becoming our own vendor

Becoming Our Own Vendor

Rogan Hamby

South Carolina State Library

rhamby@statelibrary.sc.gov

Shasta Brewer

York County Library

Shasta.brewer@yclibrary.net

Please Interrupt

This is intended to be an informal presentation and

open to questions as we go.

Rapid Prototyping Deployment

We went from a small mad

idea to 1/3rd of South Carolina in

two years in a state with a history

of fierce local independence and

governance.

All For One, One for All

High discrepancy among libraries.

All pitch in however they can.

On the Run

There was little precedent.

We designed as we built.

Initial Gathering (November 19th 2008)

First Go Live (May 28th 2009)

Knowledge Professionals

During early stages of

development, we relied

heavily upon individual

expertise and still struggle

to replace that with

institutional knowledge.

Individuals have left and we’ve

had to re-invent. Long term

stability requires services that

are independent of the

individuals.

Built on a model of contributed

and distributed labor.

Very sparse infrastructure.

State Library was an organizer

and member, not policy

determiner.

A New Paradigm

We said “this is open source” but we still didn’t

fully understand what it meant to operate without a

traditional vendor.

The Sandbox

We knew we would have to operate in a shared

environment. But, we didn’t fully know what that

meant.

Governance

The “Advisory Group” consisted of 1 director and 1

vote from each member library.

The Help Desk consisted of three staff from the

State Library.

Level 1 Support incumbent upon us.

State Library

Contracts

Finance

Help Desk

Project Management

Communication

Volunteer Working Groups

Systems

Cataloging

Circulation

Training

Hosting by ESI

While Equinox is not a traditional vendor they do

offer some vendor services especially in training

and migration. However, since Open Source allows

wide variations among organizations only we are

suited to best provide those services.

Our Own Vendor

SC LENDS has to become (and is becoming) a

turnkey vendor for our own consortia. Using open

source means you roll your own solution.

Support Roles

Small libraries can not do this

without turnkey support.

Challenges

Technical support in the beginning didn’t

understand service needs and didn’t conceptually

understand how Evergreen works.

We are still learning everything from how xml files

map database tables for reporting to how

inconsistent behavior may point to application

servers.

Help Desk

Libraries are still becoming comfortable with what

Level 1 Support means. With the relationship to a

central help desk that liaisons with the hosting and

higher support provider. And the central help desk

is still developing means to provide support to

libraries that need more direct assistance evaluating

technical issues.

Help Desk as Vendor

In some ways the bar has been raised in terms of

understanding the ILS, understanding networks,

WAN links to the consortium server and more.

How much do we compensate? How much of a

vendor do we become?

Think Green

We needed to learn why the system worked the way

it does. We began “thinking green” a little late.

We thought about it terms of

MARC and cataloging. Later on

we realized we should have

known that a circ mod is just a

label.

Version 2.0

At some point we decided that distributed,

contributed labor was valuable but centralized

management at the State Library on an ongoing

basis was critical.

Organizational Evolution

There has to be a point person that keeps the agenda

and makes spot decisions.

The executive body is still the directors of member

libraries.

The AG has grown in terms of who is brought in to

advise.

The Open Source Spirit

At some point we began taking control of our own

fate more than looking to ESI for solutions (though

in fact we still rely on their expertise). They have

been great partners. We’ve also built more

relationships with other Evergreen libraries.

Self Sufficiency

“Ask not what your consortium can do for you but

what you can do for your consortium.”

The next thing I want to hear after “I don’t like

this” is “and here’s how I can help.”

Our Own Vendor

If we don’t like the product, we’re responsible for

making the change for our customers (members)

unless we’re just going to hope someone else does

in the OSS community.

Beyond Turnkey

Migration (more hands on then ever), PR

Deduping and Cataloging and Training

Networking and Troubleshooting

Peripheral support

Addons (OPACs, SIP)

Reporting

Questions?