Evergreen (software)

Updated on Dec 11, 2024

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Written in C, Perl, XUL, JS		Operating system Linux
Developer(s) Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS) Public Information Network for Electronic Services (PINES) and the Evergreen Community Initial release September 2006; 10 years ago (2006-09) Stable release 2.11.0 / September 21, 2016; 5 months ago (2016-09-21) Repository git.evergreen-ils.org/Evergreen.git

Evergreen is an open source Integrated Library System (ILS), initially developed by the Georgia Public Library Service for Public Information Network for Electronic Services (PINES), a statewide resource-sharing consortium with over 270 member libraries.

Beyond PINES, the Evergreen ILS is deployed worldwide in hundreds of libraries, and is used to power a number of statewide consortial catalogs.

In 2007, the original Evergreen development team formed a commercial company around the software, Equinox Software, which provides custom support, development, migration, training, and consultation for Evergreen. As of 2014, several more companies and groups also provide support and related services for Evergreen.

History

Evergreen was developed by the Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS) to support 252 public libraries in the Public Information Network for Electronic Services (PINES) consortium. Development began in June 2004 when state librarian Lamar Veatch announced in an open letter that after reviewing options available, GPLS decided to develop its own library automation system. GPLS believed it could develop a system customized to fit its needs better at a lower cost than the fees currently being paid. Programmers in the GPLS developed the project for two years, and PINES successfully completed the transition to Evergreen in September 5, 2006. In the next two years, the PINES consortium increased to over 270 libraries and five other systems in the United States and Canada implemented Evergreen.

The software started receiving contributions from other libraries and developers in 2007. 2009 saw the first Evergreen International Conference. In 2012, the community joined the Software Freedom Conservancy and formed an oversight board.

Other Evergreen implementations in North America:

Beauregard Parish Library (Louisiana, 6 branches)

British Columbia SITKA (80 libraries, including branches)

Consortium Of Ohio Libraries COOL (11 libraries)

C/W MARS (Massachusetts, 155 libraries)

Indiana Evergreen (112 libraries)

Kenton County Public Library (Kentucky, 3 libraries)

King County Library System (Washington, 50 libraries)

Library of Virginia (Evergreen Virginia) (9 libraries)

Maine Balsom (10 libraries)

Merrimack Valley (Massachusetts, 39 libraries all went live over Memorial Day Weekend 5/31/2011)

Michigan Evergreen (6 libraries)

Mohawk College Library (3 libraries)

NC Cardinal (North Carolina, 93 libraries and growing)

Missouri Evergreen (29 Libraries)

Niagara Libraries (Ontario, 11 libraries),

North of Boston Library Exchange (NOBLE) (Massachusetts, 28 libraries)

North Texas Library Consortium (rural area outside Dallas, 13 libraries),

Pioneer Library System (Upstate New York between Rochester and Syracuse, 42 libraries),

Project Conifer (Ontario, 20 libraries)[1]

Sage Library System (Northeast Oregon, 60 libraries)

SCLENDS (South Carolina, 19 counties plus the State Library of SC)

SPRUCE (Manitoba, Canada, 8 libraries)

Traverse Area District Library (Michigan, 6 libraries)

Features

Development priorities for Evergreen are that it be stable, robust, flexible, secure, and user-friendly.

Evergreen's features include:

Circulation: for staff to check items in and out to patrons

Cataloging: to add items to the library’s collection and input information, classifying and indexing those items.

Online public access catalog (OPAC): a public catalog, or discovery interface, for patrons to find and request books, view their account information, and save book information in Evergreen "bookbags." The OPAC received a makeover in early 2009 with the new, optional skin, Craftsman.

Acquisitions: for staff to keep track of those materials purchased; invoices, purchase orders, selection lists, etc.

Statistical Reporting: flexible, powerful reporting for retrieval of any statistical information stored in the database.

SIP 2.0 support: for interaction with computer management software, self-check machines, and other applications.

Search/Retrieve via URL and Z39.50 servers

Evergreen also features the Open Scalable Request Framework (OpenSRF, pronounced 'open surf'), a stateful, decentralized service architecture that allows developers to create applications for Evergreen with a minimum of knowledge of its structure.

Languages

The business logic of Evergreen is written primarily in Perl and PostgreSQL, with a few optimized sections rewritten in C. The catalog interface is primarily constructed using Template Toolkit with some JavaScript, and the staff client user interface is written in Mozilla's XUL (XML + JavaScript). The user interface for most new staff client functionality is being built with the Dojo Toolkit JavaScript framework. Python is used for the internationalization build infrastructure. EDI functionality for the acquisitions system depends upon Ruby support.

Requirements

Evergreen runs on Linux servers and uses PostgreSQL for its backend database. The staff client used in day-to-day operations by library staff runs on Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, or Linux computers and is built on XULRunner, a Mozilla-based runtime that uses the same technology stack as Firefox and allows for a browser-independent offline mode. The online public access catalog (OPAC) used by library patrons is accessed in a web browser.

Other open source Integrated Library Systems (ILS)

BiblioteQ

OPALS

References

Evergreen (software) Wikipedia

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