Evergreen Goes Beta, Signals the End of the World As We Know It

I've got a ton of work to do, but I couldn't let this announcement from Brad LaJeunesse via Dusty Gres on Pub4Lib via Karen Schneider on the newNGC4LIB list go by without comment:

The Evergreen software development team is proud to announce the Evergreen ILS Beta release. Evergreen is an open-source ILS being developed by the Georgia Public Library Service for PINES, a consortium of over 250 public libraries. The Evergreen ILS is scheduled to go into production in PINES this fall.

The link in the open-ils blog has more details with another message posted today about a new beta. (Geez, guys -- in the two weeks between releases you not only fixed bugs but also made enhancements in cataloging and added a more powerful Z39.50 client? What are you going to do for an encore?)

I think this will be the start of a truly disrupted Integrated Library System marketplace. Emphasis is on think at the moment because: a) I haven't downloaded and tried out Evergreen myself; and b) it's only a beta after all, so there are probably pieces to be developed to bring it fully up-to-speed. But if an open source ILS on the scale of a statewide resource sharing consortium can develop a community of supportive users, it is hard to imagine what the boundaries will be.

In the meantime: congratulations, PINES! Nice work!

The text was modified to remove a link to http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/2006-June/098898.html on August 22nd, 2012.