oss4lib

As seen at Rubyforge: Blacklight is "a next generation library catalog written in ruby, using solr as the underlying search engine. All you have to do is export your marc records, index them with the scripts provided, start up ruby on rails, and you're on your way to faceted browsing bliss."

Links to a demo, docs, and the project list are all available at blacklight.rubyforge.org.

As seen on drupal.org: "This module provides a way to map data in the MARC record to Drupal content types and import sets of MARC records. The module currently supports mapping to the default node fields, taxonomy fields and CCK text fields... By importing a library's MARC records directly in to Drupal as nodes, you can easily recreate your library's catalog in a rich social environment."

Very cool to see something like this pop up into another popular CMS (Scriblio being the prior example).

A copy of the latest release is attached.

From the open-ils blog:

"Evergreen 1.2 is the first Evergreen release that has received substantial contributions (patches, documentation, feedback, suggestions, testing, etc.) from folks affiliated with neither the Georgia Public Library Service nor Equinox Software... So as a milestone, 1.2 is really significant because it is truly a community release."

According to the feature list for 1.2.0:

"This release adds functionality, performance, and usability improvements, and simplifies installing and configuring..."

The latest source tarballs of Evergreen-ILS and the related/required OpenSRF toolkit are attached.

Free in this month's Computers in Libraries (I get paid to write a column in same, but had no idea about this until now) is this piece by Mike Beccaria and Dan Scott:

"Fac-Back-OPAC is a faceted back­ up OPAC. This advanced catalog offers features that compare favorably with the traditional catalogs for today’s library systems. Fac-Back-OPAC represents the convergence of two prominent trends in library tools: the decoupling of discovery tools from the traditional integrated library system and the use of readily available open source components to rapidly produce leading-edge technology for meeting patron and library needs. Built on code that was originally developed by Casey Durfee in February 2007, Fac-Back-OPAC is available for no cost under an open source license to any library that wants to offer an advanced search interface or a backup catalog for its patrons."

Scriblio is a WordPress-based OPAC and CMS, which merges the concepts of "blog entry" and "catalog record". You can see it in action live at Plymouth State University, the project's host institution.

Read about how to get it here, with some detailed notes about installation here.

Copies of the scriblio-specific (i.e. not-WordPress) components are attached.

Earlier this summer, Andrew Nagy from Villanova University announced VuFind, a php-based OPAC written around Apache Solr:

"VuFind is a library resource portal designed and developed for libraries by libraries. The goal of VuFind is to enable your users to search and browse through all of your library's resources by replacing the traditional OPAC to include:

VuFind is completely modular so you can implement just the basic system, or all of the components. And since it's open source, you can modify the modules to best fit your need or you can add new modules to extend your resource offerings."

The most recent release is 0.6.1, a copy of which is attached.

Another largish consortium has selected an open source ILS solution. From LibLime's press release: the Central Kansas Library System--one of seven regional library systems in Kansas, and serving 17 counties in the state--has selected Koha ZOOM for 'Pathfinder Central', a new region-wide ILS consortium. A particularly quotable quote from James Swan, Administrator of CKLS: We believe the Open Source model, embodied by Koha ZOOM, reflects the spirit of public libraries. Funding projects that benefit everyone means more libraries will switch to open-source library automation and sponsor new developments that other libraries will benefit from too.

From the press release, LibLime, the leader in open-source solutions for libraries, and the Indiana Cooperative Library Services Authority (INCOLSA) have announced that the Indiana Shared Library Catalog (ISLC) is migrating to Koha ZOOM for their next integrated library system (ILS) and union catalog.

Previously on OSS4LIB, it was mentioned that "A new and promising ILS is being developed and maintained by the Georgia Public Library Service for use by the Georgia Library PINES Program, a consortium of 249 public libraries.". Then there was an entry about the project being ahead of schedule, and another concerning a demo. What was never posted here is that Evergreen has been running live in production at PINES (which is now over 260 libraries) since September of 2006. There is a vibrant community growing around the software consisting of the PINES crew, volunteers, interested individuals, and even a handful of vendors. Evergreen has started to spread beyond Georgia, and most recently, Equinox Software and the King County Library System have teamed up to build a Proof-of-Concept Evergreen installation. Check out the press release.

From the press release: LibLime, the leader in open-source solutions for libraries, announced today that the Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library in Stow Ohio, USA has just gone live with Koha ZOOM.

Their OPAC is available online at: http://opac.smfpl.org/