[Web4lib] An Analysis Of Open Source ILS Market Penetration

[Rick Mason]

One thing that struck me was how Molyneux starts off by pointing out the 
"relationship" between Equinox and two early adopters of Evergreen (also 
note that the first comment to the  one of those two "relationships").

I was curious, did a quick Google search, and found this:  
http://tinyurl.com/27axl9

Same person?  The only reason this seems significant to me is because he 
pointed out those relationships in his introduction, but doesn't mention 
his own with SirsiDynix (assuming they are the same person).

This isn't to suggest that any of his data is suspect.  In fact, his 
numbers seem correct at first glance.  Evergreen is brand new, and 
companies offering support for either product are also relatively 
recent.  Most libraries are involved with multi-year ILS contracts, and 
the process of switching to a different ILS is complex and time 
consuming.  Assuming that Koha and Evergreen are wildly successful, 
their growth will still be relatively slow based on the time and effort 
involved to switch.

A comment that I saw mentioned on another list (NGC4lib) seems 
appropriate: "It'll be interesting to see how this table compares to one 
in a year from now." (credit to Deb Bergeron)  I personally think that 
five years will be the really interesting version of the table.

Rick Mason

Blake Carver wrote:
> An Analysis Of Open Source ILS Market Penetration
> http://features.lisnews.org/features/07/10/15/118229.shtml
> This ILS Market Analysis was written by Bob Molyneux contains
> preliminary figures might be of interest to the web4lib readers.
> Bob looks at which U.S. public & academic libraries currently run open
> source ILS software, and how Koha and Evergreen usage stacks up.
>
> "There are a number of ways one might measure the impact of open
> source ILS software on U.S. public libraries but I think these
> preliminary figures are suggestive: that few of these libraries
> actually use open source software as a means of supplying their ILSs.
> Of course, we know that many more have announced and the market is
> dynamic. When I revisit these figures, I suspect the numbers will
> change but the size of the library market is quite a bit larger than
> the open source community has supplied. Its impact on the market is
> around 1%, depending on which measure one uses and by the restrictive
> criteria I use here."
>
> You can read the report and see his tables for comparison at
> http://www.lisnews.org/features/07/10/15/118229.shtml
>
> -BLake Carver
> LISNews.org