Open Source Software and Libraries:

Enabling Arabic Libraries & Creating Opportunities

Massoud M. AlShareef massoudalshareef@wordpress.com

KnowledgeWARE Technologies

SLA 2011

Why Open Source Software and Libraries ?

What is an Integrated Library System (ILS) ?

List

Library Technologies

• Integrated Library System

• Federated Search (MetaSearch)

• OpenURL – COinS

• ILL & Document Delivery

• Ask-a-Librarian – Reference Librarian

• Consortia and Union Catalogs

• Context Management

• Digital Archiving

• BI – Business Intelligence

• ERM – Electronic Resource Management

• (Blogs, RSS, Tags, Wiki, Mashups, etc.)

Library & Archiving Protocols and Formats

Formats أوعية المعلومات

• MARC21 21مارك

• Duplin Core

• MARCXML

• MODS / MADS

• EAC/ EAD

• RDA

• FRBR

Protocols البروتوكوالت

• Z39.50 / SRU / SRW

• Bath Profile

• OpenURL

• COinS

• X12 (EDI)

• SIP2 (RFID, PDA)

• OAI-PMH

• OpenSearch

History of mergers and acquisitions in the library automation industry

)Marshall Breeding (Created by

OSS and Libraries have in common..

• Free Redistribution • Source Code • Derived Works • Integrity of The Author's Source • No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups • No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor • Distribution of License • License Must Not Be Specific to a

Product • License Must Not Restrict Other Software

• License Must Be Technology‐Neutral

Microsoft exec: The world runs on Software

"There is no question that the world runs on software," said Bob Muglia, president of the server and tools business at Microsoft, in unveiling Visual Studio 2010 at an event in Las Vegas, on APRIL 12, 2010. "Just look around you. Look at everything, look at all the devices we use, the systems we interact with." Everything is powered by software and "developers are the ones who make it all happen," Muglia said. "As I said, software powers the world, so that means that developers are the engine behind what powers the world," he said.

How Libraries understand Open Source Software ?

What is Open Source ?

What is Open Source ?

http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

What is Open Source ?

process promise quality reliability

flexibility lower costvendor lock-in

Jim Whitehurst , President and CEO of Red Hat.

http://connect.educause.edu/display/47941

What is Free Software ?

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

What is Open Source Software ?

-http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral bazaar/-bazaar/cathedral

Open Source Governance

Open Source Community

Open Source CrowdSourcing

Howe, J. (2008). Crowdsourcing: Why the power of the crowd is driving the future of business. New York:

Crown Business. p.8

Who’s Using Open Source?

Open Source in Business

Open Source on the Web

Why should libraries care?

Open Source & Libraries

http://www.lugod.org/presentations/oss4lib.pdf

http://www.linux.com/feature/59491place

Open Source & Libraries

We should reclaim the domain of library

technology from the commercial and

proprietary realms

Can you

think of any other group of institutions that

share their stuff the way we do through ILL?

OSS & Libraries - preserving the intellectual ‘commons’

pln.palinet.org/wiki/index.php/Open_source_planshttp://. Lucia, J --

OSS and Libraries have in common..

• Free Redistribution • Source Code • Derived Works • Integrity of The Author's Source • No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups • No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor • Distribution of License • License Must Not Be Specific to a

Product • License Must Not Restrict Other Software

• License Must Be Technology‐Neutral

Open Source Concerns

90K Saudi

Software

Developers

(Riyadh)

Isn’t Open Source Risky ?

284 days

nine days

Quote Monday, January 25, 2010: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/01/internet_e

xplorer_unsafe_for_2.html

Isn’t Open Source Risky ?

Give me a Library OSS example

Koha – Integrated Library Management System

April 18th, 2010 by Chris Cormack

Koha is an active project. Koha Project stats to date

• 12640 commits • 4773 files • 558966 lines of code • 2636 Bugs fixed • 110 Different people committing • 100’s of translators, translating thousands and thousands

of lines

Koha Project Cost

http://www.ohloh.net/p/koha

Maps of libraries: 2000+ Registered Koha ILS Sites

www.librarytechnology.org/map.pl?ILS=Kohahttp://

Koha Community

Let’s us take a closer look at Koha.. and Arabic Koha!

Koha OPAC – Online Public Access Catalog

New titles/recent acquisitions .

Tag Cloud

Users can tag items from the search results or item details page. Aggregated user tags are then presented as a cloud for other patrons to use.

Item details screen

Patrons can rate items on a 5-star scale. Ratings are then aggregated across all users and made visible to other patrons.

Patron comments

Patrons can log in and write comments/reviews for items. Reviews are moderated by librarians.

Most Popular Titles/ Topics/ Author/ Type

Shelf browser

Reaching out for Users who cannot come to Libraries: hello Saudi female Library lovers !!

Shared booklists/recommended reading

Patrons can create booklists out of collections of items, which they can then share with all users. Teachers can use this feature to compile recommended reading lists for courses.

RSS Feeds

Search results and lists of tagged items automatically generate RSS feeds which can then be used to generate up-to-date lists.

Integration with Librarything

Interoperability – Beyond Books

A feature in Koha that does a parallel search of Kete (OSS - community digital Library) along side search results from its catalog.

Recommendations

When looking for people with similar taste, click recommendations to see similar items, based on tagging, patron history, subject keywords and rating.

‘I really like this book; have you got anything

similar?’

Interoperability – Beyond Books

Kete administrator configured sources (search aggregation sources like Koha RSS , Twitter, or anything that uses OpenSearch standard).

How long Should we wait on closed

Commercial Software vendors in order to keep up with new

technologies?

Arabic Language Requirements – Searching/ Sorting

• Normalize : "ي ى“ " و، ؤ" , " ه ، ة" , " أ ، إ ، ا" ,

• Multiple Pre-fixes

• Ignore: Kashida “-” , Vowles

• Ignore: Alif Laam الـ

• Original Ali Lamm (Exception)

حمدأحمد ا – ه مدين ة مدين – يعل ىعل

اـ ْوهـ كوها ك –ة مدينة ــــــــــــــــنـديـم

مدينةالمدينة

Pre-fixes/ Post-fixes السوابق واللواحق

Stemming المشتقات

مدينةوالمدينة للمدينة فالمدينة بالمدينة المدينة

كسندرال هللا

ونمعلم ينمعلم انمعلم اتمعلم ة معلم معلم

م العا اءم علميم علولم علاعلم ع

Koha and the Arabic Language Support

Koha and the Arabic Language Support

International Components for Unicode -ICU

Arabic Koha Community

Give me more examples of

FOSS tools for libraries…

FOSS Tools for Libraries

FOSS Tools for Libraries

FOSS Tools for Libraries

FOSS Tools for Libraries

FOSS Tools for Libraries

FOSS Tools for Libraries

FOSS Tools for Libraries

FOSS Tools for Libraries

FOSS Tools for Libraries

Thank you

Massoud M. AlShareef massoudalshareef@wordpress.com

KnowledgeWARE Technologies

Int’l FOSST Workshop 2010

April 25, 2010, KACST, RIYADH, KSA

Media and Slides Credits

http://www.slideshare.net/nengard/libraries-open-source-freedom-and-community

• http://www.slideshare.net/sirexkat/open-source-software-and-libraries?src=related_normal&rel=2753554

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cindy47452/3682949582/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/herzogbr/3993439584/

http://tinyurl.com/3jvumn • Nstolma, Library Openeing 2,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cavort/151687944/ • Gwen's River City Images

http://www.flickr.com/photos/auntie/102849109/