Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Georgia Pines: Adventures in Statewide ILS Development

Georgia Pines: Adventures in Statewide ILS Development Tuesday 10:40
Speaker: Tim Daniels, PINES Project Manager.


PINES formed by 49 public libraries with Grant money. Instead of the State Library officials making policies from on high, a library board of directors, the “divine 9” representing all sorts of libraries.
Libraries established shared standards: loan policies, loan request and duration standards, fine structures. Pines libraries agreed to go forward to offer service for State budget pays for overdue notices, interlibrary loan delivery, courier services, etc. allowing the libraries to user their own $ for collections, IF the library agrees to be part of the cooperative and share resources according to the collaborative ILS. Overdues are processed centrally for client libraries. Georgia uses a statewide library card. There is a centralized helpdesk and software support, training is provided.

RPF initially identified a vendor, but because of the size of the system (1.9 million active users, 8.8 million bib records). The system wasn’t scalable. Too large for the system, Crashes ensued. Pines hired software developers who offered to develop open source. Georgia Board of Regents supported the open source effort, as Georgia Tech already had They essentially brought in already developed open source components and then used a community centered approach. Meetings to discern expectations of public libraries. Software developers pulled together the ranked wish list, and began developing and integrating.

September 2006, PINES started with 199 libraries live on the same day. Big mistake. PINES experienced 500% more traffic than ever before – a lot from out of state, interested in what Georgia did. Statewide Interlibrary loan has been very popular. Under discussion: statewide AV loan.

Developers look at other open source projects and adapt for Evergreen. Example, they’re looking at VUfind. Alberta coming up . Development opportunities have arrived as other states evaluate PINES feasibility. Indiana looking at Evergreen – developed a MAC interface and potential for credit card charge feature. Whether or not Indiana adopts, the applications have been developed.

Future options. Equinox (entity developing Evergreen) now has a 5 year contract, but migration is easy and possible. Other states are looking at the PINES model. now has Michigan Consortium support

Current projects: developing Acquisitions and Serials modules, discovery features, improved staff client, reports, an offline mode for bookmobile.
Future projects:
Protocols to share information with other automation systems; develop a Web based children’s catalog; developing DTDs to support foreign languages, building the Evergreen Foundation, Evergreen user’s group, and Evergreen International Conference. They envision a social tagging component as well.

Evergreen. http://open-lis.org/ is where developers are parking their open source.
See http://www.georgialibraries.org/ and Facebook for Evergreen Open ILS.
Pines Program Manager is Tim Daniels tdaniels@georgialibraries.org

Brenda

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