After all of my work bug checking and writing the manual for Koha 3, the beta release has finally been announced. I’d love some help testing - so I can’t wait to see what you all have to say!!
Technorati Tags: koha
Next up, LibLime’s Joshua Ferraro. Josh talked to us about why LibLime was started and what both LibLime & Koha could do for libraries.
Why start LibLime?
Josh would often hear librarians saying that they liked the idea of open source, but we have no way to support it. So, Josh started LibLime to offer libraries support for open-source software in hopes that once the company was started that particular objection would disappear.
How LibLime Works
Open-source software is freely avaiable for download on the web - so why do we need LibLime? Like many other open source products (Linux for example) there are commercial entities that offer services for the software in question. LibLime is around to assist libraries in data migration, hosting, development, customization, training and support.
LibLime offers services for multiple open-source products. The key product to this day’s event was Koha, an open-source library system. As a customer of LibLime, ultimately you steer development for the system - if someone sponsors a change or upgrade, it gets rolled right back into the community - meaning we all benefit from each other’s participation. Another great thing about open source solutions like Koha is that implementation of these upgrades usually happen in days and week instead of years and decades (like some proprietary packages).
Has LibLime Worked?
Ask anyone in an open-source company and they’ll tell you that they’re very busy (I’ll tell you that I’m very busy!). In 2005, LibLime had 1 employee and 1 customer, as of March 2008, they have 18+ employees, hundreds of customers - a 400% growth (compounded for 3 years).
Customers are getting actively involved in the process. Freedom to innovate gives us a chance to change the culture in our libraries - we have become used to living in a culture of work arounds (us working around the way our software products are built) - open source gives us the chance to actually have software do what we want!
Conclusions
Josh mentioned that librarians often ask him, “Isn’t open source risky?” Josh answers “Isn’t any decision you make on an ILS risky? Especially in this environment with vendor consolidation - etc etc?” I totally agree - who knows where your ILS will be next year - or who will be controlling the development and the money! Why not have a product you can take with you to whomever you’d like as the landscape changes?
I have heard Josh speak several times - obviously - so I already knew I’d like this talk and agree with him - based on the question and answer session that followed his talk, I think others felt similarly.
Technorati Tags: liblime, koha, valenj, open source
Yesterday I had an interesting chat with my sister about library catalogs. We were talking about the post I made regarding IM & SMS and whether librarians should skip over IM and move on to SMS? I told her about the fact that card catalogs are still being used and she replied with “Well, I’d rather use a card catalog, it was much easier to find things that way.” This from my younger sister! We all keep assuming that the younger generation wants technology - but here’s one person who’d rather use the cards than deal with the library OPAC. I asked her why.
She said that the OPAC (my word, not hers) is very intimidating (I opened up a Voyager example and we did a little keyword search and it proved her point … there were too many results, none of which seemed to match her initial intent). Instead of upsetting me, this actually got me a little excited.
I decided to show her a Koha example and see what her opinion was. We did the same search on the Athens County Public Library site and found the perfect result come up as the first result (yes, we did the same search). “So, is this better?” I asked. “Yes, much” she replied. She found that the Koha interface was familiar and friendly, less intimidating. She also said that she feels that the younger generation is less likely to learn what’s old (in her case - card catalogs are the way she learned - so while they’re old they don’t count in this argument) and more likely to stick with what’s new and hip and familiar - in this case the Koha search results reminded her of Amazon and made it easier for her to find what she was looking for without being overwhelmed.
I need to add here that my “younger” sister is only 2.5 years younger than I am - we’re not talking about a teenager here - but we are talking to someone who finished her undergraduate last year and was very recently surrounded by the next generation of library researchers.
I love my job - I love getting to go out and talk to librarians about what’s new and available for libraries - but I also love talking to the non-librarians to see what they want and expect from their libraries - this was a great chance for me to talk to someone about libraries who doesn’t actually work in a library. I think I’ll try to do this more often 
PLA is coming upon us very quickly! I just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be there probably at the booth most of the time - so stop by and see me. I also want to bring your attention to the Koha Interest Group meeting that we’re holding.
Time and Place
Date: Thursday, March 27, 2008
Time: 3:30pm - 5:00pm
Location: Hyatt Regency Minneapolis (Greenway Ballroom on the 2nd floor)
Street: 1300 Nicollet Mall
City/Town:Minneapolis, MN
You can join the event on Facebook or see more information on the LibLime site.
I hope to see some of you there and meet some new people
During my training I had the pleasure of meeting two of the newest LibLime team members. I already mentioned Marc Roberson, but now I’m happy to announce that John Rose has joined the LibLime team.
John Rose Joins LibLime as VP, Strategic Markets
…John comes to LibLime from CQ Press, where he was National Sales Manager. Prior to CQ Press, John served as Director of Eastern Region Sales for Endeavor Information Systems and as Eastern Region Sales Manager for Dynix. He holds a bachelors in political science from the State University of New York at Albany. John will help develop and execute sales strategies at LibLime.
…John points out that–in a market that has seen the darker side of venture capital companies–LibLime is privately owned and service-based. “Unlike venture capital companies, the organizational character of LibLime is–by the very nature of the open-source movement–going to be focused on the needs of librarians and the library community.”
I’m happy to work with both of these men and happy to finally be allowed to announce that they’ve joined the team
Now that I’m the Open Source Evangelist at LibLime, it’s my job to blog at Open Sesame (a long abandoned blog). Now that the blog is up and running I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feed and keep an eye on the open source news I post there.
Technorati Tags: open source, liblime
I’m not the only one to join LibLime recently, I was lucky enough to meet Marc Roberson during my orientation week, and his excitement about LibLime and Koha is awesome!! This from LibLime:
Marc Roberson Joins LibLime As VP, Library Partners
…Marc welcomes the opportunity to help usher in the new era of library innovation and collaboration made possible through open source: “Who knows what libraries need better than the people who actually work in one?” he says. “Librarians have traditionally been told by software developers what they should want, how it should look and work and when they can get it. This traditional model served many well for a number of years, educating librarians on how systems operate and sometimes, to their frustration, keeping them from doing what they really wanted. Open source solutions give librarians the opportunity to implement ideas and solutions they want and share those ideas and solutions with others.”
[update] I love what Richard has to say about this news: “It is clear that Open Source library systems are definitely moving out from under the library geeks only image.” [/update]
Technorati Tags: liblime, marc roberson
