This paper presents a novel approach to designing an online, open-source course in systems librarianship, an area of librarianship that may be perceived as complex and intimidating because of the technologies involved. The course design focuses on making systems librarianship more approachable for library and information science students who may…

Purpose: ABCD is a web-based open and free software suite for library management derived from the UNESCO CDS/ISIS software technology. The first version was launched officially in December 2009 with a MARC 21 bibliographic format database. This paper aims to detail the building of the UNIMARC bibliographic format database for ABCD.…

Purpose: There are many library automation packages available as open-source software, comprising two modules: staff-client module and online public access catalogue (OPAC). Although the OPAC of these library automation packages provides advanced features of searching and retrieval of bibliographic records, none of them facilitate full-text…

Academic, government, and corporate librarians organize and leverage internal resources and content through institutional repositories and library catalogs. Getting more value and usage from the content they license is a key goal. However, the ever-growing amount of content and shifting user demands for new materials or features has made the…

As another year draws to a close, the author reflects on the trends in play related to library technologies and attempts to anticipate their trajectory going forward. The library economy has not necessarily achieved full recovery from the recent downturn. Nevertheless, the author expects that investments in technology will expand next year. For…

In these difficult economic times, everyone is on the lookout for savings. This author, an adult services librarian at New City Library in New York, has spent the last two years implementing small-scale open source and freeware replacements where proprietary or paper solutions once ruled. While none of these projects is individually revolutionary,…

The technology of the 21st century has had no shortage of challenges for libraries, but it has also brought opportunities. Operating systems, databases, and application environments that can use cheap off-the-shelf hardware to scale and handle hundreds of millions of transactions were not developed for libraries. However, libraries have taken…

This article discusses best practices for evaluating open source software for use in library projects, based on the authors' experience evaluating electronic publishing solutions. First, it presents a brief review of the literature, emphasizing the need to evaluate open source solutions carefully in order to minimize Total Cost of Ownership. Next,…

Landman Library is two-thirds of the way through a three-stage process of migrating to the Koha open-source integrated library system (http://koha-community.org). We are an academic library with roughly 143,000 volumes, six professional librarians, and three support staff. The migration to open source was driven by the desire to access our own…

Successful disaster response is an exercise in managing human resources under very difficult conditions. Catastrophic disasters can disrupt both the physical communication networks and the social networks critical to efficient response and recovery. While a well-designed disaster plan serves as a framework, it often requires communication and…

The Arts Libraries Society of Australia and New Zealand (Arlis/ANZ) recently implemented a new web presence. More than just a website, it was envisaged as a web "identity", a virtual clubhouse where the Society could conduct its "virtual business" and where members could "meet" and contribute to the activities of…