1. SMS Integration With OPAC: “Text it to me.”
David Kane
Systems Librarian
Waterford Institute of Technology

2. Open Source Software 4 Libraries
This presentation describes the implementation of a piece of Open Source software in a library
I believe the future for library software and services is in open source.
It represents the best opportunity for libraries to adapt to new challenges in a timely way.
A new business model has emerged in recent years in response to the proliferation of open source software in general. It is called ‘commercial open source’, where a company previously wrote its own proprietary ‘closed-source’ software and supported and licensed it out to users (eg Most libraries’ systems), the software is open source and not ‘owned’ by anyone. If anything, the software is owned by the community and anyone can be a member of that community.
The open source community is legion and very active. One of the advantages of open source software is that it is constantly being improved upon and tweaked by this community. The result is that, for the most part, the software is less buggy and often more reliable than the proprietary software that is used.
With open source software, it is much easier to modify according to the changing needs of users. This can either be done ab initiio or by downloading one of the many plugins or patches that are available for most of the more popular open source packages.
In the library world there are a couple of library management systems. These include Koha and Evergreen. These systems are available to anyone to download and install. The good news is that you are not on your own. There are companies that you can pay to support your system. This is the meaning of the new ‘commercial open source’ business model.
The advantage of open source software is not primarily one of cost. Cost is generally the same, or a little less. The real benefits are in terms of flexibility. The mainstream software ompanies can’t compete with the speed and responsiveness of the open source community. What this means for libraries is that they are better equipped to deal with the rapidly changing environment.

3. The Library Open Source Community
OSS (Open Source Software) for Libraries
Code for libraries

4. Open Source Software 4 Libraries
Koha – LMS
Evergreen – LMS (visit open-ils.org, gapines.org)
Eprints – Repository
Dspace – Repository
Fedora – Repository (merged with Dspace now)
Greenstone – Digital Library (not mentioned in slide)
Not all ‘big ticket’ items’

5. Open Source Software 4 Libraries
Adam Brin’s “Text it to me.” Script
Adam Brin
Librarian who worked in Bryn Mawr University in the States. Had an Innovative interfaces catalogue and library system. The script was written in 2007

9. SCRIPT.php
OPAC 2 1 3
Patron views the record page on the OPAC. The OPAC HTML, images, and the SMS script are downloaded onto their PC.
The script then modifies the appearance of the page – creating new html that makes the form, which allows the patron to input their mobile phone number and to press ‘send’. The request contains the shelf number, the title, and in our case, the branch.
The request is sent to a PHP script on a separate server, which reformats the request parameters and sends them to the SMS provider.
The SMS provider sends the message to the mobile telephone of the patron, who can then take the details with them, on the screen of their phone, as they hunt through the shelves for the item that they are interested in. 4

10. Usage Statistics
As might be expected, comprehensive statistics are generated by the SMS provider, which is Clickatell in our case. These statistics can be downloaded to an excel spreadsheet, making it easy for us to generate statistical reports.

11. Since Jan 1st
These are the daily usage stats for the year so far.

12. Usage By The Hour
This is the SMS traffic over an average day. As expected, there is very little traffic at night and it is busy during the day.

13. ‘The Long Tail’
This is probably the most interesting graph. It is a good illustration of the ‘long tail’ phenomenon.
Many users use the service only a few times and a few users use the service a lot.
The same applies to books. I did an analysis of the top 2,000 books circulated in our library last year and this pattern was clearly evident. You should try it yourselves.

14. Network Operator Network operator. Pretty much as expected.
It seems as though someone in Burma managed to get hold of a mobile phone AND happened to visit our catalogue.

15. Delivery Receipts
Most messages were delivered, except perhaps the Burmese message and three others.

16. Library Branch

17. Dewey Ranges
Seems to show that social scientists and technologists liked this service the most. Superficial result though, warrants deeper analysis.

18. Live Demonstration
And now for a live demonstration. More detail will come out here about the implementation and what was done. For example, the application used jQuery a lot for the graphical interface. This helped with the usability. It is also worth noting the other innovative features of our catalogue, including the maps feature, Google Books (we were one of the first libraries to get a preview of this from Google – have been using it ever since), and catalogue enrichment features such as LibraryThing (again, we worked very early on with LibraryThing on recommendations) and Syndetics.

19. SMS Integration With OPAC: “Text it to me.”
David Kane
Systems Librarian
Waterford Institute of Technology
The End.