Save 50% on this special package of three issues of Library Technology Reports on open source software. The ALA Member discount will not be applied to this specially priced set.

The open source software movement has entered the library automation industry. This 3-issue set gives you the tools you need to understand and make decisions about this new aspect of the library automation industry. It provides detailed information about the major open source integrated library systems and the companies that support them.

Inside these Reports:

Opening Up Library Systems through Web Services and SOA: Hype, or Reality? (Marshall Breeding, v45:8)

• Why Should Libraries Care about Application Programming Interfaces?
• APIs: Basic Concepts
• Vendors and Products: Case Studies and Customer Responses
• API Hype and Reality
• Conclusions and resources

Open Source Integrated Library Systems (Marshall Breeding, v44:8)

• Open source versus traditional licensing
• The Commercial Angle
• Major open source ILS products (Koha, Evergreen, OPALS, and NewGenLib)
• Trends in open source ILS adoption
• Commercial support firms for open source ILS
  Technology components of an open source ILS
• Standards, features, and functionality of open source ILS

Open-Source Software for Libraries (Casey Bisson, v43:3)

• In the Beginning …
• Open Source Takes Shape
• Why Freedom Matters
• What Makes Open Source Work?
• Open Systems, Formats, and Standards
• Using Open Source
• Building Open Source
• Open-Source Software on the Desktop

Marshall Breeding serves as the Director for Innovative Technology and Research at the Vanderbilt University Libraries in Nashville, Tennessee. He has authored several previous Library Technology Report issues: “Electronic Security Strategies for Libraries,” “Strategies for Measuring and Implementing E-Use,” “Integrated Library Software: A Guide to Multiuser, Multifunction Systems,” “Wireless Networks in Libraries,” “Web Services and the Service-Oriented Architecture,” and “Open Source Integrated Library Systems.” Breeding is also a contributing editor to Smart Libraries Newsletter, published by ALA TechSource, and has authored the feature “Automated Systems Marketplace” for Library Journal for the last six years. His column “Systems Librarian” appears monthly in Computers in Libraries magazine.

Casey Bisson, named among Library Journal's Movers & Shakers for 2007 and recipient of a 2006 Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration for developing Scriblio (formerly WPopac), is an information architect at Plymouth State University. He is a frequent presenter at library and technology conferences and blogs about his passion for libraries, roadside oddities, and hiking in New Hampshire's White Mountains at MaisonBisson.com