-based
communications infrastructure and a custom
messaging layer called OpenSRF (Open Scalable
Request Framework), pronounced quot;open surfquot;. It provides
a powerful message based system that allows for
maximum utilization of network settings.”
28. OpenSRF - some practical plumbing
for the web ecosystem
“With OpenSRF, ILS functions can be abstracted
and extended in a wide variety of development
environments. OpenSRF has the potential to be to
the ILS what HTTP was to the World Wide
Web…OpenSRF represents a strong conduit for
bringing forward state information to arbitrary web
spaces and allowing the ILS to support rather than
sit on the sidelines for web interactions. “
- Art’s ramblings for Open Source Business Resource, August
2008: Focus on Education
30. OpenSRF - some practical plumbing
for the web ecosystem
modeling Reserves Direct in
Django to take advantage of
programmer availability
add internationalization layer,
critical for Conifer
OpenSRF gives high fidelity
access to Evergreen at deep
level
31. Achieving Agility
it’s not about it’s not about
saving money creating another
(although that consortium for
would be nice) finding common
work flows (although
we hope that will
it’s not about
happen)
doing what we
already do with it’s about agility and
OSS tools flexibility on an
(although we increasingly
still have to do networked planet
a lot of the (and we can’t afford
same things) to stumble right
now)
32. The Road to May 2009 (go live
date)
Thinking about Acquisitions
Ideas from UPEI on serials and dealing with
overlapping consortiums
Moving fast on Reserves
Hoping to contract Equinox for data
services
Remembering May 1997 - everything is
relative!
33. The Road to May 2009 (go live
date)
Lots of requests to join Conifer since
shortly after the project launched
Colleges, hospitals, and other universities
Knowledge Ontario (KO) is a cross-sector
partnership of 4500 library organizations in
the province, some discussions about
possible KO branding
We also have been sharing everything that’s
going on in the project
35. Because Dan Scott can not be
stopped!
Conifer Project
Manager par
excellence
IBM background,
documentation
expert,
internationalization
zealot
He doesn’t seem to
sleep…
37. The Role of a Common Index
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
