by We’re very proud to announce the release of the Evergreen Cataloging (Pre-Alpha) Demo. Again, this is a pre-alpha version meant simply for demonstration and proof of concept. There are many, many bugs in this release, and it has limited functionality. The purpose for this release is to gather feedback and to determine if we’re generally heading in the correct direction. We are not looking for bug reports or detail-oriented feedback. The time for that will come later, after the Alpha release this summer.
With those caveats in mind, here are some of the specific functionalities this release contains:
- Basic bibliographic searching; narrowing hits by owning library or local system (more basic options and advanced searching forthcoming).
- Customizable hit list; ability to re-arrange, remove, or add columns. (sorting of columns forthcoming)
- Integrated MARC editor that enforces basic MARC standards. Ability to edit and save MARC records to the test database.
- “Tree” listing of copies; ability to easily see what system/branch owns what and how many.
- Copy editor.
- Ability to add copies or volumes 1 at a time or in a batch mode at any level of the organization structure (at local system or per branch).
If you would like to install the Evergreen staff client demo on your computer, follow the instructions below. Alternatively, if you would just like to view screenshots, you can certainly just follow the walk-through below without actually installing the software.
Instructions for installing the demo:
(Note: in the production version of the software, the following multiple installation steps will not be required.)
If you are behind a firewall, you must allow outgoing connections on port 6222.
In order to test this demo release, you must download and install the Firefox web browser on your local machine. You may download Firefox from this location:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
(The download link is in the upper-right corner of that page.)
After downloading and installing Firefox, download the Evergreen staff client package from here:
(Update: April 5, 2004. This demo has been discontinued. The next demo is due out in Mid-May. )
http://www.open-ils.org/downloads/evergreen.xpi
Save it to your desktop. Then, in Firefox, go to File -> Open File…
Navigate to your desktop, and open the file you just downloaded (evergreen.xpi). Click on the Install button. After it has finished installing, completely close Firefox (this is important), and restart it.
A quick walkthrough of the high points…
We have designed this demo to work as if a “regional” cataloger was using it. The interface will look and work slightly differently depending on the permissions of the cataloger logged in, and what organizational level the cataloger is associated with. For this demo, you are logging in as the regional cataloger responsible for the Athens Regional Library.
Also, a warning is needed. There is an awful lot of content in cataloging demo. I’m not going to go into each and every little feature (and into each feature we have planned but don’t have), but this is still a large walk-through. Again, my purpose is just to hit the high points, and to help give a general feel for the overall application. The ability to really use this application, when it’s complete, will take training and documentation (which doesn’t exist yet).
Without further delay:
In the address bar, type: chrome://evergreen/content/
Hit Enter. You’ll get a login screen. Use “demo” as the username and password. Click the “submit” button.
