Interesting you should bring that up. A friend forwarded this to me from the CNI list.
Fred King Medical Librarian, Washington Hospital Center [EMAIL PROTECTED] 202-877-6221 -----Original Message----- From: CNI-ANNOUNCE -- News from the Coalition [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joan K. Lippincott Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 4:35 PM To: CNI-ANNOUNCE -- News from the Coalition Subject: [CNI-ANNOUNCE] Duke Open Source ILS Proposal - Seeking Input Subject: Seeking response on Duke open source ILS proposal [Note: To express interest, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Duke University Libraries are preparing a proposal for the Mellon Foundation to convene the academic library community to design an open source Integrated Library System (ILS). We are not focused on developing an actual system at this stage, but rather blue-skying on the elements that academic libraries need in such a system and creating a blueprint. Right now, we are trying to spread the word about this project and find out if others are interested in the idea. We feel that software companies have not designed Integrated Library Systems that meet the needs of academic libraries, and we don't think those companies are likely to meet libraries' needs in the future by making incremental changes to their products. Consequently, academic libraries are devoting significant time and resources to try to overcome the inadequacies of the expensive ILS products they have purchased. Frustrated with current systems, library users are abandoning the ILS and thereby giving up access to the high quality scholarly resources libraries make available. Our project would define an ILS centered on meeting the needs of modern academic libraries and their users in a way that is open, flexible, and modifiable as needs change. The design document would provide a template to inform open source ILS development efforts, to guide future ILS implementations, and to influence current ILS vendor products.Our goal is not to create an open-source replica of current systems, but to rethink library workflows and the way we make library resources available to our constitutiencies. We will build on the good work and lessons learned in other open source ILS projects. This grant would fund a series of planning meetings, with broad participation in some of those meetings and a smaller, core group of schools developing the actual design requirements document. At this stage, we're seeking feedback on our ideas and finding out who might be interested in participating, prior to our formal submission of the proposal to the Mellon Foundation in early March. We would greatly appreciate your responses to the following questions. 1) Does designing an open source ILS seem like something worth exploring for academic libraries? 2) Given the information above about the proposed project, is your institution interested in: a. staying informed of our progress? b. contributing time and effort to the planning process, even if only through the first or second workshops? c. possibly being one of the core schools that participates throughout the full planning and writing process 3) If you have any initial feedback on our ideas, we would love to hear it! Thank you for your interest and considering this opportunity to work with us on this project. If your answer is yes to number 2 above, we will be contacting you to explore further participation. **Please send your reply to [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 01/29/2008 09:11:49 PM: > I would like to start a discussion thread on the following subject, as > I believe it's incredibly important to the success of the project and > I don't think we've had much discussion about it yet. Perhaps this > discussion will also be able to feed into the Duke initiative to write > a design requirements document for an academic library system. > [rest of Dan's message snipped] CONFIDENTIAL: The information contained in this communication, including its attachments may contain confidential information and is intended only for the individual (s) or entity (ies) to whom it is addressed . The information contained in this communication may also be protected by legal privilege , federal law or other applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient of this communication , you are hereby notified that any distribution, dissemination or duplication of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error please immediately delete and destroy all copies of this message and please immediately notify us of the error by separate communication Thank you.
