The newsletter for Evergreen open source library software
Volume 2, Issue 5 — May, 2009
Cross-posting and forwarding is encouraged.
In Just Two Days, Trees Dance in the Forest
Or at least, the first-ever Evergreen International Conference will commence in Athens, Georgia (May 20-22, 2009). More below!
In This Issue…
Evergreen Out and About, Evergreen Conference Preview, Lyrasis Evergreen Classes, PINES Survey Results, Planet Evergreen, New Evergreen Libraries, Newsletter Administrivia
Out and About: An Evergreen Calendar
There now really is such a thing as an Evergreen Calendar! Its website: http://evergreen-ils.org/calendar
If you have Evergreen-related events to add (talks, conferences, etc.), just email events@evergreen-ils.org.
Evergreen International Conference (Athens, Georgia, May 20 – 22, 2009). Our first conference! Joe Lucia and Jessamyn West will be keynoting! See more about this exciting event below.
American Library Association Annual Conference (Chicago, Illinois, July 9-15). We’ll be exhibiting, meeting with people, and so forth!
WilsWorld (Madison, Wisconsin, July 28-29). Karen Schneider to do a plenary session and a couple other spots. Karen spoke at one of the earliest WilsWorld conferences and is excited to return!
Past Conferences: A big thank you to Sharon Herbert and all the other folks at the British Columbia Library Association conference. Karen Schneider of Equinox gave a talk about open source and creativity that was well-attended. The informal chats with Evergreeners and fellow travelers were wonderful too. Also a shout-out to Indiana where Karen did a development update at their regional Evergreen conference.
PINES Users Heart Evergreen
Georgia PINES, the first statewide consortium powered by Evergreen open source library software, has achieved the highest-ever user satisfaction ratings in the five-year history of its annual survey. Based on the 2009 survey, 19 out of 20 respondents (95.6 percent) would recommend the Evergreen-powered PINES system to friends.
(Source: Equinox press release)
Evergreen International Conference, May 20-22, 2009
Questions? Email events@evergreen-ils.org. Also see the registration website and the wiki.
We’re almost there! This conference (social tag eg09) will bring together close to 150 Evergreen users, Evergreen advocates, people evaluating Evergreen or in the market for a new ILS, open source advocates, etc.!
In addition to the conference registration website, also see the growing conference wiki where you can sign up for rides, dine-arounds, table talks, and more (there will also be paper signup forms at the conference).
By now, if you’re attending, you know many of the specifics of the conference — the programs, keynotes, Birds of a Feather, table talks, dine-arounds, lightning talks, and so forth. Here is some information gleaned from our pre-conference survey and other sources:
1. At least half of all attendees report that they will be blogging, tweeting, Flickring, emailing, or otherwise reporting on the conference.
2. Six of the sessions, plus the lightning talks and keynotes, will be videotaped, and these tapes will be later uploaded to the web.
3. At least ten attendees are vegetarians, about a dozen are international, and 8 had questions for the keynote speakers.
4. The top question for the committee was “how do we get from the Atlanta airport to Athens?” (The answer, on the wiki, is to take a shuttle or share a ride. The wiki also has a ride board.)
5. Hackfest turnout has been outstanding. Over 30 people are signed up for Sysadmin Survival Skills. Close to 20 people will gather to discuss documentation. A dozen people have signed up for half-hour Meet with a Developer sessions. And there are a good dozen folks who want to just get together and code!
7. In keeping with an early goal to keep the conference “Ever-GREEN,” there will be SWAG bags (donated by Equinox) which you can proudly use later on for your groceries, while the (very slick-looking) SWAG mugs, donated by Nelinet, will help us all reduce waste.
7. Speaking of sponsors, let this be the first but hardly the last time we thank our conference sponsors! Gold sponsors: Ebsco/Novelist, Unique Management, Equinox Software, and STAT. Silver sponsors: BWI, ITG, 3M, Envisionware, Brodart, Lyrasis, Nelinet, and Georgia Public Library Service. Thank you!
The 2009 Evergreen Conference is jointly coordinated by Georgia Public Library Service, Equinox Software, and Lyrasis. Also, special thanks to Karen Collier at Kent County Library, Maryland, for participating in the program review process.
Lyrasis Rolls Out More Evergreen Training Classes
Evergreen classes are being offered online by Lyrasis (nee Solinet) on the following dates and times:
May 27th Evergreen Guided Tour and Demo (Free).
June 4th Evergreen Admin and Stats Module. Two hour course, 10:00am-12:00pm
Since October, Lyrasis, formerly known as SOLINET and PALINET, has taught close to 25 Evergreen classes with over 100 students! Lyrasis is dedicated to training and instructing Evergreen and welcomes your comments and suggestions for courses. All of our current course offerings are continuously updated and we plan on adding more courses to our catalog on future topics. Feel free to contact Lyrasis Instructors at Jennifer.bielewski@lyrasis.org or Jenny.Liberatore@lyrasis.org for comments or questions about Evergreen courses. We will be at the Evergreen Conference in Athens, GA and are excited to meet those of you attending!
Planet Evergreen
Can’t get enough news about Evergreen open source software? Subscribe to (or just read) Planet Evergreen, an aggregator for Evergreen-related posts. Have a blog that talks about Evergreen? To add your blog (or blog subset) to the Planet Evergreen blog aggregator, send email to Dan Scott at dan@coffeecode.net
Evergreen on Facebook
Evergreen has a growing Facebook group that features events and news related to Evergreen. The group now has over 280 members. If you’re on Facebook, join our group. If you aren’t on Facebook and you don’t think you’re the Facebook “type,” give it a try. You might be surprised by who’s on Facebook!
A Few Reminders
Webinars and videos: Don’t forget the section on the Evergreen wiki devoted to community-contributed documentation and tutorials.
Evergreen also has a Flickr set.
New Evergreen Libraries: Welcome Aboard!
Also see the growing list of Evergreen libraries.
Evergreen Indiana:
Greenwood Public Library
Michigan Evergreen:
Laingsburg Public Library
If you’d like to follow along as libraries join the Evergreen community, you can subscribe to the Equinox press release feed, which will announce most known Evergreen implementations (or follow the Facebook group mentioned above). The Equinox press release feed was recently tweaked to make it easier to track and share the releases.
Newsletter Administrivia
Feel free to forward, share, etc.!
The deadline for the Evergreen newsletter is the last working day before the first of the month… feel free to submit items earlier. The co-wranglers for this newsletter are Karen Schneider, Equinox Community Librarian and John Fink, Digital Technologies Development librarian at McMaster University.