5. Tagging/Cataloging

Open source ILS is a fairly new phenomenon, so I was not surprised that when I attempted a search for any books in LibraryThing I could not find anything. Instead I broadened the search and looked for books relating to "open source." I chose Open Sources 2.0: the Continuing Evolution by Chris DiBona. I thought it would be a good choice because the book seems to address the subject of open source programming in the 21st century, which is at the heart of open source ILS.

Here is the link to LibraryThing: http://www.librarything.com/work/1091064

LibraryThing tag cloud: 21st century (1) @safari (1) bookstobuy (1) business (3) computers (5) computing (2) copyright (1) culture (1) digital culture (1) economics (1) essays (1) FLOSS (1) free software (1) intellectual property (2) internet (1) legal (1) movement (1) non-fiction (5) objet trouvé (1) open source (19) oreilly (2) oss (2) philosophy (1) programming (2) software (3) svb (1) tech (1) technology (3) used in 2007 (1) xmas present

4. RSS Feed

Koha Open Source ILS Newsletter seemed the perfect candidate for RSS feed. The website is the communication and information center for the Koha community. Here one can find the news about progress in development of the code, implementation of Koha by the local libraries, tips for the librarians, etc.

3. Podcast.

Using bing as my search engine I found a blog of the Lincoln Trail Libraries System which reported on the ILS Symposium that took place in Champagne, IL in September 2007. Of the many available podcasts there I selected a discussion on open source ILS moderated by Carl Grant -- a former representative of the commercial vendor. He provides a basic introduction to the concept of open source ILS, compares open source ILS with a proprietary systems and then participates in a Q&A session.

To access the podcast click here.

As a side note: this podcast is from September 2007. A lot of things have changed in the past three years -- certainly in the development of open source ILS. But also in the life of Carl Grant: according to his blog, he is back in the corporate world.

2. Related Blog.

Of the numerous blogs that contain news and information about the development and application of open source ILS in contemporary library I decided to link to a blog called What I learned Today...
The blog is authored by Nicole Engard who describes herself as "an Open Source evangelist." I ran into Nicole at the KohaCon in Plano, TX last year (I sincerely doubt she remembers me). She was vivacious, very knowledgeable and always ready to answer questions. Her personality as well as enthusiasm toward open source implementation in the library settings comes across in her blog, which is full of practical information:

In addition to my Documentation Manager role for the Koha Community, I am also the Koha Newsletter Editor! That means that I gather together Koha related news and mash it all up into a newsletter format – Okay it’s a bit more than that.

Today marks the first official release of this newsletter. You can read the entire newsletter here and keep up with future newsletter releases here.

This first issue has a great table of contents thanks to all of the amazing community members:

• Events:
  • Venue and Dates booked for Kohacon10
  • Code4Lib 2010 Koha Preconference
  • KUDOS Meeting at ALA Midwinter
• News from Koha Libraries
  • News from Crawford County
  • NYU Health Sciences Libraries migrate to Koha
  • Middletown Township Public Library Live on Koha
  • Saugeen Library Consortium goes Koha
• Tips & Tricks
  • BibLibre’s Community Branch of Koha 3.2
  • New Koha Manual Available in Git
  • Speed tips for Z39.50 catalogue searching

If you have ideas for a future Koha newsletter, send it along to me (instructions on the newsletter site).

The blog "What I Learned Today..." was found using Google blog search engine http://blogsearch.google.com/