This is part of a series of Session Notes from grantees who have received Professional Development grants from the Office of Commonwealth Libraries. Each grantee will share their professional development experience and include tips and other resources from the workshop or class. Grantees had their choice of an article for the Compendium, a webinar or a podcast. This project was made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

By Catherine Greenleaf Martin,
ILS Specialist, Blair County Library System

I had the privilege of attending the Evergreen (ILS) International Conference to represent the 8 libraries in my system and the SPARK consortium.  This opportunity was important professionally not only because I learned skills I can apply immediately in my current position, but also because it allowed me to increase my involvement in the international Evergreen community.

Keynote speaker Catherine Devlin talking about free & open source software

In order to understand the value of this conference, you need to know a few things about Evergreen–that it is open-source software and that it was originally designed by librarians for the Georgia Public Library System. “Open-source” means that the source code of the software is “something people can modify and share because its design is publicly accessible.” While it was originally designed for the needs of one consortium, in the 11 years since its inception, Evergreen has expanded to include over 2,000 libraries worldwide.

Most of the sessions that I attended, including two pre-conference events, were focused on reports and cataloging topics, since these are the roles that I work with the most in my position. The half-day preconference sessions I chose focused on deduplication methods (I am currently involved in a consortial deduplication project) and on writing reports from scratch by understanding how the query builder relates to SQL commands. While these were both very technical, they increased my understanding of how the software is working in the background.

During the main conference, I attended sessions on a diverse range of topics, from cataloging and circulating board games, to using html in receipt templates, to showcasing e-resources in your online catalog. I typed up a bevy of notes and have already implemented many tips, techniques and workflows that I learned in these sessions.

Presenters showed new developments and demonstrated the carousel from the Hollidaysburg Area Public Library

All of this new information was certainly fascinating and useful. However, the most personally significant part of the conference was the community involvement. Because of the user-driven nature of this particular ILS, the annual conference is a time when input is taken from users and plans are made for new developments. The ‘open-source’ nature of this group extends beyond the source code itself and expands to the attitude about information sharing and training between consortia. Being at the conference allows one to develop personal connections and networks within the community, and to identify resources for various types of questions and issues that may arise.The Blair County Library System is a member of Pennsylvania Integrated Library System (PaILS) which operates that Evergreen-based SPARK ILS.