By Andrea Buntz Neiman, Project Manager for Software Development at Equinox Open Library Initiative

There is so much to look forward to in 2020 but before we get too far into Spring first, a look back at the last couple months of 2019.

October 2019 saw the most recent Evergreen Hack-a-Way, hosted by Indiana State Library for the third time. Nearly 20 Evergreeners gathered together at the Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park Inn to collaborate on Evergreen bugs, strategize about some larger development decisions, and of course socialize and play board games in the evenings. For those of you unable to attend, discussion sessions are available on YouTube. If you’re interested in hosting the Hack-a-Way for 2020, please see this email for more information.

In the Koha community, November saw the latest feature release of Koha with 19.11. The full release notes for 19.11 detail numerous bugfixes and enhancements, as well as 20 new features. One of the most interesting new features adds “Club Holds” functionality. This allows a club to place a hold on a title, and Koha will automatically place holds for all members of that club.

December brought news from the broader library world, with ExLibris signing an agreement to acquire Innovative. While it remains to be seen how this will affect the library software marketplace, it was a reminder to those of us on the open source side of things that Evergreen and Koha can never be bought or sold. Our communities keep Evergreen and Koha alive and vibrant, and make the decisions large and small about the directions of their products. We are grateful to all of you who are members of our communities.

Looking ahead into 2020, there’s plenty to get excited about on the Evergreen and Koha calendars! The Koha Community will have its 2020 Hackfest in Marseille, France the week of March 23rd. The Koha-US Community is also planning a Koha-a-thon online conference on April 23.

The Evergreen Community is scheduled to hold its 2020 Annual Conference from April 22nd through 25th in Atlanta, Georgia, sponsored by Georgia PINES. The Conference Committee is hard at work putting together a great event, and several Equinox employees are planning to attend so we hope to see you there.

Also in the spring, Evergreen is planning its next major release, version 3.5. Bill Erickson of King County Library System and Chris Sharp of Georgia PINES are co-Release Managers (Release co-Managers?) this time around, and 3.5 is scheduled for an April 1st release – no fooling! A Feedback Fest is planned for the week of February 17th, and Bug Squashing Week is planned for the week of March 16th. Both of these are great ways to get involved with the community.

As always, we wish you the best that the New Year has to offer and we look forward to seeing some of you in person this spring!

By Rogan Hamby, Data and Project Analyst at Equinox Open Library Initiative

In the Koha and Evergreen communities the topic of conference attendance invariably pops up when discussing community participation. However, when asked why someone should attend a conference the stock answers are vague and often boilerplate like “to put faces to names.” Conference participation can be extremely rewarding but to get the most out of it you have to take an active role. So, here are five things you can get out of an Evergreen, Koha (or other) conference, plus one tip on how to make it happen for each.

1. Get feedback. Every library becomes an echo chamber to some degree. Take time before the conference to identify a few improvement opportunities and look for places to ask questions about it. A Q&A session after a presentation on a relevant topic is the perfect time.
2. Learn. This may seem obvious but not only does a conference lower barriers to transmitting information but there will be people sharing all around you all the time. Create a schedule of presentations you want to attend and prioritize them so that if one doesn’t work out you can leave for another.  If you know a presenter and feel comfortable contacting them you may also be able to reach out to them with questions in advance to make sure it is a good fit for you.
3. Networking. Not everyone you meet is going to be a future friend but everyone is potentially a useful connection. Carry something with you, a notepad or a smartphone, and make notes about who you meet and what you chatted with them about.  This will help cement the person in your mind and you gain experts you can reach out to in the future.  
4. Discover the newest work. Keeping track of development can be a big time investment and not one that everyone can make.  A conference is a great opportunity to learn about features and bug fixes recently added or in the pipeline.  To prepare for this make sure you know what version of your ILS you are on and when you are likely to upgrade.  
5. Share your own ideas and work.  There is an old adage that everyone should teach because you learn more from teaching than being a student. There is a lot of truth to that but also sharing makes you someone else’s contact which can be valuable.  Start by planning something low key like a lightning talk.

None of this is easy. A lot of these benefits take advantage of being in person rather than being limited by electronic communication. This means that if you are an introvert you will expend a lot of energy during the conference day.  Remember to take care of yourself in the evenings and avoid group events if you need time to recharge. And this brings us to a bonus tip. Ultimately conferences are work events. However, if you participate you are likely to make some new friends and in future years it won’t take as much energy and you can get even more out of it.

By Rogan Hamby, Data and Project Analyst at Equinox Open Library Initiative

Acquisitions and consolidations are nothing new in the library world. Still, each one triggers a wave of shock and Marshall Breeding gets a chance to update his very illuminating graphic showing mergers and acquisitions: https://librarytechnology.org/mergers/. There are always promises of long term benefits to the customer when their ILS is acquired. However, the only thing the customer is sure to get are press releases and uncertainty.

The cause of uncertainty is simple – the future of your ILS is in doubt. Unless the two products are for very different parts of the market, the acquiring vendor is likely to phase out one as redundant. It may be gradual and gentle and may not start for years but it will happen so long as as developing and supporting different products is an additional cost rather than additional revenue.

For libraries that value stability and don’t want to be subject to the whims of the market, open source ILSes, especially Evergreen and Koha, are bedrocks of constance. Open source is a collection of licenses that say the code is freely available to use and expand upon. You can use that granted right without expiration, use the software forever, no uncertainty, no loopholes. Still, who guarantees the future? Times change and ILSs have to adapt. A stable ILS is one that will be supported for the foreseeable future.  You should be able to adopt an ILS and expect to get ten years out of it. So, who does the development, who pushes forward, who in essence takes the place of an ILS corporation? Again, here open source wins because the answer is easy: the community.

A community is a broad idea but that breadth is a part of a healthy open source community. In a recent informal poll the Evergreen community reported adding 64 new libraries in 2019.  Stability is also reflected in the investment those libraries make. For example, look at the release notes for Koha and Evergreen as each gets several new versions every year – each with substantial community investment from user libraries. Looking at a recent release of Evergreen alone the release  had contributions from 32 coders and documentation writers. Seven institutions funded development and fourteen contributed the time of employees resulting in 36 new features. These releases are twice a year plus monthly bug fixes. That’s a heck of a lot of development team with a breadth of input, testing and documentation.

There is another element of course – support. Most ILS vendors offer support as well as the software itself. Access to open source software is not controlled but companies do offer hosting and support. It is possible for a hosting or service company to merge but even then your ILS can’t go away. Simply put, you can change to another service provider – use uninterrupted.

In sum, open source offers more security and options to allow continuity of service putting control in the hands of the library though inalienable privileges. Increasingly  our society libraries are a safety net. Safety nets should be steady and unmoving and they can not do that if they are held captive by the business whims of others.