Open source ILS
The Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS) provides yet another example that you can make an open source ILS in-house. The December issue of Library Journal includes a nice article about their Evergreen project.
In doing a little research about the project, I discovered a few new things I’ll be keeping my eye on:
- Open Libraries, a blog written by Library Journal technology editor Jay Datema.
- LibLime, a complany providing open source ILS solutions for libraries large and small. They distribute both GPLS’ Evergreen and Koha, an open source ILS developed in New Zealand.
- The first Google result for a search on evergreen pines is not about trees.
All this makes me think about revisiting my own library’s ILS. We don’t so much have an ILS as some cobbled-together Access databases, using ColdFusion for the Web interface. We also don’t use MARC. These open source developments make me think we might be able to do something better, though. We don’t have much of a budget, our collection is small, and we would probably need a highly customized ILS, but we do have excellent IT support.
