Bangalore University LibraryBangalore – 560 056

Transforming Libraries into Learning Centers using Open Source Technologies

Open Source Technologies in Open Libraries

Dr. P. V. KonnurUniversity Librarian

Bangalore UniversityJnana Bharthi Campus

Bangalore

Dr. H.J.AbidiDeputy Librarian

Dr.Zakir Hussain LibraryJamia MiliaNew Delhi

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Open Source

• Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of

distributed peer review and transparency of process.

• better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory

vendor lock-in.

•

“Open Source software is computer software whose source code is available under a license that permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form”--Wikipedia

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Advantages

• Free Redistribution

• Source Code

• Derived Works

• Integrity of The Author's Source Code

• No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups, Fields or Endeavor

• Distribution of License

• License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

• License Must Be Technology-Neutral

• source code and the right to modify it is very important

• There is no single entity on which the future of the software depends

• No per-copy fees can be asked for modified versions

• It provides a new forum for democratic action

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Why Should Librarians Care About Software Licenses?

• Discussions of software license, fair use and copyright overlap

• Creative Commons License for content is an outgrowth of F/OSS

• End User License Agreements (EULA's) limit rights

• Free/open source licenses protect freedom and rights

• You never own commercial software

• Public access can be restricted by EULA's

• Software licenses are a drain on limited library budgets

• Knowledge as information vs. knowledge as property

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

What F/OSS to Use?

Type of Software Proprietary F/OSSWeb Browser Internet Explorer Mozilla Firefox; Opera

Word processing Microfoft Word Open Office Writer

Presentations Microsoft PowerPoint Open Office Impress

Spreadsheets Microsoft Excel Open Office Calc

Database Oracle; ms sql server MySQL PostgreSQL

Graphics editing Adobe Photoshop GIMP

Desktop Publishing Quark Xpress Scribus

Instant Messaging AIM GAIM

Finances Quicken GnuCash; TurboCash

PDF Creation Adobe Acrobat PDF Creator; Ghostscript

Audio Editing ProTools Audacity

Flowcharting Visio Dia

Vector Graphics Adobe Illustrator Sodipodi

Email client Outlook Thunderbird; kMail

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Widely Used Open Source Applications

Linux OS

Firefox Web browser

Apache Web server

OpenOffice.org MS Office alternative

MySQL SQL server

WordPress Blogging software

Audacity Audio file editor

MediaWiki Wiki software

Drupal Website content management system (CMS)

Pidgin IM/IRC

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

User – Burning Questions

• Will I save money?

• Where do I get help?

• Is this software high quality?

• Is it secure?

• Reliable?

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Will I Save Money?

• Maybe, maybe not

• In a more typical scenario not paying a license fee frees up money which is then

invested into the software

• End result: you get more for your money

Where do I Get Help?

• Documentation• FAQ• Project mailing list

– Participation in the community matters here!• Commercial vendor

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Is this software high quality?

• Merely being open source, does not guarantee quality

• But, if the project is being actively developed by a community of developers, peer

review will encourage quality

Is it Secure?

Because the code is available for anyone to view, and because of the scrutiny of peer developers,

security problems tend to be discovered quickly…and fixed quickly

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Reliable

• You should know the answer by now: Community!

• Look for the stable release

Advantage & Disadvantages

•Advantages– Speedy innovation– May be low cost depending on the feature fit and level of support needed– Secure– Sometimes more standards-based than commercial products

•Disadvantages– New skills are often required– Community involvement takes time– User interfaces tend not to be very polished

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Open source Technologies – Open Library

• Integrated Library Management System

• Learning Management System

• Document Management System

Integrated Library Management System

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Integrated Library Management System

– An integrated library system, or ILS, is an enterprise resource planning system for a library, used

to track items owned, orders made, bills paid, and patrons who have borrowed.

– The integrated library management system must have the following modules• Acquisitions• Serials Management• Technical Processing• Circulation• Online Public Access Catalogue• MIS Reports

– the following open source Integrated Library Management Systems are worth to be noted:• Koha• NewGenLib• Avanti• PHPMyLib• Open Biblio

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Koha

• oldest among the lot and used by a large user community

• developed in New Zealand by Katipo Communications Ltd

• deployed in January of 2000.

• Koha has most of the features that would be expected in an ILS, including:– Simple, clear interface for librarians and members (patrons) – Customizable search – Circulation and borrower management – Cataloging module with integrated Z39.50 client – Full acquisitions system including budgets and pricing information (including

supplier and currency conversion) – Simple acquisitions system for the smaller library – Ability to cope with any number of branches, patrons, patron categories, item

categories, items, currencies and other data – Serials system for magazines or newspapers – Reading lists for members

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

NewGenLib

• developed by Verus Solutions Pvt Ltd and the Kesavan Institute of Information and Knowledge Management in Hyderabad, India.

• NewGenLib version 1.0 was released in March 2005

• 9th January 2008, NewGenLib was declared Open Source Software under GNU GPL Licence by Verus Solutions.

• Software Modules.– Acquisitions – Cataloguing – Serials management – Circulation – Administration – OPAC – End-of-day process (daily scheduler) reports.

• Features.

– Multilingual Support

– Supports international standards such as MARC-21, AACR-2, UNICODE, XML and Dublin Core.

– better consistency, accuracy and completeness of records and the possibility of exchanging records between libraries.

– Allows the attachment of digital objects such as full text in PDF or MS-Word, image files, sound, video clips, etc., to

catalogue records.

– use the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH)

– Allow multilingual data entry, storage and retrieval in Indian languages.

Learning Management System (LMS)

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Learning Management System (LMS)

• Transform a library into a Learning center is a Learning Management System.

• many open source Learning Management Systems available. The best among the lot is Moodle.

• Moodle –

• designed using sound Pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities and courses with opportunities for rich interaction.

• Moodle is actually an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment.

• Features - an e-learning platform, plus some original innovations (e.g. its filtering system).

• promotes a social constructionist pedagogy (which includes collaboration, activity-based learning, critical reflection, etc).

• suitable for 100% online classes as well as supplementing face-to-face learning

• simple, lightweight, efficient, compatible, low-tech browser interface• Course listings show descriptions for every course on the server, including accessibility

to guests.• Courses can be categorized and searched - one Moodle site can support thousands of

courses• Most text entry areas (resources, forum postings, journal entries etc) can be edited

using a capable, embedded WYSIWYG HTML editor

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Functionality Modules.

ᘬ Site management

ᘬ User management

ᘬ Enrollment

ᘬ Roles

ᘬ Course management

ᘬ Assignment Module

ᘬ Chat Module

ᘬ Choice Module

ᘬ Forum Module

ᘬ Glossary Module

ᘬ Lesson Module

ᘬ Quiz Module

ᘬ Resource Module

ᘬ Survey Module

ᘬ Wiki Module

ᘬ Workshop Module

Technical specification • Support - Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, NetWare and any other system that supports PHP

• Database – Any

Content Management System

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Content Management System

• co-operative authoring of content in an organization.

• The Library facilitating such an activity contributes to Knowledge Management in an

organization.

• open source Content Management Systems:-

– Drupal

– Jhoomla

– Word Press

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Drupal

• Drupal is an open source modular framework and content management system (CMS).

• allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety

of content on a website.

• Features::-

– Search Engine Optimization

– Content Creation

– User Interaction

– Security

– Content is fully indexed to support search

– Multi-user content creation and editing

– OpenID support

– RSS Feed and Feed Aggregator

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

Conclusion

Thus by using Open Source Technologies Libraries have a greater

freedom in using the software without any restrictions on “How it has

to be used?”. They also have the liberty to migrate, upgrade and

update without any hassles. The Open Source is used synonymous

with Free, which is absolutely wrong. At times the initial

implementations cost of Open Source technologies is costlier than

proprietary ones, but their running costs are usually very low

compared to proprietary software. Open Source may synonymously

used with the word Freedom.

Ban

galo

re U

niv

ers

ity L

ibra

ry

References

• The following web sites are referred to prepare the article:

• http://www.opensource.org/

• http://sourceforge.net/

• http://www.koha.org/

• http://www.verussolutions.biz/web/

• http://moodle.org/

• http://drupal.org/