READIT - 2009 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research

Proceedings of READIT-2009, Kalpakkam - 603 102, 29-30 Dec 2009
Open Source is attractive for many reasons – it results in a wider range of software options
available to us, it can contribute to the economy in that intellectual property and skills are
built locally, and in some cases, it is of much better quality. Open source is free; however a
good deal of programming is required to tailor the software to your environment. The
application is released under a recognized OSS license; the development processes are public;
and the system has a track record of adoption in libraries. There are already over 20 open
source library management systems projects of varying sizes visible through Source Forge
(http://sourceforge.net)
Open source means several things:
‣ Open source software is typically created and maintained by developers crossing
institutional and national boundaries, collaborating by using internet-based
communications and development tools;
‣ Products are typically a certain kind of "free", often through a license that
specifies that applications and source code (the programming instructions written
to create the applications) are free to use, modify, and redistribute as long as all
uses, modifications, and redistributions are similarly licensed;
‣ Successful applications tend to be developed more quickly and with better
responsiveness to the needs of users who can readily use and evaluate open source
applications because they are free;
‣ Quality, not profit, drives open source developers who take personal pride in
seeing their working solutions adopted;
‣ Intellectual property rights to open source software belong to everyone who helps
build it or simply uses it, not just the vendor or institution that created or sold the
software. (http://oss4lib.org/readings/oss4lib-getting-started.php)
LIBRARY 2.0
The term library 2.0 follows the principles of Web 2.0, in that it promotes the
evaluation and adoption of software and tools which were originally created outside of the
library environment. These are over laid on traditional library services, such as the library
OPAC in order to create a more dynamic, interactive and personalisable user experience.
Some of the core concepts of library 2.0 are:
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