Evergreen in Small Libraries

Evergreen and Small Libraries

or The Evergreen Fairytale

Karen Collier, Public Services LibrarianAndrea Buntz Neiman, Technical Services Librarian

Once upon

a time

…

But What About…?

Consortial Capabilities Support & Hosting Costs Hardware Costs

Matthew, Birth and 8 Months

The truth behind the tales

Small library, teeny budget Library values = Open source values Don’t be afraid!

The challenges of the small library All libraries have budget problems, but this is

ridiculous … Small, rural areas feel economic strain earlier Small overworked staffs No in-house tech support

“Hey you, 20-somethings! Fix the

computer!”

Lack of support, fear of change Perception of OSS as a “techie” thing Overlords: Evil, but Protective? Institutional, pathological fear of change

The advantages of being small Small = flexible, fast-responding, non-

bureaucratic No RFPs, red tape, silos OSS = budget-friendly!

KCPL post-migration

Staff ownership of Open Source Software Staff ideas influence the development track Patrons love the idea of supporting OSS,

even if they’re not sure what OSS is Our community values = OSS values!

Be thou not afraid, Small Libraries! You don’t have to do it alone Support, hosting, listservs, community Collaborate, innovate, share

Open Source: Use it, share it, love it

Thank you!

http://catalog.kentcountylibrary.org Karen Collier, kcollier@kent.lib.md.us Andrea Buntz Neiman, aneiman@kent.lib.md.us

Original material in this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.