First, let’s establish an area of technology where there is
very important growth happening, and that is in “open-source software.” For those unfamiliar with OSS, it’s software
that is freely available to anyone; free to download, free to distribute, free
to use, free to view, free to modify, free to adapt, and free to improve. If you’ve ever heard someone say “nothing in
life is free,” they stand corrected by this community of collaborators with altruistic
motivation. When everyone from end-users
to senior enterprise developers from a variety of fields are all working
together and information is shared freely, you end up with highly sophisticated
products that are solely geared toward service quality rather than marketing,
branding, and profit seeking. In a
library industry context, OSS is like the Wikipedia of software systems and application
development. If you would like to read
more about OSS in the context I am about to explore further, see the “Evergreen OSS FAQ.”
So how are libraries taking advantage of this digital
parallel to their cornerstone fundamentals?
By scrapping their subscription and leased services in favor of adopting
systems built on OSS backbones.
This puts more of the control in your own administration’s hands and can
save a fortune in your budget. Not only
can you dictate how the software and modules will be utilized to accommodate your
patrons, but you can also request modifications and improvements from the community
at rates much faster than typical software applications. OSS is also much more secure than proprietary
software because you have so many eyes on the code. This makes keeping checks and balances much easier. With the additional budget,
you can improve other services and public offerings. While the progression to an open source
system is filled with advantages technologically, it’s also exceedingly
responsible as businesses and organizations from the private to the public
sector are continuing to seek cost cutting opportunities. Specific to the library industry, this
migration supports core philosophies while allowing you to not only tighten
your spending, but also create new services with the residual budget.
What OSS solutions should be considered then? Evergreen, formerly “Open-ILS,” is an OSS
package developed by a dedicated community of IT professionals and library
industry workers. It contains modules
for circulation, cataloging, discovery, as well as a fully functional back end
for the library management including staff client, reporting, and policy
configuration. Since the software is
also scalable, it is used in small libraries as well as major, nationally
recognized libraries with huge endowments.
CentOS is another enterprise level solution, except as a Linux
distribution, it would suit your general information technology
requirements. CentOS offers a vast and
growing developer community, user community, production efficiency, and issue
resolution.
If you are still curious about OSS and how the effects are being felt in various industries, check out Jonathan Feldman's article, Open Source: Why Are You Still Waiting?
