Evergreen International 2012, Indianapolis, IN Keynote, April 27, 2012

Greeting Good morning!

I'm delighted to be here with you for this year’s Evergreen International, and I would like

to thank Emily Kruse Schaber, Shauna Borger, and members of the conference planning committee for the invitation to join you and for taking care of all the little and big logistics to make sure that I am here right now. Introduction

On this, lovely April morning, I would like to invite you to join me on a short adventure where we explore the importance of open source systems for libraries.

But before we venture too far down the path, and so that you won't be following a stranger into these woods...

Who am I? And why am I such a proponent of open source systems for libraries?

As a technology user, I use open source systems and software such as Ubuntu, Libre Office, Open Office, GIMP, and thanks to Connecticut’s largest library consortium – Bibliomation – I use Evergreen at my public library.

But, my work with, and realization of the importance of, open source tools for libraries began with ERMes - an accidental open source e-resource management system that I co-developed in 2008. I say accidental, because ERMes began simply as a home-grown e-resource management system to help me manage the University of

Wisconsin - La Crosse's e-resource collection. I gave a blue print for a relational database to Bill Doering, and in a month he had the initial version of ERMes functional. Then, at the request of another e-resources librarian, we put ERMes up on the web, wrote documentation, and now, two releases leater, ERMes is used by 60 small-medium sized libraries around the world. While ERMes helped other libraries manage their e-resources, ERMes also built a community of e-resource libraries that helped me with my work.

Last August I became the e-resources management librarian at the University of Connecticut, and as I pursue options to streamline my e-resource management work there, I again focusing on open source e-resource management systems such as ERMes and CORAL. Why? Because e-resource management workflows change and evolve daily if not hourly, and I need systems that are flexible and easily to adapt on the fly. Plus e-resources are expensive, and it is better for my library’s users to invest library funds into information resources instead of proprietary systems to manage them. In short, my experience with open source systems for libraries is analogous to a sapling in the forest of evergreens.

So why is open source so important for libraries right now?

Let's begin our adventure and investigation of this question with a few definitions of our world...

What is a library? Library as collection of physical items...

Let’s focus on this part of the definition; the idea of a library that renders information available to those who need and want it…

Now, let’s grow, mature, evolve this definition…

Organism = Society

...into a habitat of information representing our society.

And now, what is a librarian, and by librarian I refer to those that work in libraries, school media centers, etc.... A keeper of libraries. Librarians as a Species Librarians are a class of individuals having common attributes and designation of being specialists, keepers, custodians of libraries. {Library users too!}

So, we have a library as a habitat and then librarians *AND* our users as species relying on this habitat… Which begets questions: If a library is a collection of material that must be maintained as a representation of our society and such a library is charged with the care accessibility of such materials, And if a librarian is the specialist, the custodian of a library then how do we make sure we are rendering materials accessible? And… What is the state of our habitat?

Threatened Habitat Right now, the library as a habitat for librarians and pursuers of information -- is threatened which is a bit of a problem for our species but a huge problem for the long-term existence of a suitable environments – libraries – as representations of the organism that is our society. If our means of acquiring materials increasingly diminishes, and if our means of making materials accessible is a. costing an increasing amount and/or b. not fulfilling the obligation of accessibility, then the environment is no longer a healthy environment for the organism that is society’s information, …than libraries as a habitat, librarians and users as species depending on said habitat all suffer. Thus our society is suffering.

Does this mean that librarians are endangered?

Some might say we are endangered, and at the very least we're feeling the effects of information evolution. How will libraries survive?

We've all heard Herbert Spencer's adage "survival of the fittest." that he used to describe Darwin's natural selection. [image of robust, strength].

What does strength mean in our economy, our society? [money] Well, we know that money is a perpetual problem for libraries.

But what if survival of the fittest doesn't mean that the library with the biggest budget wins?

What does this mean?

Let’s take a side path for a moment and look at survival of the fittest in the non-human animal world for a moment….

Marc Bekoff...

Quote

White Pelicans

Three Quotes

Ants What about human animals?

Quote from His Holiness the Dalai Lama

And Libraries… Competition or Cooperation

For our species, the importance of cooperation shouldn’t come as a surprise for cooperation is intrinsic to libraries…. They have a long record of cooperating when it comes to the sharing of their collections. However, with our emerging definition of a library, survival of the fittest through cooperation necessitates more than interlibrary loan and shared collections.

It means that the infrastructure of our library habitat needs to be built by cooperation, community need and support, as well as transparency.

It means open source systems to make the information we steward accessible.

It means coming together to create, share, and maintain the fundamental systems that are our libraries because such systems will be less expensive, have scalability, and reflect the essence of our habitat so that the library as an organism – not just a place - will be accessible. For when I compare my experience in other industries to that of librarianship, I know those that work in libraries to be fiercely passionate about their work; a bunch a talented folks that are good at sharing, good at cooperating and have the ability to keep changing the world – the world of information access. I believe that having the right tools to do our jobs will helps us survive, and that if the people who work in libraries create the systems and the tools they need, then we’ll end up exactly what we need to not only survive, but thrive – This means becoming a big fish made of many little fish in the sea of information just like Swimmy suggested.