Economies of Scale is a concept from Economics that describes a condition where expanding an activity results in decreasing costs per unit at the margin. These savings result from efficiencies that are realized as the activity increases in size. In other words, being able to do more or make more, with fewer resources spent per … Continue Reading about Scale Economies →
Why do you do it that way? (or, design rationale)
Yesterday I was explaining to some librarians how Evergreen relates Items (the actual physical barcoded material that circulates) to Volumes (where the Call Number lives) to Bib Records (which contains the MARC), and one person was curious and asked, “why do you do it that way?” The short answer is because it’s good design, but … Continue Reading about Why do you do it that way? (or, design rationale) →
Congrats to not one, but two other Open Source ILSs
First I’d like to welcome NewGenLib to the virtual family of FOSS ILSs. In truth, we’ve known about them for a while and have been looking at their serials interfaces during our ACQ/SER design, but now that eIFL is covering them, well… 😉 It’s great to see another entrant, and one that has already found … Continue Reading about Congrats to not one, but two other Open Source ILSs →
Code4lib 2008 (Mini) Roundup
I’ve been to my share of library conferences over the last couple of years. They all have something to offer in their own way: networking, schmoozing, wacky vendor displays, swag, etc. It’s been my experience, though, that as a geek/developer, I’m often a little disappointed at the content — it’s just not geared toward someone … Continue Reading about Code4lib 2008 (Mini) Roundup →
Measures of maximum load in PINES
I was curious about how many circulations PINES had on the biggest day on record. And that led to our asking: which hour and which minute had the most circs? Maximum circs by DAY: 96,326 – May 29, 2007 Maximum circs by HOUR: 11,305 – May 29, 2007, 11 AM Maximum circs by MINUTE: 548 … Continue Reading about Measures of maximum load in PINES →
Isn’t Evergreen just for consortia with hundreds of libraries?
We get this question often at Equinox Software and we see it on occasion on the Evergreen community mailing lists and in the library blogosphere. I am a single-branch public library with about 25,000 titles. I’ve looked at the options and I really like Evergreen. But isn’t it simply ‘too big’ for my situation? It … Continue Reading about Isn’t Evergreen just for consortia with hundreds of libraries? →