GPLS co-sponsors inaugural Evergreen International Conference
GPLS News, April 2009
PINES staff members will present a number of programs at the inaugural Evergreen International Conference. From left: Elizabeth McKinney; Julie Walker, deputy state librarian; Dawn Dale; Tim Daniels, assistant state librarian for Support Services and Strategic Initiatives; Katherine Gregory; Elaine Hardy; Emily Almond and Bin Lin.
Just as evergreen trees brighten winter landscapes, the first international conference for Evergreen open-source library software will illuminate the practical aspects of its use and stimulate creativity to spur its future growth.
To be held May 20-22 at the Georgia Classic Center in Athens, the conference will bring together Evergreen developers, administrators, users and supporters, along with numerous advocates of open-source software and other interested parties. The theme for the conference, which is sponsored by GPLS, Equinox Software and SOLINET, is "Branch Out With Evergreen."
The goal of the conference is to offer a blend of cutting-edge and tried-and-true events. These will include an all-day developers' "hackfest"; an opening-night reception and vendor exhibit; a slate of engaging and challenging speakers; and three program tracks to meet the respective needs of technical staff, front-line users and library administrators.
Keynote speakers include Joe Lucia and Jessamyn West. Lucia is the university librarian and director of Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University. His advocacy for open source led his library to develop Vufind, an open-source discovery layer for library catalogs. West is a Vermont-based librarian, technology advocate, blogger/writer and champion of open-source software who gained fame on YouTube with her video documenting the installation of the Ubuntu operating system on a public library computer.
GPLS staff members will also deliver numerous presentations at the conference. Among their topics are: "The Emotional Impact of Open Source" by Elizabeth McKinney, PINES program director; a panel presentation on migrating libraries to Evergreen that will include Katherine Gregory, PINES services specialist; "You're Live -- Now What? How to Build a Support Infrastructure to Maximize Your Investment in Ever-green" by Emily Almond, PINES soft-ware development manager; and "Easy to Learn, Easy to Use" by Dawn Dale, PINES HelpDesk manager.
"Two additional GPLS-led presentations will be particularly noteworthy for attendees not yet using Evergreen," McKinney explained, "because they will emphasize the consortial aspects of PINES and provide advice on how other state and regional libraries might benefit from creating their own similar consortiums using Evergreen." These programs are "Bibliographic Database Integrity in a Consortial Environment The PINES Experience," jointly presented by Bin Lin, PINES cataloging specialist, and Elaine Hardy, PINES bibliographic projects and metadata manager; and "PINES: Evergreen Voices of Experience," a panel discussion about the benefits and lessons learned by GPLS staff and PINES member library staff since Evergreen was introduced in 2006. Chris Sharp, PINES program manager, will serve as moderator.
The Evergreen open-source library software initially was developed to support Georgia's PINES network, a resource-sharing consortium with more than 275 member public libraries. In 2007, GPLS received a prestigious Technology Collaboration Award and grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for Evergreen's development.
The software is now in use at libraries of every type -- public, academic and special -- in Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan and British Columbia. The growing, multinational Evergreen development community has shepherded Evergreen through a series of releases that have further strengthened Evergreen's consortial qualities while adding popular and useful functionality.
Online registration for the Evergreen International Conference is now open at www.solinet.net. For more information about Evergreen, visit www.georgialibraries.org or evergreen-ils.org.