The newsletter for Evergreen open source library software

Volume 2, Issue 8 — September, 2009

As a reminder, we post this newsletter to the Evergreen general discussion list as well as to this blog. Cross-posting and forwarding are encouraged.

In This Issue…

Evergreen Out and About, Evergreen Development Update, Evergreen Post-Birthday Links, Evergreen People, Lyrasis Evergreen Classes, New Evergreen Libraries, Newsletter Administrivia

Out and About: An Evergreen Calendar

Access 2009 (9/30-10/3): Evergreen developer Mike Rylander and Equinox project manager Shae Tetterton will be there, and there are many open source and Evergreen events there as well. See http://vre2.upei.ca/access2009/

North Carolina Library Association (10/6-10/9): Equinox Software has a booth there, come by and say hello, or ask for a demo!

Indiana Library Federation (10/18-10/20): Come see Equinox Software at the exhibits!

If you have Evergreen-related events to add (talks, conferences, etc.), just email events@evergreen-ils.org.

Evergreen Post-Birthday Links

Evergreen celebrated its third birthday on September 5, and there were two blog posts marking the occasion. Bravo us!

Documentation Interest Group: Onward, XML Soldiers!

The needs assessment for the Evergreen Documentation Interest Group couldn’t have been plainer about the future direction of the DIG–definitely worth reading! Here’s a summary:

The needs assessment group of the Evergreen Documentation Interest Group (DIG) recommends that activities to produce single-source, XML-based project-wide Evergreen documentation commence immediately in these four areas: reports; installation, upgrading, and migrations; cataloging; and circulation. [Note: the DIG concurred at the September 9 meeting, and work has commenced.]

We are forging ahead in that direction!

The wiki page for the DIG has been reorganized and is easier to navigate.

Meanwhile, Paul Weiss, DIG co-facilitator, has moved on to a new, non-Evergreen position, and two DIG members have volunteered to step in as facilitators, something the DIG will ratify at its next meeting in a couple of weeks (TBA on the documentation list). Thanks and good-by to Paul!

Finally, a big, hearty thank you to Mike Peters (Evergreen Indiana) for setting up a test server for the DIG.

Come on board–there’s room for many-a-more! Email docs@evergreen-ils.org for more info.

Evergreen Development Update

Evergreen 1.4.0.6 and Evergreen Release Candidate 1.6.0.0RC1 both recently debuted, and the roll-outs for both, but particularly 1.6, were very smooth.

See the Evergreen Roadmap for a top-level view of what’s coming in 2.0.

Evergreen Jobs

Mohawk College (Ontario) has an opening for a library applications specialist.

Evergreen People

HIRES: Equinox Software Inc., “The Evergreen Experts,” recently hired two more developers: Joe Atzberger and Lebbeous Fogle-Weekley.

Joe’s previous position was as a Koha developer for LibLime. He also worked several previous years as a Technical Specialist supporting INFOhio K-12 libraries and their migrations on SirsiDynix and MultiLIS platforms. Joe came by the library world naturally: both his parents also love books, have English degrees, and his mom is a Reference Librarian.

For the past three years, Lebbeous worked for an information security firm in Cleveland, Ohio, where he primarily wrote software using open source tools. He has applied his passion for programming to diverse problems including vulnerability assessment, network perimeter management, log analysis, and more. Lebbeous also enjoys history, following college football, and video games (sometimes to his wife’s chagrin).

Lyrasis Evergreen Training Classes

Lyrasis is offering two Evergreen classes in the near future:

Evergreen Circulation Module (Live Online)

10/22/2009, 2:00pm-4:00pm EST

Evergreen Administration and Statistics Module (Live Online)

10/22/2009, 2:00pm-4:00pm EST

To register, please see the Lyrasis website .

For close to a year, Lyrasis (created from a merger of SOLINET and PALINET) 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

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.

New Evergreen Libraries: Welcome Aboard!

Also see the growing list of all known Evergreen libraries. This list is open to all Evergreen libraries, from commercially-supported to “grow-your-own.” Please add your library if it’s not there!

Highlights from the latest additions:

North Texas Library Consortium (NTLC) just rolled out 13 libraries on a shared catalog. Everything’s bigger in Texas! Welcome aboard, NTLC!

Sitka in British Columbia rolled out three more libraries, Gibsons District Public Library, Sechelt Public Library, and Castlegar Public Library, for a total of 24 libraries on a shared catalog.

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 co-wranglers for this newsletter (produced every month… sometimes earlier, sometimes later… what can we say!) are Karen Schneider, Equinox Community Librarian and John Fink, Digital Technologies Development Librarian at McMaster University.