Chapter 4

Study of Open Source Library Management System Projects

4.1. Introduction
The survey in the previous chapter shows that there are thirty one open source library
management system projects. However, there is a question that, how many projects have
been succeeded, how many are abandoned, which projects have achieved maturity and
which project are useful. In order to find answer to the above questions there is need to
find status of these systems using suitable methodology.
Golden B (2008) argues, “The vast majority of the open source products available are
probably not useful for an IT (information technology) organization. If even 1/10 of 1
percent of them are potential candidates for use, that represents a pool of more than 100
products that must be assessed for their maturity for a particular organization”.
It also necessary and important to take comprehensively the overview of open
source library management systems developed during the last fifteen years, and to find
trends in development of these systems.

Considering all above aspects, this chapter presents study of the open source library
management systems with following objectives.

• To determine project status of various available open source library

management systems by studying release activity and community activity.
• To study the related aspect of the library management systems such as
longevity, functionality, documentation, license, technology used.
The community activity and released activity are mainly studied because these two are
important activities from open source project point of view. The release activity reflect
the development activity and community activity reflect the user interest in software. The
user and developer of software are important entities in success of the open source
software.
Following is the brief description of release activity and community activity.
4.2. Release Activity
The release activity shows the progress made by the developers i.e. development activity.
The development activities are reflected in writing or in changing the source code. All
software projects release new versions after a certain period. The number of releases and
81
their significance (i.e. feature additions release or bug fixes release) indicates progress
made by the developers. The information about release is available in release notes,
project change log, etc. The open source projects have also different types of releases,
such as, stable version and developmental version (‘beta’, ‘daily builds’ or CVS). (Van
den Berg, K., 2005)
Release activities measured by using the release frequency and significance per
releases are as follows:
• The number of releases made per period.
• The significance of each release. (Chavan, 2005) (Van den Berg, K. (2005)
4.3. Community Activity
In case of open source software, the active community is very important because
in most of the cases community performs testing and provides feedback. The support and
community are interrelated because in most of the cases support is provided by
community members. There are two types of supports i.e. free support and paid support.
The community members mostly provide free support through mailing list, discussion
forum, documentation, blog, etc., while paid support is provided by software supporting
company or any other third party.
“The user community of an open source project consists of the people who use the
software and participate in some way. One way of participation is by filing bug reports.
Another way is giving feedback on functionality of the project. The community defines
much of the activity and reflects in other areas, such as, support and documentation”.
(Van den Berg, K., 2005)
“The community activity can be measured with number of posts per period,
number of topics, number of users, response time, quality of post and replies, friendliness
in community.” (Van den Berg, K. (2005)
4.4. Metrics for Release Activity, Community and Project Status
4.4.1 Release Activity, Community activity
For the present study, only the number of releases is considered. Following
formula is used for calculating release activity score. The release activity is calculated as
follows:

Release activity =
( − )

82
 For community scoring number of messages, posts in mailing lists and forum are
taken into consideration. The number of messages are manually calculated, if the total
numbers of counts are not available.
Category 5- Excellent 4-Very good 3- Acceptable 2- Poor 1-
Unacceptable
Release 2 or more -------- 1 release per Less than -------
activity than 2 year 1 release
releases per per year
year
Community More than 300-120 120-60 Post 60-30 Less than 30
activity 300 posts posts or messages posts/mess posts/message
mailing List /messages per /messages per month ages per s per month.
& months per month month Or No mailing
Discussion list.
forum
Table 4.1 Release activity and community activity metrics
Release activity and community activity are measured using five point scale
metrics mentioned in Table 1, which is based on Business Readiness Rating model
(Wasserman A., Pal M., & Chan, C., 2006). However, figures in community metrics are
modified. More than 300 messages/posts per month are set as excellent and other figures
are set accordingly. These 300 figures are based on Koha mailing list. In Koha general
mailing list, on an average (Six months, 2014) more than 300 messages per month are
posted. Koha is the most popular open source library management system and is
worldwide used by library community.
4.4.2 Project Status
To find methodologies to categories open source projects, literature on the topic is
searched. Following some of the methodologies relevant to this topic are found.

Khondhu , Capiluppi & Stol ( 2013) have made three categories of the projects, such as,
active, dormant, and inactive based on update activity. They define: ‘active’ project:
whose activity is updated and recent; the ‘dormant’ project: whose activity is visible in
the past evolution but it has stopped (due to any reason) for a defined period (e.g., one
year, two years, etc.); ‘inactive’ project: which have been explicitly marked as inactive
by the previous developers.

83
Khondhu , Capiluppi & Stol ( 2013) also argues, open source software project inactivity
should be evaluated on the basis of pre defining an interval time when no development
activity such as commits, messages on the mailing lists or public releases have been
taken place in the project.

“The SourceForge.net maintains a system of 7 status designations such as planning, pre-

alpha, alpha, beta, production/stable, mature and inactive” ( Piggott, J., & Amrit, C.
(2013)

Schweik & English (2012), Schweik (2013) identified two different longitudinal stages
that open source projects go through:

“i) Initiation Stage: The Initiation Stage describes the period from project start to the first
public release of software.

ii) Growth Stage: describe the period after a project's first public release of code.

They define, both theoretically and empirically, a method to measure whether a project is
successful or abandoned in these two stages. They have identified six categories of
success and abandonment. The definitions of these six steps are as follows

“SI: Success in Initiation: - Developers have produced a first release

AI: Abandonment in Initiation: - No first release produced, and the project appears to be
abandoned.
SG: Success in Growth: - Project has achieved 3 meaningful releases of the software and
the software is deemed useful for at least a few users.
AG: Abandoned in Growth: - Project appears to be abandoned before producing 3
releases of a useful product, or has produced 3 or more releases in less than 6
months and is abandoned.
II: Indeterminate in Initiation: - Project has yet to reveal a first public release but shows
significant developer activity.
IG: Indeterminate in Growth: - Project has not yet produced three releases but shows
development activity, or has produced three releases or more in less than six months
and shows development activity”
As per the Schweik and English methodology, the project can be placed in to six
categories. However, what is status of project after “Success in Growth” phase if there
are no developments i.e. further releases for longer period.
84
 Wheeler mentions that project might stabilize over the time as it is completed but needs
change, new uses are continuously created, and no program of any kind is perfect. It is
important that a program is being maintained, and that it will be maintained far into the
future (wheeler 2011)

To further classify project, which are “success in growth” phase and does not have
releases and community activity for long period, the researcher has applied following
methodology.

In this, metrics projects having more than 5 years inactivity in release and more than two
years inactivity in community are placed in category of inactive or abandoned.
(However, these projects have not been tagged as inactive by developers on project
website and shows download activity.)

Category 5- Active 3- Dormant 1 Inactive /

abandoned
Releases gap DS- DLR < 2 DS- DLR > 2 and < 4 DS- DLR > 4
years years years

Date of latest forum or DS- LFMA < 1 DS - LFMA >1 and DS - LFMA >2
mailing list activity years < 2 years

Table 4.2: Metrics for project status

Date of last release (DLR) date of sampling (DS) Date of latest forum or mailing list
activity (LFMA).

4.5. Library Management Systems: Analysis

Following table shows analysis of open source library management systems identified
under the survey as per the methodologies described in 4.4 section of this chapter.
Name of the Functionality Release Community Project Total
software activity activity Status Score =
(RA) Mailing list (PS) RA+CA
/Forum (CA)
ABCD Administration, Excellent Acceptable Active 8
Technical processes,
Statistics, Services,

85
 Loans circulation
OPAC, Periodical
control

Avanti OPAC and Catalogue Acceptable Unacceptable Inactive 4

/abandoned
BibioTeq Cataloguing, basic Excellent Unacceptable Active 6
Circulation, and
OPAC module.
Emilda OPAC, Circulation Excellent Unacceptable Inactive 6
and Administration /abandoned
functions,
Espabiblio Circulation, Excellent Unacceptable Active 6
Cataloging,
Administration,
OPAC, Reports,
Evergreen Acquisitions, OPAC, Excellent Very good Active 9
Cataloging,
Circulation,
Administration,
Serials,
FireFly --- --- ---- Inactive ----
/abandoned
Glibms : Acquisition, Acceptable Unacceptable Inactive 4
GNU Library Catalogue and Basic /abandoned
Management circulation
System
Managerial ----- ----- Unknown ----
Gnuteca processes, Technical
processing,
Circulation,
Consultancy and
recovery, Internet-

86
 library
GPL Library Catalogue, OPAC Excellent Unacceptable Inactive 6
system and basic circulation /abandoned
modules
infoCID Administration, Excellent Unacceptable Inactive 6
Consultation, Loan /abandoned
repayment, Statistics,
inventory etc.
Java Book Catalogue Excellent Unacceptable Inactive 6
Cataloguing /abandoned
System
Jayuya Catalogue, -- Unacceptable Inactive --
Circulation, Statistics /abandoned
Kuali Open Select and Acquire, Excellent Unacceptable Active 6
Library Describe and
Environment Manage, Deliver, and
System Integration
Kobli Koha Administration, Excellent Unacceptable Active 6
cataloguing,
circulation, OPAC,
Serial etc.
Koha Administration, Excellent Excellent Active 10
Circulation,
Cataloging,
Acquisitions,
Reports, Serials,
Patron management
etc.
Librarian DB Catalogue, OPAC Acceptable Unacceptable Active 4
Library Basic catalogue, Excellent Unacceptable Inactive 6
Manager OPAC, Circulation /abandoned
MiniSOPULI -- ---- Unacceptable Inactive -----
/abandoned

87
NewGenLib Acquisitions, Excellent Acceptable Active 8
Technical Processing,
Serials management,
Circulation,
Administration, MIS
Reports, OPAC,
Allow digital
attachment to
metadata
Next L Enju Cataloging, Patron Excellent Unacceptable Active 6
management,
Circulation,
discovery interface.
Open OPAC, Circulation, Acceptable Unacceptable Inactive / 4
MarcoPolo Administration, Abandoned
Statistics
OpenAmapth- Cataloguing, Download Unacceptable Unknown -----
èque Circulation, Budget link is not
monitoring, working
management of
internal research
publication etc.
Openbiblio OPAC, circulation, Acceptable Acceptable Active 6
cataloging, and staff
administration
OtomiGenX Catalogue, Loan, Acceptable Unacceptable Inactive / 4
Search modules. Abandoned
PhpMyLibray Cataloging, Excellent Unacceptable Inactive / 6
Circulation, OPAC Abandoned
etc.
PMB Circulation, Excellent Very good Active 9
PhpMyBibli Cataloguing, Reports,
SDI, Acquisition,

88
 Administration,
Serial management
Seansoft GPL Cataloguing, Loan, Acceptable Unacceptable Inactive 4
Library loan Search
management
system
SLiMS Bibliography Excellent Acceptable Active 8
(Senayan (Cataloguing)
Library Membership,
Management Circulation, Stock
System) taking, Reporting,
Serial control, OPAC.
Calibre E Library Management, Excellent Very good Active 9
book E-book conversion,
management Syncing to e-book
system reader devices, E-
book editor for the
major e-book formats
etc.
eLibrary Books and eBooks Excellent Unacceptable Active 6
library organizer.
Catalog, tag and
search your books
database
Table 4.3 LMSs analysis
Following is the description of the above analysis
4.5.1 Release Activity
The release activity is assessed as per the metrics, mentioned in Table 4.1 The
table 4.3 shows that out of 31 projects, 19 projects have shown excellent release activity
and which have five score. Seven projects show acceptable release activity and which
have three score. Five projects release activity could not be determined because of
unavailability of code files on project website and due to restriction of downloading. Out
of these five, only Gnuteca and Open Amaptheque seems to be active.

89
 Figure 4.1 is graphical presentation of release activity. Out of eighteen projects,
which have shown excellent release activity, three projects, such as, GPL library system,
infoCID, Java cataloguing system does not have releases for a long time.

Release activity
6
4
2
0

Library…

OtomiG…

PMB…
Seansoft…
GPL…

Java…

Librarian…

MiniSOP…
NewGen…
Next L…
Open…
OpenAm…
Openbib…

PhpMyLi…

Calibre E…
Emilda
Espabiblio

Jayuya

Koha

eLibrary
Kuali OLE
ABCD
Avanti

infoCID
Gnuteca

Kobli Koha
BibioTeq

Evergreen
FireFly

SLiMS
Glibms

Figure 4.1: Release activity

4.5.2 Community Activity
The community activity is assessed on five-point scale as per Table 4.1.
Following is the graphical presentation of community activity of 31 projects. Out of
these 31 projects, community activity score of eight projects is 3 or more. The
community activity score of the remaining projects is one. The community activity score
of some of the excellent release activity projects, such as, BiblioteQ, Espablio,
KualiOLE, Koblikoha, librarianDB is also one . Among these active projects, Kuali OLE
has recently started and this is one of the reasons for low community activity. Other
projects, such as, Espablio, Kobli koha are language specific projects and this may be the
reason for low community activity. Community activity of the Firefly and Gnuteca could
not be determined due to unavailability of data and problem with registration process of
mailing list. In this category, Koha is having highest score. Evergreen, PMB and Calibre
E book management system have occupied second position. Third position has been
occupied by ABCD, NewGenLib, Openbiblio, SLiMS.

Community activity
6
4
2
0
Espabibl…

GPL…

MiniSO…
NewGe…

OpenA…

PhpMyL…

Calibre…
Glibms:…

Java…

Kobli…

Libraria…
Library…

Next L…
Open…

Openbi…
OtomiG…

PMB…
Seansof…
ABCD
Avanti

Emilda

Gnuteca

Jayuya

Koha
BibioTeq

FireFly

eLibrary
infoCID
Evergreen

Kuali OLE

SLiMS

Figure 4.2: Community activity

90
4.5.3 The Project Score Based on Release Activity, Community Activity (Combined)
Following figure shows the total score of LMS projects based on release activity
and community activity. The positive scale area of graph shows the score of active LMS
projects. The negative scale area of graph shows the score of inactive projects. The
absence of bar shows unavailability of the release and community data of LMS projects.

12

10

0 Librarian DB
Emilda
Espabiblio

Jayuya

Koha

Openbiblio
Kuali OLE

Next L Enju

PhpMyLibrary

eLibrary
OpenAmapthèque
ABCD
Avanti

infoCID

OtomiGenX
Library Manager

PMB PhpMyBibli
Glibms : GNU L

Java Catal. Syst.

MiniSOPULI

Seansoft GPL
Gnuteca

Kobli Koha

Open MarcoPolo

Calibre E book
BibioTeq

Evergreen
FireFly

NewGenLib
GPL Library system

-2

SLiMS
-4

-6

-8

Figure 4.3: Combined score RA and CA

Among the active projects, only Seven LMS projects, such as, ABCD,
Evergreen, Koha, NewGenLib, PMB, SLIMS, and Calibre book management are having
more than six score. All remaining LMS projects have six or less than six score. Kuali
ole and Next-L Enju are the viable candidates and both are in initial development phase,
therefore community activity score of both is low and thereby low overall score.In case
of inactive projects, there is not even a single project, which has scored more than six.
The score of five inactive projects could not be determined due to unavailability of data.
4.5.4 Project Status
One of the objectives of this study is to find present developmental status of the LMS
projects. For this purpose two methodologies are used, which are already mentioned
4.4.2 section
4.5.4.1 Status the of project on the basis of Schweik and English methodology

Following table shows status the of project on the basis of Schweik methodology.

91
Project Name Category Remarks

ABCD Success in growth

Avanti Success in growth No release since 2007

BibioTeq Success in growth

Emilda Success in growth No release since 2005

Espabiblio Success in growth

Evergreen Success in growth

FireFly Abandoned in growth

Glibms : GNU Library Abandoned in growth 3 releases in less than 6 months and
Management System No release since 2002

Gnuteca Success in growth

GPL Library system Abandoned in growth 3 releases in less 6 than months no

release since July 2010

infoCID Abandoned in growth 2 releases in same month and no

release since 2005

Java Book Cataloguing Abandoned in growth 3 releases in less 6 months and no

System release since 2000

Jayuya Abandoned in growth Release history not found and No

release since 2006.
Kuali Open Library Success in growth
Environment

Kobli Koha Success in growth

Koha Success in growth

Librarian DB Success in growth

92
Library Manager Abandoned in growth 2 releases in same month and no
release since 2002.

MiniSOPULI Abandoned in growth Code is not available

NewGenLib Success in growth

Next L Enju Success in growth

Open MarcoPolo Abandoned in growth 2 versions found on website and no

release since 2008

OpenAmapthèque ------------- ------------

Openbiblio Success in growth

OtomiGenX Success in growth 2 versions found on website and no

release since 2009 (3.0 version)

PhpMyLibrary Success in growth No release since 2006

PMB PhpMyBibli Success in growth

Seansoft GPL Library Abandoned in growth Only one version is released no

loan management release since 2001
system

SLiMS (Senayan Success in growth

Library Management
System)

Calibre E book Success in growth

management system

eLibrary Success in growth No release since 2011

Table 4.4: Project status as per Schweik and English methodology

The above table shows that there are 20 projects, which are under the “success in
growth” category, and 10 projects are under the “abandoned in growth” category. One

93
project’s status could not be determined. Sixty-seven percent projects are success in
growth.

1
10
Sucees in growth

20 Abondoned in growth
Unknow

Figure 4.4:: Project status as per Schweik and English methodology

4.5.4.2 Present Status of the “Success in growth” project based on table 4.2 metric

As per metricss in table 4.2 out of twenty “success

success in growth projects”, there are
only thirteen projects,, such as, ABCD, BiblioTeq, Espabiblio, Evergreen, KualiOLE,
KobliKoha, Koha, NewGenLib, Next-L
Next L Enju, Openbiblio, PMB, SLiMS,
SLiMS Calibre E book
Management system, which
whic have active status in release as well as community activity.
activity
While the elibrary’s
’s release activity is dormant and community activity is active,
conversely, Librarian db’s release activity is active and community activity is dormant.
As one of the activity of these two projects
projects is coming under active status. Therefore, they
are included in active status category. In all as per both methodologies, there are fifteen
active and success in growth LMS projects out of 31 LMS projects. Fourteen projects are
inactive. The status of OpenAmaptheque and Gnuteca (present activity) has not been
determined due to the problem of download; therefore, its status has been set as
unknown.. This study also reveals that the score of the community activity of all inactive
projects is one,, which is unacceptable.

Project Name Category Project status as per table

2 metrics

ABCD Success in growth Active

Avanti Success in growth Inactive /abandoned

94
 BibioTeq Success in growth Active

Emilda Success in growth Inactive /abandoned

Espabiblio Success in growth Active

Evergreen Success in growth Active

Gnuteca Success in growth Unknown

Kuali OLE Success in growth Active

Kobli Koha Success in growth Active

Koha Success in growth Active

Librarian DB Success in growth Active

NewGenLib Success in growth Active

Next L Enju Success in growth Active

OpenAmapthèque ------------- Unknown

Openbiblio Success in growth Active

OtomiGenX Success in growth Inactive /abandoned

PhpMyLibrary Success in growth Inactive /abandoned

PMB PhpMyBibli Success in growth Active

SLiMS (Senayan Library Success in growth Active

Management System)

Calibre E book management Success in growth Active

system

eLibrary Success in growth Active

Table 4.5 Project status as per table 4.2

Among inactive projects, PhpMyLibrary was a good project having necessary
functionality with excellent release activity. However, since 2006 there has been no
95
further release. However, it shown considerable number (32) of weekly downloads on
sourceforge.net. The project Emilda, OtomiGenx, Glibms, Java book cataloguing system
shown 9, 12, 26, and 4 weekly downloads respectively and other 4 projects shown 1
weekly download at time of data collection. Some projects download statistics is not
available

Active projects
15
inactive projects
14 Unknown status

Figure 4. 5: Project status as per table 4.2

4. 6 Longevity of Active Projects (age)

A key indicator of software maturity is its age. Software, which is available for a
long period, tends to be more mature. The longevity of the product can be assessed,
using version number, life span of the product, and total number of downloads (Golden
B., 2005). Age can be established using the date of the first release of the software.
Following table shows age of the project since its first release. The release history
of Espabilio is not available; therefore, among the available versions on project website,
the oldest version is considered.

Name of the Year of first release Age of the project

project (as on Dec. 2014)

ABCD First Beta version released in September 2008 6.2

1.0 Dec. 2009 (Production version)
BiblioteQ Version 2.00 (Pre-Alpha ) in January 2007 8
Espabiblio Espa 2.2 B-2 in January 2012 3
Evergreen Alpha version released in August 2005 9.3
Version 1.0 released in Sept. 2006
Gnuteca* --- Feb. 2002 12.9
96
 Kuali OLE Version 0.3 November 2011 (First public 3
release)
KobliKoha Kobli 1.4 in June 2011 3.5
Koha September 1999 : Work starts on Koha. 15.2
Koha 1.00 put up for download in July 2000
Librarian DB Librariandb-0.1 in May 2007 7.6
NewGenLib 1.0 was released in March 2005. 9.8 *
In January 2008, it was declared open source 7
software
Next-L Enju Next-L Enju - 1.0.0.beta in March 2011 3.8
OpenBiblio Beta version 0.1.020 in April 2002 12.7
PMB PhpMyBibli ---2002 12
SLiMS November 2007 7
Senayan 3 Stable1 in March 2008 (Public
release)
Calibre E book Libprs500, 2006 was renamed as Calibre in 8
management mid-2008
system
eLibrary 1.0.0 in November 2008 6
*Status unknown Table 4.6: Longevity of active projects

Age of the Project

16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

Figure 4.6: Age of the project

The graphical presentation shows that out of sixteen projects, eleven projects
have more than six years’ longevity. This study also shows that Koha is one of the
oldest software and has more than fifteen years’ longevity. Gnuteca, OpenBiblio and
PMB also have more than ten years of longevity.
97
 Among the inactive projects, only Avanti MicroLCS and PhpMyLibrary
continued for more than four years. All other remaining projects discontinued within a
very short span.
4.7 Functional Features of Active Projects
Functionality is an important aspect of any kind of software. In this study, the
availability of basic main modules, such as, acquisition, cataloguing, circulation, serial,
OPAC of active projects are studied.
Name of the Acquisition Cataloguing Circulation Serial OPAC New Generation
software / Feature
Modules
ABCD Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ABCD site (CMS)
BibioTeq ---- Yes Yes* ---- Yes -----
Espabiblio ---- Yes Yes ---- Yes CMS based on
WordPress. Digital
file attachment to
metadata
Evergreen Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ------
Gnuteca Yes Yes Yes Yes* Yes ------
KualiOpen Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ERM
Library
Environment
KobliKoha Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ------
Koha Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes CMS
Librarian DB --- Yes Yes -------
NewGenLib Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Allow digital
attachment to
metadata
Next L Enju Yes* Yes Yes Yes Yes ----
Openbiblio ---- Yes Yes --- Yes -----
PMB Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Digital attachment to
PhpMyBibli metadata
SLiMS ---- Yes Yes Yes* Yes Digital attachment to
metadata

98
Calibre E ---- ---- ---- ---- ----- E- book management
book : E-book conversion,
management Syncing to e-book
system reader devices , E-
book editor for the
major e-book formats
etc.
eLibrary E-Books
management
*limited functionality Table 4.7: Functional features of active projects
This study shows that out of 16 library management systems (LMSs), Nine
systems have all five basic modules. Two systems are specially developed for e book
management. BiblioteQ have catalogue, circulation, OPAC but circulation module has
very limited functionality and OPAC modules are separately available, needs to be
integrated with desktop version. Acquisition and serial modules are absent in Espabiblio
and Openbilio but Espabiblio has CMS and digital files attachment functionality.
LibrarianDB has only catalogue and OPAC modules. In SLiMS, acquisition module is
not available.
The study also reveals that some of the systems tried to incorporate the new
generation library management system features but they are at very preliminary level
except Kuali OLE.
4.8 License
From the above study, it appears that maximum number of library management
systems are released under GNU GPL. Some systems are an exception, such as, ABCD,
Open Marco Polo, and Java cataloguing system. These systems are released under
LGPL. BiblioteQ is released under BSD license. Gnuteca is released under CC-GNU
GPL. Kuali OLE is released under Education community license and now released
AGPL. Next-L Enju is released under MIT license. PMB was initially released under
GNU GPL; now it is released under CECILL. Some software reuses several other
libraries and modules, these libraries and modules retain their original licenses
4.9 Documentation: The library management systems, such as, ABCD, Evergreen,
Koha, Kuali OLE, NewGenLib, Next-L, Enju, SLiMS provide comprehensive
documentation on different aspects of the software.

99
4.10 Technology used
Name of the Programming Operating Database, Other
software Language system application/ components
support Web server
ABCD PHP v.5 and Windows and Apache, MARC,Z39.50
Isis Script, Java Linux MySQL
Script and
AJAX, JDK
1.5
BiblioteQ Qt 4 and C++ FreeBSD, Postgresql or MARC, Z39.50
etc. Linux, Mac SQLite
OSX, Solaris
Windows
Espabiblio PHP, JavaScrip, Mac, Linux, MySQL, MARC, Z39.50
HTML, windows or Apache
anything that
supports
apache,
Evergreen Perl, C, Linux (Client Apache, MARC21,
JavaScript, for window, PostgreSQL, Z39.50
XML, X Path, Linux) (18) Jabber,
XSLT, XMPP OpenSRF
Gnuteca PHP, Perl Linux Postgresql MARC21,
Z39.50
Kuali OLE Java, maven Windows, Mac Apache tomcat, MARC, Z39.50
etc. OS X, Linux MySQL etc.

KobliKoha Perl etc. Linux Apache, MARC, Z39.50

MySQL
Koha Perl etc. Linux Apache, MARC, Z39.50
MySQL
Librarian DB PHP Linux MySQL
NewGenLib Java Linux, Window Postgresql, MARC, Z39.50

100
 Apache ant etc.
Next L Enju Ruby on Rails , Multiplatform MySQL / MARC, Z39.50,
Ruby , Java SE PostgreSQL/SQ
7 Lite
OpenBiblio PHP etc. Linux, MySQL, MARC, Z39.50
windows Apache
PMB PHP etc. Linux, MySQL, MARC, Z39.50
PhpMyBibli Windows, Mac Apache
OS
SLiMS PHP, AJAX Windows, MYSQL, MARC, Z39.50
Linux/ Unix Apache

Calibre E QT 5, Pythan, Window, ----- ---

book - C, C++ etc. Linux, OS X
eLibrary C++ Windows ---- -----
Table 4.8: Technology used
The above table reveals that all active LMSs have MARC and Z39.50
functionality. MySQL is the favorite database management system among the developers
and PHP is a preferred programming language.
4.11: Selection of library management systems for in-depth study

This study shows presently there are thirty one open source library management systems
are available. The Library management systems that comply the following criteria are
selected for in-depth study.

• The Library management system should be available for download under the free
or open source license
• Library management systems project should be currently active
• The Library management systems should be are available in English language
• The Library management systems should support basic housekeeping operations
As per above criteria following eight library management systems are selected for in-
depth study. This study is also limited to current stable version of the library
management systems released on or before February 2015.

• ABCD ( Version 1.4, October 2014)

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 • Evergreen (Version 2.7.2 December 2014)
• Koha ( Version 3.18.2 , December 2014)
• Kuali OLE (Version 1.5.6, December 2014)
• NewgenLib (Version 3.1 February 2015)
• Next-L Enju (Leaf, ver. 1.1.0 rc 17+ Flower, ver. 0.1.0 pre21, February 2015)
• PMB ( Version 4.1.4, January 2015
• SLiMS ( Version 7 Cendana, November 2013)
4.12 Conclusion
This study covers thirty-one projects, which are developed during 1999 to 2014.
However, the study shows that almost fifty percent projects are active today and fifty
percent of projects became inactive or abandoned within a very short period of time,
mostly in growth phase. This study also reveals that among the active projects 60%
projects have an institutional support and only seven LMS projects such as ABCD,
Evergreen, Koha, NewGenLib, PMB, SLIMS, and Calibre book management performed
well as per combined score of the release and community activity. However, Kuali OLE
and Next-L Enju are viable candidates and have evolving community. This study also
reveals that there are considerable number of downloads for old releases of some inactive
projects. This study tries to present developmental status of thirty-one open source
library management system projects developed during last fifteen years.
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