Get Out of the
Frying Pan!
Evergreen Conference 2009
Athens, Georgia
Lori Bowen Ayre
lori.ayre@galecia.com
Cheryl Gould
cheryl@fullyengagedlibraries.com

but don’t get into the fire…

It’s cool that Evergreen is free and that you
can see the source code. But.

The best part is….
you
are
in
control

With an Open Source Library
System…

You decide what gets built.

You decide how it works.

You decide how you work.

The All Powerful “Vendor”

Why it doesn’t work for us…
1. Each product limited to one
support option
2. market too small
3. built on old, nasty code
4. development is years behind
need
5. data locked up
6. inflexible – too few
customization options

[more]...why it doesn’t work for us
7. RFP process
doesn’t ensure
libraries make
the right choices
8. migration
process is so
horrific, there is
no recourse
once a move has
been made
9. Standards issues

Learned Helplessness

Imagine if
people
working in
libraries
actually felt
their ideas
about how
to do
things
made a
difference?

Imagine eliminating “waste” (muda)
of staff work effort
Muda (無駄) is a Japanese term for activity that is wasteful, doesn't add value or is
unproductive.

Imagine being able to optimize the
user experience A Library Product:

Imagine being able to roll out a new
service quickly!
Sweet!
My book is
ready!
“Text-a-Circ”

Now is the
time to
take back
the
POWER
we have
ceded to
the
Vendors

Key to Firefox Success:
Community Involvement!
Mozilla
Lessons Learned
• Embrace the chaos
37% of code
contributed to a
and organize Firefox
since November ’06 has
chorus
• Listen to your
come from the community
community
• Lead your community
• Let your community
play and experiment

Evergreen
is a work
in
progress.
We need
to help
build it.

Ways to contribute to Evergreen
Beta
Identify Test Do
inefficiencies Contribute new usability Design
new code releases testing screens
Troubleshoot
Manage existing code
communities Create and test Write
of interest Raise specifications
third party
(e.g. customers, add-ins money
catalogers,
Suggest
circ staff) Develop
improvements
Optimize documentation
workflow
Co-Sponsor
Organize development Conduct user
Evergreen Increase
need
communities participation
assessments

Step One
Stop talking about what The Vendor
can do and start talking about what
WE can do

More first steps…
• Encourage every user to think critically about
how the software works – encourage them to
imagine doing things differently
• Provide a mechanism for exploring alternative
approaches (what if we tried…..)
• Capture good ideas and get them to your
contributors and your developers
• Develop new resource-sharing relationships with
other libraries (people are resources too!)

The Beginning