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Table of Contents
The 2015 Evergreen International Conference is May 13-16, 2015 in Hood River, Oregon. The deadline for submitting proposals is Friday, Feburary 27, 2015.
Standard presentations will be 45 minutes in length and allow for a broad spectrum of programming in one of the following tracks:
- End user - best practices and techniques for using Evergreen in day-to-day library operations.
- General - programs on administration, training, making the decision to move to Evergreen, participating in the Evergreen community, and other topics related to using Evergreen and open source software in consortial and standalone environments.
- Technical - Topics related to system administration, software development, implementation, hardware, and integration with other software.
The program committee expects to hold between 10-12 programs per track. If you require a wiki account, please send a request to docs@evergreen-ils.org. If you require direct assistance with adding your submission to this wiki page, you may also email your full submission to akilsdonk@esilibrary.com.
Example Proposal
Please follow the formatting guidelines:
==== Talk Title: ==== **Description:** (no more than 200 words) **Technical Expertise:** None / Low / Moderate / High **Presenter(s):** Name (email address), title, affiliation
End User Track
Copyleft Your Contributions
Description: Have you ever written something and wanted others to be able to use it, whether it's an instructional video, graphics, documentation or code you've had someone write? Maybe you even have data you want others to be able to use. We will talk about planning on how to open access to your creations from the early stages of your project to the release as well as the appropriate licenses and what the pros and cons are for you and how it affects your copyright. We will also talk about these licenses and which are heavily used in the Evergreen community.
Technical Expertise: None
Presenter(s): Rogan Hamby (rogan.hamby@yclibrary.net), Operations Director, SCLENDS & Headquarters Manager, York County Library System and others TBD
Welcome to the Evergreen Community
Description: This session is intended for new members to the Evergreen community. Ever wonder what mailing list is right for what question? Ever wonder what the heck IRC is? Who owns Evergreen? Who are these vendors and are they your vendor and what do they do? What do other libraries do? How does it all fit together? We can't promise to answer every question but from a short review of the history of Evergreen to the current community at large we will give an overview of Evergreen the community rather than the software, with plenty of time for questions and attempted answers.
Technical Expertise: None
Presenter(s): Rogan Hamby (rogan.hamby@yclibrary.net), SCLENDS &York County Library System, Yamil Suarez, (ysuarez@berklee.edu), Berklee College of Music, Grace Dunbar (gdunbar@esilibrary.com), Equinox Software
To float or not to float: A consortium's play-by-play to implement floating groups
Description: Several library systems within NC Cardinal used the float flag feature within Evergreen. It wasn’t enough! Our libraries requested a variety of floating scenarios – items that stay wherever they land, items that return to the home library, and items that only float between specific branches. Our libraries switched to using floating groups once they became available within Evergreen. This session examines the need for floating groups, explains how floating groups work, describes the issues that we encountered during implementation, and highlights points to consider before implementation. Attendees will leave with a basic understanding of floating group logic and practical examples of their application.
Technical Expertise: Low to Moderate
Presenter(s): Tanya Prokrym (tanya.prokrym@ncdcr.gov), Program Manager, NC Cardinal, State Library of North Carolina and Elisabeth Keppler (keppleep@forsyth.cc), Technical Services Supervisor, Forsyth County Public Library (NC Cardinal)
Easiest OPAC Set Up Ever
Description: Do you use the oldest computers in your library for your OPACs? Do those computers run at a snail’s pace? Are your patrons always complaining about slowness? There is a better way! See how easy and inexpensive it is to use a Chromebox for your OPACs. You will never use an old computer again!
Technical Expertise: Low
Presenter(s): Tina Jordan (tjordan@chestateelibrary.org), Assistant Director, Chestatee Regional Library System, Member of the Georgia PINES System
Receipt Template Magic
Description: You don’t need to know code to spice up your receipt templates. This program will walk you through step by step on how to copy what you want and paste it where it goes in the receipt template editor. Full receipt examples will be shown with what you need to do to make them look professional and amazing.
Technical Expertise: None
Presenter(s): Tina Jordan (tjordan@chestateelibrary.org), Assistant Director, Chestatee Regional Library System, Member of the Georgia PINES System
Taboo: Circulation Policy Modification
Description: Not really taboo…in this overview, we’ll take a look at modifying an existing Evergreen circulation policy, where we’ll discuss some of the under-utilized options within the circulation policies. We will tie Circulation Limit Sets in with those policies and take a look at the default Circulation Matchpoint Weights within Evergreen.
Technical Expertise: Low to Moderate
Presenter(s): Erica Rohlfs (erohlfs@esilibrary.com), Project Manager, Equinox Software, Inc. (ESI)
James Bond 007 on Blue-ray
Description: We’ll discuss the use of the Physical Characteristic Wizard to create or edit your 007 MARC tags and how this can help make your Format Icons appear in the OPAC. We’ll also take a look at how to make small adjustments to the wording displayed alongside those Format Icons.
Technical Expertise: Low to Moderate
Presenter(s): Erica Rohlfs (erohlfs@esilibrary.com), Project Manager, Equinox Software, Inc. (ESI)
General Track
Keep Calm and Self-Check On!
Description: Are your libraries looking for an easy and cost-effective self-check solution? Do you believe an Evergreen self-check set up is difficult or requires new equipment? Learn from two library consortiums many of the ins and outs of what it takes to implement an Evergreen self-check kiosk. This discussion will help demystify the hardware and software requirements needed to run a functional self-check machine, offer ideas for the set up of custom self-check receipt templates, as well provide tips on how to improve the overall self-check experience for patrons.
Technical Expertise: Low to Moderate
Presenter(s): Melissa Ceraso (mceraso@biblio.org) Evergreen Systems Specialist, Bibliomation, and Brent Mills (brent@hoodriverlibrary.org), Systems Librarian, Sage Library System
Making the Most of Evergreen Reports
Description: Evergreen's built-in report-creating feature is powerful, extensible, and allows for very fine-grained and targeted data retrieval. This session covers the design of the reports interface and how you can select and join together the best sources you can for your libraries' reporting needs. We'll peek under the hood some so you'll understand better how Evergreen reports work from the database up. Includes practical real-life examples gleaned from years of supporting and troubleshooting PINES reports.
Technical Expertise: Low to Moderate
Presenter(s): Chris Sharp (csharp@georgialibraries.org), PINES System Administrator, Georgia Public Library Service
Life Cycle of an Evergreen Bug
Description: Our Evergreen community tracks software bugs via the Launchpad website. How do you use Launchpad to report bugs? What else do you need to say or include when reporting bugs to the community? How do bugs get fixed? How do you track the status of bug fixes? These questions and more will be answered by community bug experts with an eye on noting potential problems with our current bug reporting process and looking towards establishing best practices for the future.
Technical Expertise: Low to Moderate
Presenter(s): Benjamin Shum (bshum@biblio.org), Evergreen Systems Manager, Bibliomation, Erica Rohlfs (erohlfs@esilibrary.com), Project Manager, Equinox Software, Inc. (ESI), and TBD
Adding Data Sources to the Reporter
Description: The reporter is a flexible tool for accessing the Evergreen database but why be limited to the ingrained ILS data? We will discuss when it makes sense to add a new data source, what kinds of data can be added and who you will need on your team to make it happen and take advantage of it. We will talk about the roles of technical and non-technical staff in the planning. As we do we will look at different practical examples of extending your database such as simplifying complex reports, easy to reference historic data and adding poverty rates and census growth.
Technical Expertise: Low to Moderate
Presenter(s): Rogan Hamby (rogan.hamby@yclibrary.net), Operations Director, SCLENDS & Headquarters Manager, York County Library System
Prepare to Share!
Description: Join us for an inside look at the benefits and mechanics of resource sharing within a public library consortium using Evergreen. Since beginning resource sharing in 2013, the growing NC Cardinal consortium has shipped an average of 90,000 items a month among member libraries who share a single online catalog. This presentation will detail how it all happens with a focus on implementing a new resource sharing workflow, including a look at the patron experience, streamlining movement of materials, tracking, and reporting. We will also discuss how to protect parts of your collection based on age or format, as well as the strategy of opportunistic holds and soft stalling intervals. An overview of best practices will be provided along with examples of tools to track all incoming and outgoing items, creating transit reports, gathering statistics, and providing administrative updates.
Technical Expertise: Low
Presenter(s): Jennifer Dale (daleji@forsyth.cc) and Jonathan Furr (furrjt@forsyth.cc), Technical Services, Forsyth County Public Library (NC Cardinal)
Technical Track
SQL: There and Back Again
Description: Everytime you have to learn something it's an adventure. Some adventures involve running from dragons. Usually it involves staring at a scream and muttering unkind things. However, you don't have to go wandering off without a map. In this workshop we will go over some basic of sql queries in the Evergreen database and step through some practical reports step by step.
Note: I'm assuming if this is done that this will be a roughly 3 or 4 hour workshop. If those workshops aren't being done we can scrap this. I'm propsing this since there was discussion after the last conference and today on the listserv about it.
Technical Expertise: Low
Presenter(s): Rogan Hamby, Operations Director SCLENDS / Headquarters Manager York County Library System
Troubleshooting With Evergreen Server Logs
Description: Your helpdesk is filling up with requests that all say "Evergreen is acting CRAZY!" and you're at the end of your rope about what to do next. Never fear, because the servers are telling you all kinds of things that can help you see what's going wrong. Master the art of Linux and Evergreen log diving to help you keep your library's favorite open source ILS stable and your users happy. Targeted towards Evergreen system administrators.
Technical Expertise: Moderate to High
Presenter(s): Chris Sharp (csharp@georgialibraries.org), PINES System Administrator, Georgia Public Library Service
Running with the bulls: "Master"ing Production
Description: Administering Evergreen and keeping up to date with the latest features and bug fixes can be complicated with so many changes and upgrade scripts between major versions. Come learn from two leading organizations who operate on the cutting (bleeding!) edge of Evergreen development by tracking master using git and see what common pitfalls and, more importantly, triumphs can result from living life a little more dangerously.
Technical Expertise: Moderate
Presenter(s): Benjamin Shum (bshum@biblio.org), Evergreen Systems Manager, Bibliomation and Jason Stephenson (jstephenson@mvlc.org), Assistant Director for Technology Services, Merrimack Valley Library Consortium (MVLC)
An Introduction to Automated Evergreen Configuration with Ansible:
Description: Building a large Evergreen installation can involve installing various components on many servers. How do you do this consistently without making mistakes? Scripts are one way, but how do you make further changes to the system without keeping a large library of scripts that have to be run in just the right order? A configuration management system can automate everything from virtual machine provisioning to updating your opac templates, while being idempotent means that changes can be made at any time and the system will always end up in the expected state. This talk will focus on using the Ansible management system but most of the concepts apply to other popular systems such as Puppet, Chef, and Salt.
Technical Expertise: Moderate to High
Presenter(s): Jason Boyer (jboyer@library.in.gov), MIS Supervisor / Evergreen Indiana System Administrator, Indiana State Library / Evergreen Indiana
Catalog: What a mess!
Description: Do you suffer from large print syndrome? Do you experience 856 pains from the subfield z? Do you wake up and find that your DVD icons have decided to be phonograph? Have you noticed that search results look redundant? Then this is for you! I am sure we all struggle to keep items attached to the right things. This is a programmatic approach to solve the problem. We will speak in detail about how we solved this issue and created software to distill the information. We will show code and queries so bring your code parser and query planner TI-85.
Technical Expertise: Moderate to High
Presenter(s): Blake GH (blake@mobiusconsortium.org) Justin Hopkins (justin@mobiusconsortium.org), Evergreen Programmer / IT Manager, MOBIUS - Missouri Evergreen Consortium
Metadata and Maps
Description: Library data contains a wealth of well-curated information. The level of detail within even a simple MARC record far exceeds most metadata used to describe items found in popular online websites. Additionally, anonymized circulation data can help libraries plan their collections and service patron needs.
This presentation will describe the process of extracting a big data set from The Co-op's shared Sitka catalogue and the methods used to publish it as open data. We will explore how this open data intersects with other open data sets published by government and other organizations. Finally, conference attendees will be shown how to use this open data to visualize knowledge to make strategic decisions.
For example, subject headings are rich metadata within MARC; subject headings can illustrate collection concentrations across the different libraries within Sitka. Circulation data can show borrowing patterns and interests. Both of these data sets can interact with other geographic and government open data sets for interesting, and sometimes surprising, results.
Technical Expertise: Moderate
Presenter: Liam Whalen (liam.whalen@bc.libraries.coop), Systems Specialist, The BC Libraries Cooperative
Oh CRUD, My API Has a Flesh Wound
Description: Evergreen provides a bevy of ways to access and control data within the ILS. As the system matures and evolves, developers strive to create faster, lighter, and more flexible APIs for building interfaces, programmatic system interaction (scripting, etc.), and improving 3rd-party integration.
To shed light on the current state of the art in Evergreen, I'll review of some of the newer API components (PCRUD, flat fielder, etc.), focusing primarily on those used with the new browser client, do a quick recap of the Evergreen IDL, and discuss how we control API access with permissions, etc.
Technical Expertise: Moderate to High
Presenter(s): Bill Erickson (berickxx@gmail.com), Software Development Engineer, King County Library System
Angling for a new staff interface
Description: The forthcoming web-based staff interface for Evergreen uses a JavaScript framework called AngularJS. AngularJS offers a number of ways to ease putting new interfaces together quickly such as tight integration of promises/deferred objects, extending HTML via local directives, and an integrated test framework – and can help make Evergreen UI development (even more) fun. During this presentation, which will include some hands-on exercise, Bill, Mike and Galen will give an introduction to AngularJS with a focus on how it's used in Evergreen. By the end of the session, attendees have gained knowledge that they can immediately apply to working on Evergreen's web staff interface.
Technical Expertise: Medium to high. To perform the exercises, attendees are expected to be familiar with JavaScript
Presenters: Bill Erickson (berickxx@gmail.com), Software Development Engineer, King County Library System; Mike Rylander (miker@esilibrary.com), President, Equinox Software; Galen Charlton (gmc@esilibrary.com), Infrastructure and Added Services Manager, Equinox Software