Open Source Technologies for a Corporate Information Centre
1. The Open Source Software for Libraries Community
This community contributes items relating to open source technology and libraries. Primarily in a news format, posts can be sporadic. In the current year posts have been around two per month. Any registered user can post items, although there is an editor to oversee the information.
Features of this site include a number of external links to related sites, a searchable archive, a listserv which is open for free subscription, and an RSS feed for posts.
This is not a one-stop shop for information on open source in a corporate information centre, but does provide a way of finding out about what is happening in the open source world which relates to libraries, including who is using what technology. The site is also worth monitoring for the results of these projects, and is a way of communicating with others who are in a similar position.
2. Sourceforge.Net
Sourceforge.Net is a software development website run by OTSG Inc, a subsidiary of VA Software Corporation. It hosts over 100,000 open source software development projects, acting as a repository for code and applications as well as providing project management and communication services.
Projects are indexed and catalogued and searchable. Details which are viewable on each project include the username of the project administrator, project stage, recent activity, the operating system the project is designed for, the programming language and the kind of license the project can be distributed under.
When searching for ‘ILS’ in the quick search function, eight results come up of which 6 could potentially be interesting to a corporate information centre, depending on their needs. The benefits of using this site to evaluate projects for potential use are that it is easy to determine at what stage the project is at (i.e. planning stage, production stage) and if it has reached maturity, and whether the project is still being worked on.
3. Koha ILS Software
Koha claims to be the first open source Integrated Library System (ILS). It was developed by Katipo Communications in Wellington and is distributed under the General Public License. Liblime has recently taken over much of the work Katipo does to look after the Koha development community and library support.
Koha is scalable for large and small libraries and able to run on low spec machines, although the more RAM a machine has, the quicker it will be able to process requests. Its modules cover the range of library tasks, and it will run on all major operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac OS and Unix).
This site is an example of what to look for when evaluating open source technologies for possible use. Documentation and FAQs which are up-to-date are a key sign of a mature and actively maintained product. One common problem with open source is that there can be a lack of productisation and hence a lot of work to be done by the organization to make the product useful. Koha’s site has been set up to actively encourage libraries to adopt Koha as their ILS and includes a support section with links to communities, mailing lists, documentation, and even companies which offer support services.
In evaluating Koha for possible use there is a lot of information here to help. Most importantly, there are a number of current users of Koha listed so it is possible to contact them and get a real-life perspective on the software.
