Extensible Catalog Project Seeking Developers in Innovative Ways

Posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010, at 12:05 pm, and filed under L/IS Profession. Note: Hypertext links in the printed form of this document are marked with a superscript "L" plus a number. The number corresponds to the list of web addresses at the bottom of the document.

Last month, the eXtensible Catalog (XC) project posted job openings for Java developers. These are short-term, grant-funded projects and, having been on the hiring side of that equation before myself, I know how difficult it is to get good people for a one- or two-year project. The XC posting is different, though, in one important way: it is possible to have XC buy out the time of a developer on staff for the time that the development is happening.

Consideration will be made for qualified developers that are currently employed at another institution, but who may be available for loan to the XCO [eXtensible Catalog Organization]. The XCO would cover the salary and benefits of such individuals in the form of a direct payment to their host institution. This is an excellent opportunity for a library to invest in open-source software for libraries as well as a way to temporarily offset staffing costs in a difficult economic environment. Only staff that can be made available to XCO at 100% time (or close to that level) will be considered for this arrangement.

This is also an excellent way for the project to begin the process of building an open source community that will sustain development effort beyond the grant-funded period. What better way to build community that to infuse project work into people that will then return back to full-time work at their home institutions.

I’m curious to see how this plays out…