David Singleton, Deputy State Librarian

1
(No Transcript)
2

• David Singleton, Deputy State Librarian
• Julie Walker, PINES Program Director
• Brad LaJeunesse, Systems Administrator
• Mike Rylander, Development Consultant

3
Georgia Systems PINES Systems
4
PINES Anticipated Growth
5
PINES Today

• Y2k project started in 1999
• 44 public library systems
• 252 member libraries
• 123 counties
• 8.8 million items
• 1.6 million active cardholders from all 159
  Georgia counties.

6
What Makes PINES Different?

• The PINES library card is free to any resident of
  Georgia, and may be obtained from any PINES
  library.
• The PINES library card can be used at any PINES
  facility as if at the home library.
• Materials may be returned to any PINES library.

7
What Makes PINES Different?

• Users may request materials delivered from any
  PINES library to local library, at no charge.
• In FY06, over 452,000 loans between PINES
  libraries.
• PINES libraries agree to a common set of
  policies, and procedures, with the goal that
  users have a consistent experience at any PINES
  library.

8
PINES Governance

• Executive Committee Nine (9) elected
  representatives (Library Directors) from member
  library systems.
• Function-specific subcommittees make policy
  recommendations.
• Executive Committee meets quarterly and as
  needed.

9
What are the Benefits?

• For users increased access to local library
  collections
• For libraries the State of Georgia assumes the
  costs of the automation system.
• Access, not ownership, is the key.
• Economy of scale
• PINES annual cost approximately 1.6 million.
  
• Individual library automation systems over 15
  million approximately 5 million per year to
  maintain those systems.

10
Services from PINES Central

• Training for 1,400 PINES staff in libraries
  across the state. Training is conducted
  regionally to reduce travel demands on libraries.
• Responsibility for printing and mailing of
  overdue notices for all PINES libraries
• Helpdesk via phone, email or web, available 24
  hours/day.

11
WHAT DO USERS LIKE BEST ABOUT PINES?Comments
from the PINES User Survey

• It SIGNIFICANTLY expands the choices of books
  and other materials available to me. I appreciate
  this so much because I live in a rural part of
  the state with a very small local library.
• Allowing books to be checked out from other
  libraries is WONDERFUL. This way, the Pines
  System is like one gigantic library making
  available a tremendous selection of books
  regardless of where the books are physically
  housed.

12
The Evergreen Project

• The 5-year software contract for PINES ended in
  June 2005.
• 2003-2004 PINES staff conducted a comprehensive
  survey of the library automation marketplace
• At issue the unique needs of a statewide
  consortium sharing a centralized database and
  utilizing a statewide library card.
• Is the software driving the policy/procedure, or
  is the policy/procedure driving the software?

13
The Evergreen Project

• What do PINES libraries need?
• Enterprise-class relational database
• Flexible system administration
• Granular permissions structure
• A complex holds matrix
• Ability to treat member libraries as individual
  entities
• Reports designed to correspond to annual
  reporting requirements

14
The Evergreen Project

• Evergreen Integrated Library System was developed
  using Open Source software.
• Released under General Public License (GPL).
• Alpha release (Online public access catalog,
  Cataloging, Circulation) debuted in July 2005.
• Beta release in early 2006.
• All PINES libraries migrated to Evergreen
  software on September 5, 2006.
• Transactions, user records, and item records were
  migrated from the former system.

15
Cost Comparison
16
Fringe Benefits

• Were self-sustaining and control our own
  destiny.
• We decide on development priorities.
• No more difficulty trying to convince a vendor to
  develop important features for us (a minority
  customer in some ways).
• The users of the software have direct access to
  the developers.

17
Evergreen Online Catalog Features

• Streamlined searching from a single search box.
• Google-like spell-checking and search
  suggestions.
• Ability to select specific material formats from
  the online catalogs front page.
• Added content, including book cover images,
  reviews, and excerpts.
• Randomized holds that include geographic location
  as a factor.
• Scalability in anticipation of PINES growth.

18
Evergreen Online Catalog Features

• In My Account, patrons can
• change personal login name
• change password
• place, cancel, and view holds
• modify how they would like to be alerted of
  available holds
• view fines
• view address information and
• view Bookbags (and share them)

19
Lets take a look

• http//gapines.org

20
Evergreen Core Technologies

• Database PostgreSQL
• Logic/glue languages C and Perl, Javascript
• Webserver Apache mod_perl, C modules
• Client side software XUL
• Server operating system Linux
• Server hardware x86-64
• Messaging core Jabber (Ejabberd)

21
Evergreen Design

• Server-side software is designed to run on
  inexpensive commodity hardware with Linux as the
  operating system.
• The software is designed to run in a clustered
  environment, giving it enterprise-level high
  availability and failover.
• Evergreen's staff client is cross-platform
  (Windows, Mac, Linux).

22
(No Transcript)
23
Open Application Plaform

• The traditional ILS is
• A catalog
• An OPAC
• A circulation system
• Cataloging tools
• We wanted more we wanted a platform

24
Open Application Platform

• We need a framework that
• is easy to cluster
• takes care of all the dirty work
• has very low overhead
• makes writing applications simple
• is built on open, standard protocols
• Given this we can create components as they
  are needed to provide solutions on demand we
  don't need to anticipate every problem!

25
OpenSRF Features and Benefits

• We built a framework that
• can trivially scale from a single server to
  hundreds in a tiered, redundant fashion
• manages everything but the application logic,
  abstracting away everything to a consistent set
  of method calls
• can easily handle hundreds of transactions per
  second, per server without any administrator
  tuning of the underlying components
• turns writing applications, including entire ILS
  modules, into a matter of translating business
  logic into a set of simple Perl or C routines
• Leverages existing open standards and open source
  software to avoid both duplication of effort and
  component lock-in

26
OpenSRF The Pieces

• OpenSRF consists of
• A Jabber server PINES uses eJabberd, and has
  tested jabber2d and an in-house custom server
• The OpenSRF Router provides application load
  balancing and failover services
• OpenSRF Application Infrastructure libraries
  and tools that turn simple business logic
  functions into seamless applications
• OpenSRF Gateway an Apache web server plugin
  that turns URLs into OpenSRF requests, and
  OpenSRF reponses into web-accesible content
• OpenSRF DocGen serves API documentation from
  the OpenSRF Introspection Service

27
Benefits to Evergreen

• Dramatically decreased the time to go from
  service prototypes to production implementations
• Allows developers to focus on core ILS issues
• Increase capacity as needed using any source no
  hardware vendor lock-in!
• No single point of failure for any critical
  system or service
• Rolling Upgrades no need to take the system
  offline to upgrade backend services!

28
Where Do We Go from Here?

• Migration of the six library systems waiting to
  become part of PINES.
• Develop the Acquisitions and Serials modules.
• Work with others on a protocol to share
  information across automation systems (Open
  NCIP).
• Develop the children's portal for the online
  catalog.

29
Where Do We Go from Here?

• Implement online bill pay for users.
• Enhance social aspects of the catalog user
  ratings, reviews, and comments.
• Complete the Spanish translation for the online
  catalog.

30
Where do we go from here?

• Deep links into the GALILEO databases.
• Online catalog that can be used on mobile
  devices.
• Possible partnerships with other institutions.

31
PINES online catalog gapines.org Evergreen
development open-ils.org


32

• David Singleton
• dsingleton_at_georgialibraries.org
• Julie Walker
• jwalker_at_georgialibraries.org
• Brad LaJeunesse
• bradl_at_georgialibraries.org
• Mike Rylander
• mrylander_at_georgialibraries.org