[Web4lib] Follow Up On The Analysis Of Open Source ILS Market Penetration

[Bob Molyneux]

>I think Bob's chart could be made clearer with a little tweaking.  Even if 
>the numbers are hard to obtain, their meaning does not have to be obscure.
>
>First off, his figures do not take into account the number of 
>installations as opposed to the number of libraries.  This is a very 
>revealing distinction.  How many "installations" do the Koha and Evergreen 
>numbers represent?  Are all 47 Evergreen libraries running off one 
>installation? Two?  Forty seven?  This is very pertinent information and 
>should be easy to get and present.
My purpose was to develop a means to measure how many libraries use open 
source OPACs. I would like to expand beyond this beta analysis but this is 
how I chose to start. I took libraries for which we have data and plan to 
expand from that base. The question I have chosen is tricky enough.

There are many things I could have done but didn't. Folks can add to it as 
they wish and add things they think reveal whatever interests them. And you 
know the answer to the Evergreen question as well as I do. Why do you ask a 
question when you know the answer? To me this is not a Koha vs Evergreen 
question but, rather, a matter of how many libraries are using open source 
software. I believe this is an important enough question for the library 
world.

It may, as you say, be easy to get the answer to the question of 
"installations" of Koha. Let me find out.

>Secondly, the use of a category called "other" is confusing and 
>unnecessary.  From my reading of his explanation, he seems to be referring 
>to libraries that have signed a contract to install Koha or Evergreen but 
>have not gone live yet.  If this is the case, it should be stated as 
>such.  "Contracted for Evergreen" and "Contracted for Koha" would be much 
>clearer than "other".
"Other" is correct as explained. It is a common usage in such tables where 
one wants to aggregate different but small categories. "Contracted for..." 
would get some but not others--like INCOLSA. The spreadsheet does have a 
table where I say, oh, what the heck, let's give all the "others" to Koha 
and see what it looks like. You can simulate that on Table 2 in the LISNews 
post (http://features.lisnews.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/19/1114248) by 
adding Koha's 15 systems with the 26 "other" to give you 41. And so on.

Josh Ferraro pointed out to me a problem with using the method and criteria 
I used to identify open source OPAC vendors. If a public library is running 
Koha, without LibLime's knowledge, and this library didn't report it to 
Marshall, where are we? I have repeatedly observed that Koha's impact is 
underestimated by the method I started with. In any case, by adding this 
"other" category, as Table 2 shows, it does not change the aggregate 
numbers that much--that is, the figures that deal with the total number of 
libraries running OS for their OPACs--even by the less restrictive method 
of defining a library "running" open source software. If I include 
everything, by the friendliest definition of "running," the numbers are 
still not large. The reason, of course, is that 25 of these 26 "other" 
libraries are quite small. The optimists will be looking for the horse: 
there is a great deal of room to grow.

But, you can take the spreadsheet and label anything the way you want or 
add or subtract libraries as you choose.

>The remarks about the 23 INCOLSA libraries are ambiguous.  If this number 
>represents only a marketing agreement between INCOLSA and LibLime, then it 
>should not be included in any count of libraries going with an open source 
>ILS.  The marketing agreement could be mentioned in a footnote to the 
>numbers chart, because it is significant information, but if it does not 
>represent actual users or libraries that have made a commitment to install 
>a system, then it should not be included in any count.
Au contrare, mon ami, on rereading that section, I find it very clear. I 
might even say "pellucid" given its admirable concision. The ambiguity is 
between the Web page where INCOLSA and in lib-web-cats. It was my sad duty 
to point it out.

lib-web-cats assigned those libraries to Koha. The INCOLSA Web page says it 
has the arrangement with LibLime for its member libraries says that LibLime 
will help those libraries implement either Koha or Evergreen (among other 
open source applications). If not, why the reference to Evergreen's being 
available to INCOLSA members, complete with a picture of a box labelled 
"Evergreen" with a LibLime logo on it? Which is it, then? Therefore, my 
description of this ambiguous situation is accurate.

I can't assign those to either one but I can assign it to "other" and call 
it, in effect, other open source. Under the circumstances, I don't think 
there was a responsible analytic alternative. What I did is reasonable and 
explicit.

>It would be useful to see equivalent figures for other types of libraries 
>as well.  Special and academic libraries are also beginning to use an open 
>source ILS.
I discussed my plans for academic libraries. I know of no national-level 
data on special libraries.

The next step will be to wait until NCES releases the latest data and redo 
this study at a suitable time and to make arrangements to redo it on some 
schedule. I have from Josh the names of a few more libraries and when I do 
it next, we will have newer data and more libraries.


>David


Bob Molyneux
drdata at molyneux.com
XyWrite forever!
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