9.30 am Welcome: Ken Chad

1. Keynote: Open Source and the rise of mass collaboration: participative approaches to innovation from science and software, to computer games and political campaigning.

Charles Leadbeater

Charles is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drawn on that experience in writing his 2008 book ‘We-think: the power of mass creativity’. In 2005 Charles was ranked by Accenture, the management consultancy, as one of the top management thinkers in the world.

2. An overview and analysis of the current market for open source library applications and components

Ken Chad, CEO Ken Chad Consulting Ltd

Ken has over 20 years experience in the global library software business. He set up his consulting business in 2007 and has worked on projects for the UK’s JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), SCONUL (Society of College, National and University Libraries) and  the UK’s Research Information Network (RIN). He is currently working on a HEFCE funded project that include both shared services and Open Source in its remit.  He works on technology issues and strategy development with major libraries. He has published articles and presented widely on the strategic impact of technology driven change’

11.00 Break

PART TWO: Breaking the barriers: Open Source in action

3. Developing Open Source Software: the lessons

Mike Taylor, consultant developer. Index Data

Index Data have found that projects where open-source software is seen simply as a cheaper alternative to a proprietary solution rarely reach such satisfactory conclusions as those where the method of working takes advantage of the open-source approach. The principles described in this talk will be illustrated by real-world examples drawn from actual experiences.

4. The State of Evergreen:

Bob Molyneux, Vice President in charge of Business Development for Equinox Software

Bob will provide an introduction to the Evergreen ‘Superconsortium’, and a speculation about the future evolution of Evergreen and the Superconsortium. Equinox software provides support and development services for Evergreen, one of the key open source library systems.

5. Koha: from project to product

Paul Poulain, Co founder, BibLibre

This session will focus on how a tool developed in a few weeks for a single library in New Zealand has become an award winning ILS, developed worldwide, used by more than 1000 libraries, and supported by many OSS companies. Paul Poulain has been involved in free software since 1998 and the Koha project since early 2002. He has been Release Manager for Koha 2.0 and 2.2, and remains a major contributor. Paul co-founded BibLibre in 2007 to provide high level support, training, migration on Open Source software for libraries (Koha and Drupal)

6. Koha in the university classroom

Alan Poulter, Lecturer. Strathclyde University

MSc students on the Strathclyde University’s Digital Libraries module used virtualised instantiations of Koha, to set up a basic Koha configuration. Future aims are to deliver the Koha part separately as a CPD course for librarians in Scotland.

7. The myths of support and development: you don’t have to do it yourself!

Nick Dimant , PTFS Europe

Companies are now established to help libraries adopt Open Source software solutions without the need for in-house support and development staff. Nick describes the ways in which a company such as PTFS Europe can help overcome some of the procurement, implementation and support barriers preventing the more widespread adoption of these solutions.

LUNCH

PART THREE: Open source interoperability with the world of closed source Library Systems

Open source and closed source can work together:

8. Implementing VuFind in a HE partnership setting: Resource Discovery in partnership

Mark Hughes and Paul Johnson, Swansea University
The why’s, when’s, and how’s of the current implementation of VuFind as part of an integrated resource discovery suite for the 3 Welsh Universities within the South West Wales Higher Education Partnership (SWWHEP). VuFind is being integrated with existing commercial (closed source) LMSs.

9. Open Products, Open Interfaces, and Open Source: The Building Blocks of the Ex Libris Open-Platform Program.

Tamar Sadeh, Director of Marketing, Ex Libris

Today, proprietary and open-source software can and do coexist and complement each other. Constrained by limited resources, libraries can do more and offer more if they start with functionally-rich products and build from there. The Ex Libris open-platform program provides a framework in which open-source code developed by the library community is integrated with robust, vendor-supported software. The result is a groundbreaking environment that is achievable and affordable in the short and long run.

10. Open Source – liberating your systems:

Richard Wallis, Technology Evangelist. Talis

Gaining value from Open Source is not conditional on installing a fully Open Source solution. Open Source projects, such as Jangle and The Juice Project, are demonstrating valuable ways to liberate and add value to your systems, regardless of supplier —-be they commercial or Open Source.

COFFEE & TEA

16.00 Open Session:

Question and Answer and the future of OpenLibraries.eu and how we can move the Open Source Library community forward.