Laurentian University is pleased to announce its commitment to contribute significant resources to the Evergreen open-source library system. Building on the contributions that Dan Scott, Systems Librarian, has already made to Evergreen, Laurentian University intends to adopt Evergreen as its official library system. To achieve that goal, Laurentian University plans to assist the Evergreen community in enhancing the system's support for multilingual environments, implementing academic library requirements, and creating documentation and training materials.
Laurentian University has chosen the Evergreen open-source library system because the OpenSRF architecture offers scalability unmatched by any other proprietary or open-source library system. Evergreen's modern application programming interface offers a solid foundation for integrating systems between geographically distributed campuses and with the various consortiums to which the Laurentian campus libraries belong.
Background on Evergreen
Evergreen is an enterprise class open-source library system. In September 2006, Evergreen went live as the consortial library system for 252 of the State of Georgia's libraries, and has since grown to 265 libraries. More information about Evergreen, mailing lists, and downloads can be found on the web at http://open-ils.org/.
Background on Open Source Software
Open source software is provided under a license that gives anyone the freedom to use, study, and improve the software. Companies such as Amazon, eBay, Google, and the Washington Post rely on open source software for their core business operations.
Background on Laurentian and the Laurentian library system
With more than 9,000 full-time and part-time students, Laurentian University is a mirror of Canada itself. One of only two bilingual universities in the country, Laurentian has a significant Native Student population and a growing number of international students.
The Laurentian library system consists of a consortium of ten different university, college, and special libraries in the fields of health, mining, and heritage foundations.
Laurentian's contributions to Evergreen
Since November 2006, Dan Scott, Systems Librarian at Laurentian University, has contributed code, documentation, and general support to the Evergreen community as part of his academic research. In August, 2007, Dan was given the honour of becoming the first official committer to the Evergreen code repository from outside of the original development team.
For more information, please contact:
Dan Scott
Systems Librarian
J.N. Desmarais Library
Laurentian University
705-675-1151 x3315
dscott@laurentian.ca