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LITA Drupal Interest GroupChairs: Nina McHale & Christopher Evjy

ALA Midwinter Meeting January 21 2012

Drupal IG Renewal/Charge

IG formed in 2009; renews in 2012 “Explore and promote the use of Drupal

among libraries and librarians, facilitating communication and establishing best practices.”

Survey Says…

12 question survey ran from 12/27/11 – 1/6/12

Sent to drupal4lib, web4lib, lita-l, code4lib

Posted to Twitter, Facebook, and the Libraries group on Drupal.org

79 responses!

Survey Says…

Content of the survey was based on Dale Askey’s “We Love Open Source Software. No, You Can’t Have Our Code” column http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/527

Questions asked respondents what barriers might keep them from contributing code back to the Drupal community

Respondent Data: Type of Employment

I have a permanent, full-time position working in a library environment: 82%

I am a web development consultant with one or more clients: 10%

Other: 8% Library vendor, combination

permanent/consultant, part-time library employment

Respondent Data:Library Type

Public: 44% Academic: 54% School: 4% Special: 10% Other: 10%

vendor, government, nonprofit, consortium

Respondent Data:Have You Contributed Code Back to the Drupal

Community?

Yes, I have: 15% No, but I’d like to: 68% No, but I can’t: 13% No, and I don’t want to: 4%

Askey’s Reasons for Not Participating

Perfectionism Dependency Quirkiness Redundancy Competitiveness Misunderstanding

“Unless the code is perfect, we don’t want anyone to see it.”

Very likely: 14% Likely: 37% Neither likely/unlikely: 17% Unlikely: 28% Completely unlikely: 4%

“If we share this with you, you will never leave us alone.”

Very likely: 12% Likely: 24% Neither likely/unlikely: 15% Unlikely: 24% Completely unlikely: 11%

“We’ll gladly share, but we can’t since we’re so weird.”

Very likely: 12% Likely: 19% Neither likely/unlikely: 15% Unlikely: 40% Completely unlikely: 14%

“We think your project is neat, but we can do better.”

Very likely: 3% Likely: 12% Neither likely/unlikely: 23% Unlikely: 55% Completely unlikely: 8%

“We want to be the acknowledged leader.”

Very likely: 0% Likely: 10% Neither likely/unlikely: 21% Unlikely: 21% Completely unlikely: 49%

“A fundamental [misunderstanding] of how an

open source community works.”

Very likely: 0% Likely: 14% Neither likely/unlikely: 21% Unlikely: 40% Completely unlikely: 25%

What could the IG do to support code contribution back to Drupal.org?

Education/training: ALL levels Programming (PHP) Process of submission (contrib standards)

Showcasing colleagues’ work Communication:

With vendors Meet-ups Foster collaboration among developers

Select Responses

“Perhaps eliminate any FUD surrounding issues of oss.”

“Maybe focus on getting library-specific vendors to support product integration…”

“it would be great to have a “match making” service to find co-maintainers…”

“Provide space to share ideas and develop a developer group for a module of interest.”

Select Responses, contd

“We [are] all out there, we’re just not connecting.” “I’ve developed a couple of very small modules. I

don’t both to contribute via official Drupal channels because it would require learning the contrib standards…”

“More library-specific meetups and events to showcase others’ work and possibly foster better collaboration.”

Proposal for IG Direction

Increase communication venues/opportunities Develop a “wish list” of modules Establish a formal/official relationship with the

Drupal.org libraries group Drupal.org is THE venue for Drupal

community Removes possibility of redundancy