4. Evergreen

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1. History

The following is quoted directly from "Automation System Marketplace 2007: An Industry Redefined Private equity moves into the ILS, and open source support emerges" By Marshall Breeding -- Library Journal, 4/1/2007

The PINES consortium of 252 public libraries in Georgia migrated from Unicorn to Evergreen, a new open source ILS created by a team of developers funded by the State Library Agency of Georgia. PINES, one of the country's most ambitious statewide library automation efforts, allowed any participating library's users to borrow from the collective collection of 7.7 million items. The Georgia Public Library Service (GPLS) chose Unicorn in 1999 as the basis for the project and was one of Sirsi's (now SirsiDynix) largest accounts. In June 2004, State Librarian Lamar Veatch announced a new automation strategy that involved a concerted effort to develop an open source automation system to replace Unicorn. Though threatened with a lawsuit from Sirsi, that system, later named Evergreen, was successfully completed within the timeframe originally announced. In September 2006, all the 252 Georgia PINES libraries migrated from Unicorn to Evergreen.

2. Sales figures

Evergreen is free open source software.

3. Ownership and financial status, and vendor stability

The Georgia Public Library Service and its PINES program developed the software and shares it with anyone who wants to use it or adapt it.


4. Product lines and level of vendor support for product

According to the open-ils.org web site, the Acquisitions and Serials modules are still being developed and will be released in 2008. The University of Windsor is assisting in the development. Considering that this ILS is still being developed, the software doesn't suit all libraries. And generally, libraries need a high level of in-house knowledge in order to customize and maintain Evergreen for their own situation.

5. System requirements and Available components/modules

Available modules currently include: Circulation, Cataloging, Web Catalog, and Statistical Reporting.

6. Type, size of the library for product, and number of customers and examples

7. Recent development of the company

Acquistions and Serials modules to be released in 2008.

8. Strengths and weaknesses

9. Subjective evaluation (your comments after testing the demo product)

10. Recommendations (one or more paragraphs summarizing the findings)

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