Librarians Stake Their Future on OSS

Systems Librarian writes "Linux.com is running a story entitled 'Librarians stake their future on open source'. It details a group of librarians at the Georgia Public Library Service that have developed an open source, enterprise-class library management system that may revolutionize the way large-scale libraries are run. The system is Evergreen. The element of this project that has the participants especially excited is the speed. Previously, if users wanted changes to their systems, they'd be put into an 'enhancement queue'. Now, some features are implemented overnight. From the article: 'In fact, the catalog has many features and innovations that are lacking in non-free systems. It does on-the-fly spellcheck and gives search suggestions and adds additional content, such as book covers, reviews, and excerpts. The Shelf Browser shows items ordered along a virtual shelf built out of the holdings of the entire system. Patrons can create bookbags, which are lists that contain a selected collection of annotated titles. Bookbags can be kept private or shared as a regular Web page or as Atom or RSS feeds.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

Comments

Re:Those Librarians must be gifted!

[marcosdumay]

Librarians have being dealing with 'IT' for much longer than we are. But, yes, they're probably bad at programming computers.

And, about 'enterprise-class'... This site has a very nice definition of it.

Re:One washed out has-been helps another...

[ninja_assault_kitten]

Ebooks distribution is still in its infancy. Give it time there, old timer. With regard to OSS. Indeed. It's not going anywhere. It's free, therefore it's going to sit here and fester for many generations to come. I guess to you the mere fact it's going to exist makes it's future bright.

Re:Virtual Shelf sounds great

[dangitman]

Library is a science? I thought it was more of an art.