Evergreen Software Development - News

Bibliomation's Melissa Lefebvre and Ben Shum submitted an Evergreen software enhancement that was recently accepted by the Evergreen community. Their "New Search" button has been added to versions 1.6.1.3 and 2.0. This button opens up a new Advanced Search tab from within the Evergreen staff client. It is a very nice addition!

Many people ask, "Just who are the core software committers to Evergreen?" This list of software developers is constantly expanding, but to see who currently has commit privileges to Evergreen trunk, you can go to http://open-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=contributing:contributors.

Bibliomation is very pleased to have our software enhancement make it into the latest releases of Evergreen!

--Amy Terlaga
Assistant Director, User Services
terlaga{at}biblio{dot}org

Migration Preparations are Underway!

Our Evergreen servers have arrived! There are 18 servers in total, with enough power and room to handle our member libraries, plus room for growth!

We're just now working out the details of our migration plan. Melissa Lefebvre, our Open Source Project Manager, is sketching out our time line as I write this. We plan to bring our libraries up on a version of Evergreen 2.0, the release that King County is coming up on later this month. We'll start with our ten development partners - we will move them over to the new servers sometime in early 2011. Then we'll bring in the East Haven Public Library. We hope to have them up on Evergreen in early March. Then we'll focus all of our energies on migrating our 48 public libraries off of Horizon and onto Evergreen by Memorial Day weekend. After that, we'll move the Bridgeport Public Library and its branches over later next summer. Lastly, we'll make sure that our 19 K-12 schools are up on Evergreen in time for the new school year, September 2011.

Whew! That should keep us busy for the next year!

--Amy
============
Amy Terlaga, Assistant Director, User Services
Bibliomation, Inc. / terlaga{at}biblio{dot}org

Let the coding begin!

It's now official - we have just signed off on the Equinox development quote for our Evergreen K-12 schools due date functionality.

This functionality will give all Evergreen academic and K-12 school libraries the ability to set end-of-semester due dates for their students. In addition it will provide the ability to set hard due dates for faculty.

ESI hopes to have development completed for us to test by the end of this calendar year. Bibliomation will have the Lebanon Schools live on Evergreen by the end of this month. If all goes well, the Lebanon Schools will be able to use this new functionality in June 2011.

Bibliomation has partnered with the following Evergreen sites on this development project:

Project Conifer (Ontario, Canada)
Sage Library System (Oregon)
Kirtland Community College (Michigan)
MassLNC (Massachusetts)

We'd like to publicly thank our development partners for their cooperation. We could not have moved forward with this project without them!

If you have any questions about this Evergreen development project, you can contact me at terlaga{at}biblio{dot}org.

--Amy
----------------
Amy Terlaga
Assistant Director, User Services
Bibliomation, inc.

The Lebanon Schools join BibliOak

The Lebanon Schools have just joined Bibliomation's development partners project. This K-12 school system joins the Jonathan Trumbull Library, in Lebanon, already a BibliOak partner, scheduled to go live May 18th. This bodes well for Lebanon students as they will be able to use the same ILS in both their public library and school library environment.

We are excited to have these three schools (elementary, middle, and high) join us since Bibliomation already has 23 K-12 schools as members and we need to test Evergreen functionality against specific school needs.

Bibliomation plans to bring up the Lebanon Schools at the start of their new school year this September.

--Amy
================
Amy Terlaga, Assistant Director, User Services / terlaga{at}biblio{dot}org

First Bibliomation Development Partner Goes Live!

The Beacon Falls Public Library went live this morning on BibliOak, Bibliomation's Development Partner Evergreen system. Beacon Falls is the first Connecticut library to go live on Evergreen. The Douglas Library of Hebron will quickly follow them next Monday, March 8th.

Kate Sheehan, our open source implementation coordinator, is spending the entire day with Beacon Falls library staff to help them get more comfortable with using this new whiz-bang open source ILS.

To check out our BibliOak Evergreen web catalog, click here

We here at Bibliomation couldn't be more thrilled for them!

The Bibliomation Open Source Team:
Melissa Lefebvre, Open Source Project Manager
Benjamin Shum, Open Source Software Coordinator
Kate Sheehan, Open Source Implementation Coordinator
-in conjunction with-
Mary Llewellyn, Database Services Manager
Robin Fitch, Cataloger and Trainer
Carol Yarrison, Help Desk Coordinator and Circulation Trainer
Jessica Venturo, Applications Support Specialist and Trainer

--Amy Terlaga
Assistant Director, User Services
Bibliomation, Inc.

Good News!

Hooray! LibraryThing for Libraries now works with Evergreen! You can see it in action at Kent County Public Library in Maryland.



-Kate
Kate Sheehan
Open Source Implementation Coordinator
ksheehan{at}biblio{dot}org

Meet the Open Source Team: Spotlight on Kate Sheehan

Kate Sheehan is Bibliomation's Open Source Implementation Coordinator. Monday, November 9th is her first day on the job.

Question: What made you want to work at Bibliomation?

Answer: The [open source] project is ridiculously exciting. I started paying attention to Bibliomation's investigation of open source systems during the state library's open source system exploratory meetings with the various libraries in the state. I've also never worked for a consortium before. I really like the project and the newness of it.

Question: What is your educational background?

Answer: I have a Bachelor's in Geology from Smith College. I graduated in 2000. I received my MLIS from Simmons in January 2004.

Question: What is your work history? Which job(s) did you enjoy the most?

Answer: I worked at the Ferguson Library, in Stamford, for two years. I split my time in half between reference and IT work there. I also worked nights and weekends at UCONN Stamford during my time at Ferguson. I was responsible for IT at the Hamden Public Library. I was Coordinator of Library Automation at the Danbury Public Library for two years. I really enjoyed my time there. My last job was as Head of Reference at the Darien Public Library. I was there from March of '08 until now.

I liked all of my jobs in different ways. I learned different things at each job and gave of myself in different ways. I like variety. There's no moss under my feet.

Question: How did you select Library Science?

Answer: I had a job as a research assistant at a market research firm. I liked the research part, but not the for-profit part. Both of my parents are social workers; I wanted to help people. I grew up around a helping profession. I can help people without being a therapist.

Question: What do you like most about Evergreen?

Answer: I like the principles of open source. It returns access to the data to the libraries; they have control over it, power over it, and in turn, can turn that over to the patrons. What's been interesting for me -- these are [small] libraries that right now don't have anything online for their patrons. It's clearly intuitive to the patrons what should be there. When we bring [these libraries] up, [the patrons] will recognize it, it will all be there. The libraries will go from 0 to 60, they'll be exactly where they'll need to be.

Question: What do you like to do in your free time?

Answer: I am an occasional knitter. My husband and I like to go into the City for plays and museums. I like to go to concerts -- jazz and the occasional rock show. I like to read -- my beach reading is the mystery novel. Just finished the new Thomas Cook. I really like Tana French. The Likeness and In the Woods are astoundingly good. I read a lot of non-fiction. Because I spend a lot of time in the car, I listen to a lot of books on CD. I also listen to a lot of podcasts. My favorite podcasts right now are This American Life, Grammar Girl, The Moth, and Ricky Gervais with Stephen Merchant [co-creators of the British version of The Office].

Kate Sheehan can be reached at ksheehanATbiblioDOTorg.
Amy Terlaga, Assistant Director, User Services and open source interviewer, can be reached at terlagaATbiblioDOTorg.

Biblio's Open Source Project now on Facebook

Hi all--

Bibliomation's Open Source Developmental Partners Project now has a home on Facebook.

Four small public libraries - the Douglas Library, in Hebron, the Slater Library, in Griswold, the Beacon Falls Library, and the Windham Free Library - have volunteered to work with Bibliomation in a pilot project which will allow us to implement and test new enhancements to the Evergreen software.

To join the group:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=171935276419

For questions about the project itself, you can email Bibliomation's Open Source Project Manager, Melissa Lefebvre at mlefebvreATbiblioDOTorg.

Amy