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Perspectives on Evergreen in small(er) library settings, from Karen Collier and Andrea Buntz Neiman from Kent County Library, Maryland.
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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, [email protected] Andrea Buntz Neiman, [email protected]
Original material in this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
