The newsletter for Evergreen open source library software
Volume 3, Issue 1 – January/February 2010
As a reminder, we post this newsletter to the Evergreen general discussion list, development list, and the Evergreen blog. Cross-posting and forwarding are encouraged.
In This Issue
Evergreen Out and About, Evergreen Development and Documentation Update, Evergreen People, Evergreen Libraries, Evergreen Jobs, Evergreen Statistics, New Evergreen Libraries, Planet Evergreen, A Few Reminders, Newsletter Administrivia
Out and About: An Evergreen Calendar
Do you know of Evergreen events you’d like to share here? Please contact us at newsletter@evergreen-ils.org
Conferences
The 2010 Evergreen International Conference will be held April 21-23, 2010 at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids Michigan. The Conference website contains general information, schedule, exhibitor information, sponsorship information, a link to the Grand Rapids Convention and Visitors Bureau, a link to the Amway for online reservations, and a link to the registration site. Please join us for an exciting 3 days of learning, sharing, networking, and fun in Grand Rapids! http://www.evergreen2010.org/
Equinox will be exhibiting Evergreen at PLA2010 (booth 1407) in Portland from March 23-27, and also at TLA in San Antonia from April 14-17.
Classes
Equinox
Equinox Software, Inc. is now offering training for Evergreen users. For more information or to register, send an email to training@esilibrary.com
Currently, Equinox Software is offering the following classes:
- Acquisitions Preview
- March 31 — 1pm-3pm EST
- In this class, we will review the plans for the Acquisitions module, examine current functionality, and tour the most recent development. This class would be useful to administrators, prospective Evergreen users, and others interested in Acquisitions development.
- The Evergreen OPAC
- April 7 — 1pm-2pm EST
- In this session, we will explore the Evergreen OPAC from the perspective of both patrons and staff members. This class would be useful to front line information services staff.
- Circulation in Evergreen (Part 1)
- April 12 — 1pm-2:30pm EST
- In this session, we will focus on patron services in the Evergreen circulation module. This class would be of interest to front line circulation staff.
- Circulation in Evergreen (Part 2)
- April 27 — 11:30am-1pm EST
- In this session, we will focus on item management in the Evergreen circulation module. This class would be of interest to front line circulation staff.
- Booking in Evergreen
- April 29 — 11:00am-12pm EST
- In this session, we will focus on booking in Evergreen. We will discuss how to create and pick up reservations for bibliographic items. We will also discuss the reservation process for other item types, such as laptops and meeting rooms.
Lyrasis
- Evergreen Cataloging Module (Live Online)
- 3/3/2010-3/4/2010 2:00pm-4:00pm EST
- Evergreen Administration and Reports Module (Live Online)
- 3/10/2010, 10:00am-12:00pm EST
LYRASIS (created from a merger of SOLINET, PALINET and NELINET) has taught dozens of Evergreen classes. Lyrasis is dedicated to training and instructing Evergreen, and they welcome your comments and suggestions for courses. All of their current course offerings are continuously updated, and Lyrasis plans to add more courses in the future. For comments or questions, contact Lyrasis instructors Jennifer.Bielewski@lyrasis.org or Jenny.Liberatore@lyrasis.org
In the past, so how did it go?
* February 22, 2010 – Evergreen was the focus of an afternoon pre-conference for CODE4LIB 2010.
* February 24, 2010 – Customizing and Extending Evergreen: a guide for geeks is a half-day workshop that Dan Scott lead at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference.
Evergreen Development and Documentation Update
New Releases
A new bugfix release of Evergreen, version 1.6.0.2, was released on February 18th. It includes many fixes and updated translations, including new translations for English (UK), Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese. For a complete list of the new fixes and features, see http://evergreen-ils.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=feature_list_1_6_0
On February 8th, a new version of OpenSRF was released, version 1.2.2, which includes important fixes for high traffic environments. If you are running Evergreen 1.6+ you are strongly encouraged to upgrade!
A peek in the Trunk
This is a look at some of the current differences between trunk and the 1.6 branch. It’s not comprehensive. Most of these features need testing, feedback, and/or polish, but may one day get backported to 1.6 or show up in the next major branch release.
Cataloging
Bucket Notes
Toward allowing arbitrary notes for buckets and bookbags.
Copy Location Order
Allows you to define display positions for copy/shelving locations. No longer has to be in alphabetical order.
Mint Condition flag for Holds and Copies
Optionally allows us to give a “good quality” or “mint condition” or “pristine” or “complete with all pieces” type designation to items, and allows holds to optionally be filled only by items in that condition.
Update leader in MARC record when deleting or undeleting the record
This sets the leader/05 appropriately.
Circ
Auto Checkout-attempt into renewal
If an item is already checked out to a user and the circulation is past a configured auto-renewal interval, attempt to treat the transaction as a renewal instead. Option for doing this with offline transactions as well.
Backdating
Action for backdating checkins that have already happened (e.g. checkin the item, notice that you should have backdated, and then do so after the fact)
“Scan time” field shows the true time that an item was checked in, regardless of backdating. We also record the specific workstation for all checkins.
Billable Transaction Summary with Billing Location
An augmented view of billable transaction summaries. Toward filtering by location in the billing interface.
Cap Max Fine at Item Price
Org-unit setting for capping fines at the item price. Existing Percent of Item Price functionality for fine caps trumps this setting.
Circ Counts By Year
Reportable abstraction of this data.
Circulation “Chain” Summaries
In Evergreen, renewals show up as circulations, though you’re able to select or filter for these based on renewal flags on the circs. Circulation chains allow us to group together a logical sequence of original checkout and subsequent renewals as one entity.
Circulation permit check based on claims returned threshold
Allows you to set a number for how many claims returned items are allowed on a patron’s account before requiring override for new checkouts.
Circulation receipts
Can now include patron money summary information (amount owed, etc.) in checkout receipts.
Credit Card Payments
We’re able to interface with Paypal for taking credit card payments.
Custom copy status for returned items
Allows you to designate a copy status for post-claims returned items.
Fine generation
An Evergreen installation normally has a periodic process for generating fines. To supplement that, we now generate fines for a given circulation at the time of checkin, to handle certain boundary conditions.
Floating Collections
Basic support for floating collections where items can stay where they land.
History Buckets
For supporting clearable patron and/or staff facing record of checkouts.
Hold Request Cancel/Un-Cancel
Interface toggle and related org unit settings for showing and manipulating canceled holds.
Hold Request Notes
Free-text staff notes that can optionally be printed on hold slips.
Hold retargeting trigged by certain copy updates
Checks to see if an item status change warrants a retargeting of related hold requests.
Negative Balance list
Dedicated interface for listing patrons with negative balances.
Offline username
Org-unit setting for treating patron barcodes in offline transactions as usernames based on barcode format.
Patron Claims
Can mark a circulation as Claims Never Checked Out, which changes the status to Missing.
Org-unit setting for changing the copy status to something arbitrary for Claims Returned items.
Patron retrieval by internal ID
Config setting which allows retrieval of patrons by their internal DB ID.
Pending Patrons
Staging area for patron data from self-registration, migrations, external systems, etc.
Pre-cat improvements
Circ modifier and ISBN field for pre-cataloged items. The circ modifier will carry over when/if the item is cataloged. And of course, you can create circulation rules based on an item being a pre-cat with consideration of its circ modifier.
Org-unit setting for setting the circ lib of a pre-cat. For example, you could checkout a pre-cat item at BR1, but have it’s circ lib be BR2, so that upon checkin, it’ll transit to BR2.
Top of Queue flag for Hold Requests
Brings a hold to the front of the line, or at least next to other Top of Queue holds.
Misc
Events interfaces
View (and in some cases Edit or Cancel) triggered events for patrons and copies. These can include notices, etc.
Setting Types
Better support for defining/categorizing different user and org unit settings.
Ubuntu Karmic
Pre-requisite installer target for Ubuntu’s Karmic Koala distribution.
Evergreen People
Dan Scott, Systems Librarian at Laurentian University, will be flying down to Connecticut in February to teach Bibliomation staff how to write postgreSQL queries for the Evergreen system. Dan is tailoring his lesson plan to Bibliomation’s specific reporting needs. Dan will be contributing his course materials to the Evergreen community. Class dates – February 18th and 19th.
Bibliomation, King County Library System, the SITKA Libraries (British Columbia), and the PINES Library System (GPLS) have partnered with the Seattle-based web design firm, FGI, to develop some functional specifications and a project plan for an Evergreen children’s catalog. This catalog will have graphical images to guide children to the appropriate reading material. FGI is the same company that KCLS is currently using to design the new interface for the Evergreen adult web catalog. For more information, you can email Amy Terlaga at Bibliomation (terlaga@biblio.org).
Evergreen Libraries
The Ontario Library Association (OLA) awarded two of its 2010 OLA and OLA Divisional awards to Project Conifer:
– The Ontario College and University Library Association (OCULA) Special Achievement Award
– The Ontario Library Information Technology Association (OLITA) Award for Technical Innovation
These rewards recognize not only on the partner libraries that are part of Project Conifer, but the entire Evergreen community without which Project Conifer could never have happened.
Evergreen Jobs
Equinox is currently looking for a Project Manager.
Do you know of Evergreen related jobs that you’d like to share here? Let us know at newsletter@evergreen-ils.org
Evergreen Statistics
By Bob Molyneux
| Summary Data for Evergreen Library Installations, by year |
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| New libraries by year |
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New Public Libraries by year |
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Public Libraries |
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Total |
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Systems |
Outlets |
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Systems |
Outlets |
Pop served |
Circulations |
| 2006 |
46 |
248 |
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45 |
246 |
4,564,757 |
17,177,872 |
| 2007 |
4 |
8 |
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4 |
8 |
67,658 |
319,871 |
| 2008 |
39 |
89 |
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37 |
87 |
962,758 |
6,943,043 |
| 2009 |
98 |
199 |
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75 |
149 |
1,687,924 |
10,725,430 |
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| Total Evergreen prior to 2010 |
187 |
544 |
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161 |
490 |
7,283,097 |
35,166,216 |
Evergreen has grown rapidly and I have been keeping track as best I can by maintaining a list of the libraries running Evergreen that I can identify and, where possible, integrating that list with published national-level or provincial data.
The first table (New Libraries by Year) summarizes this growth. Bear in mind that there are uncertainties about some details and most of the published data are for 2007 so “outlets” (central library + branches + bookmobiles) may have changed but the count of systems is current.
We can see here that in 2006, the first 46 (including the State Library) systems in PINES migrated to Evergreen. There were 248 outlets by my count—not org units as Evergreen users usually report.
2007 was a slow year—the calm before the storm—with 4 new public library systems using Evergreen. This year also saw the first non-PINES libraries go live in British Columbia in what is now called SITKA.
In 2008, the pace quickend with 39 systems and 89 outlets. The first academics went live with Evergreen this year with the University of PEI.
2009 was crazy. 98 systems and 199 outlets ran Evergreen for the first time. Conifer also went live so the number of academics also increased. Conifer also has a number of academic special libraries such as health and law libraries.
The total at the end of the 2009 was 187 systems and 544 outlets using Evergreen.
Most of these are still public libraries. The second table (New Public Libraries by Year) has some summary data from these public libraries. Public library data are about the best we have; academic data are fragmentary. There are two numbers that public librarians will cite: population service and total annual circulations. What I have done here is to total these numbers from the latest figures (mostly 2007) for the libraries using Evergreen. 2007, as you can see had those four small systems go live. As I have pointed out numerous times, the story of Evergreen is a story of small public libraries but in a scalable environment. Each year since then, more libraries, more types of libraries, and bigger entities have chosen Evergreen.
Wait until this year: you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
New Evergreen Libraries: Welcome Aboard!
* Natural Resources Canada Library completed its second and final phase of their migration on January 15, 2010. Their 13 locations across Canada are now all running Evergreen.
* SC LENDS in South Carolina welcomed three new libraries to their Evergreen consortium in January 2010: Anderson County Library, Fairfield County Library, and Florence County Library.
* The Indiana Open Source ILS Initiative has already welcomed five new libraries to their Evergreen consortium since the start of 2010: Greensburg-Decatur County Contractual Public Library, Kirklin Public Library, Ligonier Public Library, Linden-Carnegie Public Library, and Roanoke Public Library.
* Kirtland Community College in Roscommon, MI went live with Evergreen in January 2010.
* SITKA in British Columbia welcomed the Mackenzie Public Library into its consortium on February 25, 2010.
Planet Evergreen
Can’t get enough news about Evergreen open source software? Subscribe to or read Planet Evergreen, an aggregator for Evergreen-related posts. Have a blog that talks about Evergreen? To add your blog to the Planet Evergreen blog aggregator, send email to Dan Scott at dan@coffeecode.net
A Few Reminders
Evergreen has a Flickr set and a Facebook group.
Newsletter Administrivia
Feel free to forward, share, etc.! Jason sits at the top of the blame map, but we have direct edits from:
Amy Terlaga, Bibliomation, Inc., terlaga@biblio.org
Dan Scott, Laurentian University, dan@coffeecode.net
Jason Etheridge, Equinox Software Inc., jason@esilibrary.com
Mike Rylander, Equinox Software Inc.
Warren Layton, NRCan Library / Bibliothèque RNCan
And special thanks to Sally Fortin and Bob Molyneux from Equinox Software Inc. for contributions.
You can reach volunteer newsletter wranglers at newsletter@evergreen-ils.org
Licensing
This newsletter is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, which is an open “copy-left” license similar to that used by Evergreen. If you contribute content that is copyrighted or copyrightable, please let us know if you do not agree to have it released under this license. Thanks!
ALA Annual 2009 — a good time was had by all! This photo is of Matt Carlson of King County Library System, at the Open Source Unconference held during ALA.
VOWS: When the academic year ended at Charles University in Prague, Linda Skolkova and Vaclav Jansa, who taught the Evergreen course at the Institute of Information Studies and Librarianship, could finally find some spare time… to get married! They said their I do’s on July 18 at the New Town Hall in Prague. You are welcome to 
American Library Association Annual Conference (Chicago, Illinois, July 9-15). Evergreen folks from all over will be exhibiting, presenting, meeting with people, and so forth!
‘Tis the luck o’ the Irish to be an Evergreen user! As a reminder, we will post this newsletter to the Evergreen general discussion list (see all 
Since November, two new developers have joined the Equinox team of “Evergreen Experts”: Laura McFarland and Scott McKellar. You can 
