Open source and ILSs Bob Molyneux

Rowan Public LibrarySalisbury, North Carolina

July 30, 2009

Open source dates:

• Koha – 2000•Nelsonville 2002

• Evergreen – 2004•PINES 2006

What happened on March 13, 2007?

http://www.librarytechnology.org/automationhistory.pl?SID=20080419458068847

Here the market divides1. Traditional ILS vendors

•Terms:•“legacy”•“proprietary”

•Two types:•Founders still around•Founders have sold out to VCs

1. Traditional Vendors (continued)

Characteristics:•Compiled code (machine readable code)•Intellectual property laws apply•They own the code and you rent it.

•Advantages•“turn key”•comprehensive solution to many problems•documentation and support

1. Traditional Vendors (continued)

Disadvantages•Slow development cycle•One size may not fit all•Who owns your data?•Restrictive licenses•Forced migrations•vendor lockin

2. Open source

Reading assignment:

Eric S. Raymond: The Cathedral & the Bazaar

What does “open source” mean?

“A set of principles and practices about how to write software the most important of which is that the source code is openly available....”[additionally] “...one should have the right to use it.”

Wikipedia, “Open source”

What does “source code” mean?“human readable”

What does “compiled code” mean?machine readable

Advantages of the open source method Easy customization for your own local situation Fast development - “release early, release often” Cost—it's free. can have about the same support as proprietary software

Disadvantages of open source

•It's free but it may not be cheap•Support—if you can't, who supports it?

What happens if your ILS won't do something you need?

Proprietary•Wait until the next version

Open source•Do it yourself (or with others in the community)•Either pay someone yourself or get others to contribute •Cajole, persuade, or charm someone into doing it

State of the OSS US public library marketabout 1-2% ,give or take

no figures for the academic market but they are assuredly lower

But there is a new wind blowing:• Evergreen

• Indiana Open Source ILS Initiative• Sitka• Michigan Library Consortium

• Koha• MassCat• INCOLSA• WALDO

OSS opens the way for us to change libraries and their interaction with our users

Evergreen offers one way

ILSs reflect their beginningsEvergreen started on PINES

Large, resource-sharing consortium with a single catalog

Universal borrower card

What have we learned from the PINES experience?

• Library users LIKE access to the large virtual library

• They don't care about our politics or the difficulties under the hood

• They will bypass libraries without access to consortial resources in favor of libraries with that access

• Welcome to the long-tail, Google world

Silos Separate, barely communicating collections of information

Logic of IT is to break down silos and to integrate these collections

We have these persistent silos for three reasons:Legacy vendor's lack of visionOur lack of vision and/or politics

Think locally, act locallyUntil now, no software to run these large consortia

Traditional cost model

Library A Library B Library C

Module X $ $ $

Module Y $ $

Module Z $

Open Source Cost Model

Library A Library B Library C

Module X $ X X

Module Y X $ X

Module Z $ X X

Evergreen design parameters

•Had to handle PINES•40+ PL systems, 250+ outlets•14+ million circs•on a statewide resource-sharing network•and scale up from there

Architecture

Open Service Resource Format (OpenSRF)Service oriented architecture

Modern, modular, scalable

The only ILS software that can currently run large and distributed resource-sharing networks.

FullfILLment (tm)

• Attempt to get past the silos to one dynamic, real time search mechanism

• Evergreen backend, with opportunistic connectors to legacy vendor software

What other futures are possible in an open source world?

Modular—not one size fits all•More open source choices, perhaps more specialized

•Index Data•VU Find•Blacklight

Mix and match•Why not open source and proprietary?•Code sharing

Eric S. Raymond: The Cathedral & the Bazaar

Thanks...

Bob Molyneuxbob@esilibrary.com1-877-OPEN-ILS