Evergreen ILS Update,
September 2011
Dan Scott
Systems Librarian
Laurentian University
Barriers to Evergreen adoption
• Hardware:
o two servers recommended
o offline mode for staff, but not for catalogue
• Software skills:
o Linux system administration
o PostgreSQL
o Apache
o ejabberd
• Installation & configuration is not "turn key"
• Community currently concentrated in North America
o IRC support may be limited in your timezone
o Internationalization is hit or miss
• Javascript-heavy catalogue*
Evergreen growth: community
• Volunteer "do-ocracy" teams including:
o Documentation
o Reports
o Web site
o Developers
o Bug wranglers
o Release
• Mailing lists (General and Developers)
• IRC channel
Evergreen growth: quality
• Increased use of community bug database
o For merge requests as well as bugs
o Any non-trivial code changes are supposed to go through
a merge request / review process
• Weekly developer meetings via IRC
o One meeting to discuss issues and processes
o One meeting to review merge requests
• Automated test suite for build / compile / unit testing errors
o More unit tests needed!
Evergreen growth: governance
• Joined the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) American
non-profit organization
• SFC, as a legal entity, can hold project assets such as
trademarks, copyright, domain names, and funds
o Transparent, neutral third party
• Evergreen Oversight Board represents the project
o Board was "bootstrapped" in 2011 but will hold elections
in 2012
Evergreen features: 2.1 release
• 2.1.0 release should be available any day now
• Improved since 2.0:
o Serials with predictions and check-in
o Acquisitions with EDI support
• New since 2.0:
o Bibliographic parts
o Conjoined items
o Hold-driven recalls
o Automated staff client updates
o Authority control sets
o SRU/Z39.50 server support for authority records
o ... and much more
Evergreen features: 2.2 release
• 2.2 beta targeted for late November 2011
• TPAC: low-bandwidth, full-featured catalogue
o Easy customization
o On-the-fly lists
• OpenLibrary integration for cover art, added content, ebooks (includes lending)
• Revamped configuration interface, courtesy of Google
Summer of Code student Joseph Lewis:
o Categorized configuration settings
o Settings history; import; export
o Searchable interface
• Staff client: saved searches
Evergreen adoption recommendations
• Have a test server - and use it
o Learn how to administer Evergreen - safely
o Test your migration strategy
o Test and document new features on new releases
o Train staff on new features on new releases
• Speak up!
o Share your troubles and triumphs on the mailing lists,
IRC, and bug reporting database
• Stay current!
o Point releases contain important bug fixes
o Major releases can change how internal processes work
significantly, making it hard for the community to help
users on previous releases
Evergreen: Join us!
• Contribute to the documentation, test releases, contribute
fixes, and share your knowledge with others
Evergreen wants you:
http://evergreen-ils.org