Very exciting news! <br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Mike Rylander <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mrylander@gmail.com">mrylander@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
[Pardon the cross-posting]<br>
<br>
Over the last eight months I have been actively working on a new<br>
project for Equinox and under contract from OHIONET[1] called<br>
FulfILLment[2], the goal of which is to create a hybrid<br>
physical/virtual union catalog and ILL system for seamlessly sharing<br>
resources between libraries, regardless of the ILS each library<br>
happens to use.<br>
<br>
The thinking behind FulfILLment is simple -- take the power and<br>
scalability of the Evergreen circulation environment, where we have<br>
nearly full a priori knowledge of global system state and strong<br>
algorithms to help get items to patrons, and project that “up” to an<br>
ILL environment which, heretofore, has typically had little global<br>
state information.<br>
<br>
Evergreen and FulfILLment have been, at the code level, the same<br>
project thus far. Many of the recent improvements to Evergreen that<br>
I’ve been involved with can be credited, partially if not completely,<br>
to work on FulfILLment, including in-db ingest and import rulesets,<br>
search speed enhancement, true facets and new features in BibTemplate.<br>
This symbiotic relationship will, of course, continue because much of<br>
what both systems do is very similar on a high level.<br>
<br>
Even accepting that Evergreen and FulfILLment will facilitate similar<br>
ends at the institutions that use them -- specifically, getting items<br>
into the hands of users -- and will share a great deal of internal<br>
code and structure, we’ve now reached a point where the details of<br>
many of the common goals of the two have been tackled. And so, on<br>
August 2, 2010, Evergreen grew a spork[3].<br>
<br>
FulfILLment now has its own identity and will now rise or fall in its<br>
own Subversion repository, on its own server, with its own mailing<br>
lists and (though I hope there will be a lot of crossover) its own<br>
community.<br>
<br>
It’s not a f-f-f ... f-f-f ... you know, that f-word, because<br>
FulfILLment will not compete with Evergreen. They will serve<br>
different purposes and constituencies, and there will always be things<br>
one can do that the other cannot. And, they will feed (on) each<br>
other, both in terms of specific code and conceptual design, moving<br>
forward. FulfILLment is, in the best possible sense of the term, a<br>
derivative project based on Evergreen.<br>
<br>
So that’s the code part, but Open Source is about the community,<br>
right? This is an open call to all: jump right in! Grab the code<br>
(not much different than trunk Evergreen today, but that will be<br>
changing fast), join the mailing lists (not much traffic, but if you<br>
join then that can change!), hop in the IRC channel (#fulfillment on<br>
FreeNode). Dip your toe in, ask questions. This should be a fun ride<br>
-- it was the first time around with Evergreen -- and the more the<br>
merrier.<br>
<br>
[1] <a href="http://www.ohionet.org" target="_blank">http://www.ohionet.org</a><br>
[2] <a href="http://blog.esilibrary.com/2008/03/13/the-path-to-fulfillment/" target="_blank">http://blog.esilibrary.com/2008/03/13/the-path-to-fulfillment/</a><br>
[3] <a href="http://fulfillment-ill.org/websvn/listing.php?repname=FulfILLment" target="_blank">http://fulfillment-ill.org/websvn/listing.php?repname=FulfILLment</a><br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Mike Rylander<br>
| VP, Research and Design<br>
| Equinox Software, Inc. / The Evergreen Experts<br>
| phone: 1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)<br>
| email: <a href="mailto:miker@esilibrary.com">miker@esilibrary.com</a><br>
| web: <a href="http://www.esilibrary.com" target="_blank">http://www.esilibrary.com</a><br>
</font></blockquote></div><br>