1. LITA Drupal Interest
Group
Chairs: Nina McHale & Christopher Evjy
ALA Midwinter Meeting  January 21 2012
S

2. Drupal IG Renewal/Charge
S IG formed in 2009; renews in 2012
S “Explore and promote the use of Drupal
among libraries and librarians, facilitating
communication and establishing best
practices.”

3. Survey Says…
S 12 question survey ran from 12/27/11 –
1/6/12
S Sent to drupal4lib, web4lib, lita-l, code4lib
S Posted to Twitter, Facebook, and the
Libraries group on Drupal.org
S 79 responses!

4. Survey Says…
S Content of the survey was based on Dale Askey’s
“We Love Open Source Software. No, You Can’t
Have Our Code” column
S http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/527
S Questions asked respondents what barriers might
keep them from contributing code back to the Drupal
community

5. Respondent Data:
Type of Employment
S I have a permanent, full-time position working in a
library environment: 82%
S I am a web development consultant with one or
more clients: 10%
S Other: 8%
S Library vendor, combination
permanent/consultant, part-time library
employment

6. Respondent Data:
Library Type
S Public: 44%
S Academic: 54%
S School: 4%
S Special: 10%
S Other: 10%
S vendor, government, nonprofit, consortium

7. Respondent Data:
Contributed Code?
S Yes, I have: 15%
S No, but I’d like to: 68%
S No, but I can’t: 13%
S No, and I don’t want to: 4%

8. Askey’s Reasons for No
Participating
S Perfectionism
S Dependency
S Quirkiness
S Redundancy
S Competitiveness
S Misunderstanding

9. “Unless the code is perfect, we
don’t want anyone to see it.”
S Very likely: 14%
S Likely: 37%
S Neither likely/unlikely: 17%
S Unlikely: 28%
S Completely unlikely: 4%

10. “If we share this with you, you will
never leave us alone.”
S Very likely: 12%
S Likely: 24%
S Neither likely/unlikely: 15%
S Unlikely: 24%
S Completely unlikely: 11%

11. “We’ll gladly share, but we can’t
since we’re so weird.”
S Very likely: 12%
S Likely: 19%
S Neither likely/unlikely: 15%
S Unlikely: 40%
S Completely unlikely: 14%

12. “We think your project is neat, but
we can do better.”
S Very likely: 3%
S Likely: 12%
S Neither likely/unlikely: 23%
S Unlikely: 55%
S Completely unlikely: 8%

13. “We want to be the
acknowledged leader.”
S Very likely: 0%
S Likely: 10%
S Neither likely/unlikely: 21%
S Unlikely: 21%
S Completely unlikely: 49%

14. “A fundamental [misunderstanding] of
how an open source community
works.”
S Very likely: 0%
S Likely: 14%
S Neither likely/unlikely: 21%
S Unlikely: 40%
S Completely unlikely: 25%

15. What could the IG do to support
code contribution back to
Drupal.org?
S Education/training: ALL levels
S Programming (PHP)
S Process of submission (contrib standards)
S Showcasing colleagues’ work
S Communication:
S With vendors
S Meet-ups
S Foster collaboration among developers

16. Select Responses
S “Perhaps eliminate any FUD surrounding issues of
oss.”
S “Maybe focus on getting library-specific vendors to
support product integration…”
S “it would be great to have a “match making” service
to find co-maintainers…”
S “Provide space to share ideas and develop a
developer group for a module of interest.”

17. Select Responses, contd
S “We [are] all out there, we’re just not connecting.”
S “I’ve developed a couple of very small modules. I
don’t both to contribute via official Drupal channels
because it would require learning the contrib
standards…”
S “More library-specific meetups and events to
showcase others’ work and possibly foster better
collaboration.”

18. Proposal for IG Direction
S Increase communication venues/opportunities
S Develop a “wish list” of modules
S Establish a formal/official relationship with the
Drupal.org libraries group
S Drupal.org is THE venue for Drupal community
S Removes possibility of redundancy