Open Source vs Vendor Opportunities

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Open Source vs Vendor Opportunities

• Marshall Breeding
• Director for Innovative Technologies and Research
• Vanderbilt University
• http//staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding

ASERL Membership Meeting Asheville, NC April 4,
2007
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Software Development

• Open Source vs. Vendor Beta Partnerships
• Pros and Cons
• Who is Doing What, and
• Is there an Open Source Project for ASERL Members?

3
Open Source

• Program source code available
• No license cost for the software itself
• Can be part of commercial offerings
• Anyone can fix problems, add features, etc.

4
Proprietary Software Development

• Source code kept secret
• Only binary code distributed
• License fees charged for software
• Ongoing development funded by license fees
  maintenance/support fees

5
Open Source Cost considerations

• Relative parity with commercial alternatives
• Other cost components same or greater
• Hardware
• Facilities management
• Systems administration, security, network
  management
• Ongoing development
• Integration with enterprise environment
• Support and service

6
Open Source Infrastructure

• Linux operating system
• Apache Web Server
• http//www.apache.org/
• Tomcat, Xerces, Jakarta, etc
• MySQL database
• Lucene full text search engine

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Open source ILS

• Koha
• Evergreen
• LearningAccess ILS

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Koha

• Originally developed by Katipo Communications in
  New Zealand for Horowhenua Library Trust
• Released as Open Source

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Koha
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Libraries using Koha

• 300 (mostly small) libraries
• Horowhenua Library Trust
• Nelsonville Public Library
• Athens County, OH
• Crawford County Federated Library System
• 10 Libraries in PA

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Evergreen

• Developed by the Georgia Public Library Service
• Small development team
• June 2004 development begins
• Sept 5, 2006 live production

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Libraries using Evergreen

• Georgia PINES
• http//gapines.org
• 252 libraries in Georgia
• Does not include municipal systems
  Atlanta-Fulton County, Cobb County
• Experimental evaluation
• King County Library System in WA state.

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Evergreen
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Learning Access ILS

• Learning Access Institute
• Turnkey Open Source ILS
• Designed for underserved rural public libraries
• http//www.learningaccess.org

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LearningAccess ILS
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SCOOLS

• South Central Organization of (School) Libraries
• consortium of K-12 school libraries in NY
• Koha derivative

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SCOOLS
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LibraryFind

• Metasearch tool
• Developed by Oregon State University
• http//libraryfind.org

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Library Find
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Commercial Support Options

• Index Data
• LibLime
• Index Data
• Equinox Software, Inc.

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LibLime

• Commercial spin-off from the Nelsonville Public
  Library
• 9 employees
• Recently acquired Koha division of Katipo
  Communications in New Zealand
• Original Developer of Koha

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Equinox Software

• Commercial spin-off of Georgia Public Library
  Services
• Developers of Evergreen
• No full-time employees, all still work for GPLS

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Open Source ILS adoption in libraries

• Georgia PINES
• Nelsonville Public Library

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Examples

• King County Library System
• Serves 1.2 million residents
• 43 libraries
• 19 million annual circulation
• Investigating viability of Evergreen

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eXtensible Catalog

• http//extensiblecatalog.info/
• Working toward Open Source next-generation
  interface
• University of Rochesters River Campus Libraries
• Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
  (283,000)
• Study on needs and requirements, not software
  development

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Index Data

• Zebra database server and indexing engine
• YAZ Toolkit for Z39.50
• YAZ Proxy Z39.50 / SRW gateway
• Keystone Digital Library System

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Digital Repositiory

• DSpace
• HP MIT
• Fedora
• Univ of Virginia Cornell
• Commercial enhancements and support from VTLS

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Partnering with Commercial Vendors
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Development partner scenario

• Capital costs of development born by the vendor
• Team of professional programmers
• Product management
• Quality Assurance
• RD investment
• Market research

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Library responsibility

• Input in features and design
• Early implementation
• Testing, evaluation, assessment

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Innovative Encore

• 20 development partners
• Grand Valley State University, Jefferson County
  Public Library (CO), Miami University (OH),
  University of Western Ontario (Canada), and
  Wright State University (OH), Scottsdale Public
  Library and the Lillian Goldman Library at Yale
  Law School, Binghamton University SUNY (NY),
  Deakin University (Australia), Deschutes Public
  Library (OR), Georgetown University (DC),
  Michigan State University, Nashville Public
  Library (TN), Scottsdale Public Library System
  (AZ), Springfield-Greene County Library (MO), the
  Tri-College Library Consortium (PA), University
  of Glasgow (Scotland), the University of
  Queensland Library (Australia), Westerville
  Public Library (OH)

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Vanderbilt Primo Experience

• Library-wide decision making process
• Major investment of library resources
• Complex project with many components

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Primo

• New Discovery and Delivery tool for library
  content and services
• Next-generation library interface
• ILS bibliographic data TV News
• Example of adding local digital content
• Integrated federated search
• Integrated OpenURL linking services

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Project costs

• LITS team leader
• Project Manager
• Systems administrator
• Major agenda item for Digital Library Steering
  Committee
• 5 project teams
• Intensive effort Aug 2006 May 2007

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Balance of work Vendor / Library

• Work performed by the library represents a very
  small portion of the overall effort to develop
  the complete system
• Beta-test Libraries not primarily responsible
  for
• Initial product conception
• Programming
• Debugging
• Technical design
• Recruitment, training, support for team of
  designers, programmers, QA
• A beta-test library enhances the quality
  assurance that the vendor must do anyway

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Advantages to Beta Test

• Ability to influence a product without taking on
  full costs of development
• Early adoption
• Increased opportunities to ensure the product
  will meet the needs of the library
• Increases leverage with vendor
• Discounted capital investment
• Offset by increased investment in library staff

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Disadvantages to Beta Test

• Limited degree of involvement on the front-end
  vision of the product
• Less direct advantage to other libraries
• Will still have to purchase and pay support for
  the product
• Significant investment of library resources
• Cost/Benefit ratio?

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Advantages to full Open Source Development

• Full control
• Concept/Vision
• Features, Functionality
• Direct benefit to larger community that may also
  use the software
• Less vulnerability to vendor abandonment?

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Disadvantages of Open Source Development

• Capital investment
• Development tools, facilities, hardware
• Resource investment
• Software design specialists
• Professional programmers
• System administrators
• Recruitment, training, management
• Project management tools
• Assessment tools
• Benchmarking, etc.

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Institutional Commitment

• Who will be responsible for bearing the cost of
  the project
• Ongoing development of the product
• Support, maintenance, security

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Potential projects

• Next-generation catalog
• ASERL combined catalog
• Primo implementation that spans multiple ASERL
  libraries
• Resource sharing
• Kudzu replacement
• Automation/Tracking for Kudzu delivery service