Open Source Open Access: a Hot Library Combo

Open Source Open Access: a Hot Library Combo

As library budgets dwindle at an alarming rate, Librarians are weighing other options to trim down their spending.  One area has been to adopt freely available applications over the more fancied proprietary solutions.  This justifies why my fellow Librarians have become so much interested and excited in learning more about open culture especially open source and open access, which are becoming an indispensible combo for progressive library solutions.  This hot combo may be likened to Siamese twins who need and complement each other in many ways.  What many of my Librarian colleagues’ may not realize is that whilst open applications come without license fees, and will most likely save significant library funds, open culture  is about so much more than a price tag.   

In this dialogue I will attempt to provide a brief (and not conclusive) overview of the history and definition of open source and open access.  Wherever appropriate, facts and statistics have been included as evidence to combat fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) that surround open culture.

Research evidently reveals and has taught me that open culture is all about collaboration, community, sharing and openness.  At the advent all software was open source; all software was developed in the open and distributed for free among colleagues and friends.  Currently, the traditional software licenses that we are now familiar with within our library or home environs do not take the form the first developers envisioned for future of software.  It’s all about proprietary and making profits. 

Open Source

The President and CEO of Malaysia’s state-owned ICT Company MIMOS Berhad, Dr Tengku Mohd Azzman Shariffadeem, made the following interesting observation ‘in terms of open source, we have new opportunities. They come about because there is a new movement of sharing. And the open source system is just one manifestation of this culture. The networks we have created through the internet allow this sharing to happen in a very efficient way.’   From an African perspective, Bildad Kagai, CEO of a Kenyan open source company and Coordinator of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA), reinforced the above thoughts by stating that Open source and free software is the way to go for us (Africans (Zimbabweans)), but there are many challenges, including policy issues.  Kramer further contends that, Open Source Software (OSS), hybrid and proprietary options currently compete head-to-head in almost every market around the world. It’s a fact that OSS is among the fastest growing and most competitive classes of software in today’s market.

Open Access

According to Peter Suber (2004, rev. 2013) Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.  Public Library of Science defines OA as “unrestricted access and unrestricted reuse.”   Basically, OA removes price barriers (subs, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) and permission barriers (mostly copyright and licensing restrictions). 

Benefits of OA research include the following; accelerated discovery, public enrichment, improved education and visibility for both institutional and author.  Models of OA are Open Access Journals (OAJournals), Open Access Books (OABooks) and Institutional Repositories (IRs).  Importantly they are two OA levels;

1. Gold open access means that the final published version is permanently and freely available online for anyone, anywhere to read.
2. Green open access refers to self-archiving of your article, and often applies to earlier versions of your paper.

 The above explanations on both open source and access provide an interesting and insightful read.  One immediately notices the common characteristics of my hot combo no restrictions, no copyright, no licensing fees, free download, use and redistribute.  They all follow the 4Rs framework of open culture;

• Reuse
• Revise
• Remix
• Redistribute

 Knowing this background is not enough though.  My bone of contention (I repeat) is that it is essential for libraries to truly embrace the founding philosophy behind open culture for libraries to effectively participate in the various open culture communities readily available globally.  My 20+ years of experience has shown me that many Zimbabwean libraries have adopted open applications, but continue to act as though it were a proprietary system.  Implementing and manipulating open applications is now a rule changer period.  Nicole C. Engard (2010) notes: What it has simply translated to be is that ‘one no longer needs a vendor’s approval to add a feature to the system, one no longer has to depend on any one vendor for support and definitely one no longer gets to work in one’s own library bubble’. 

What do I mean above? As I have elaborated before, open culture is about community and therefore the only way open applications can survive is if there is an active community behind it.  The community can be multi-layered with an active combo of developers, users, bug testers, manual writers, translators, editors, researchers, publishers.  The list is endless.

In the case of open source especially, there is this huge misconception that again my Librarian friends (and many others) have is that to participate in an open source community they must know how to write code; this is not the case anyone with skills or no skills can be a member.  It has been argued that no software application can make it into production if it has not first been tested; and who better test it than someone who plans to use it daily?  No software application is easy to use without well written documentation, and who better to write that than someone who has learned to use the software the hard way?  A practical example is the abcd ILS workflows and processes, a manual compiled from my personal experience manipulating abcd and putting the facts and figures in layman’s lingo.  And no software application without well-organized menus and navigation will be considered user friendly; who again is better to tell people how to organize things than a Librarian.  Another excellent example is the evolution of abcd from DOS to free windows and finally open, from complicated DOS appearance and commands to user friendly menus and navigation platform.  This was achieved through unity of purpose and active participation of the Isis (abcd) community.

I have always proffered that Librarians have a lot to offer to open culture especially open source and open access.  How? By not only being limited to implementing open source but being pro-active and advocates; uploading, downloading and providing easy access through OPACs to research content for open access.  My hope and wish is that after dissecting my dialogue it will excite you to jump in and start to communicate with others who are using and developing open applications so you can find out how you can not only participate but positively contribute to these open culture movements.

May I at this critical juncture point out that it is important to remember that not every open application is right for every library, but you should be able to settle for a couple or so that will either make your workflow and processes more efficient in provision of better and robust institutional clientele services.  Further when considering open source, it is important to think and evaluate the skills available within your library or institution before making a final move or concrete decision.  Depending on the expertise available within your library/institution you may have to outsource some areas of implementing/migrating to an open source application.  It is inevitable some manageable (let me emphasize manageable) costs will be incurred such as fees for development and customization, installation, training, helpdesk or support, and hosting.  These costs are usually once off though.       

Open Source vs Closed Source (proprietary)

Fact	Myth
Over 550,000+ FOSS projects (29,000 Mature/Active in past 6 months as of April 2016) in all fields of ICT	It's a Linux vs. Windows thing
Major FOSS solutions are more reliable than proprietary counterparts; professional support available for FOSS	FOSS is not reliable or supported
About 90% of Fortune 1000 companies deploy FOSS; Econet,  Google, IBM, Sun, HP, Oracle... promote FOSS	Big companies don't use FOSS
FOSS licenses are based on the copyright law	FOSS is hostile to "intellectual property“
Econet : $746M HP: $103.4B in; RedHat: $2B in 2015	There is no money to be made on FOSS
50% FOSS developers are paid, others volunteer and contribute for personal motivations	The FOSS movement is unfair and unsustainable, because programmers don't get paid for their efforts
Community growth requires significant investment	If I start a FOSS project, plenty of developers will start working for me for nothing
FOSS spearheads a new innovation model that all should know about	FOSS is a programmer thing, users and decision-makers should not worry about it
The percentage of innovative projects (about 13%) is roughly the same in FOSS and proprietary software	FOSS is always playing catch-up with the commercial world, where all innovation comes from

 

Clearing Open Applications Myths

Fact	Myth
Over 550,000+ FOSS projects (29,000 Mature/Active in past 6 months as of April 2016) in all fields of ICT	It's a Linux vs. Windows thing
Major FOSS solutions are more reliable than proprietary counterparts; professional support available for FOSS	FOSS is not reliable or supported
About 90% of Fortune 1000 companies deploy FOSS; Econet,  Google, IBM, Sun, HP, Oracle... promote FOSS	Big companies don't use FOSS
FOSS licenses are based on the copyright law	FOSS is hostile to "intellectual property“
Econet : $746M HP: $103.4B in; RedHat: $2B in 2015	There is no money to be made on FOSS
50% FOSS developers are paid, others volunteer and contribute for personal motivations	The FOSS movement is unfair and unsustainable, because programmers don't get paid for their efforts
Community growth requires significant investment	If I start a FOSS project, plenty of developers will start working for me for nothing
FOSS spearheads a new innovation model that all should know about	FOSS is a programmer thing, users and decision-makers should not worry about it
The percentage of innovative projects (about 13%) is roughly the same in FOSS and proprietary software	FOSS is always playing catch-up with the commercial world, where all innovation comes from

 

Practical Open Models for Zimbabwean libraries

In our own Zimbabwean scenario, evidence at hand shows me that the LIS sector has adopted a potpourri of open applications and models.  Popular applications being manipulated include amongst others integrated library systems (ILS), operating systems (OS), digital systems, browsers, word processing, content management (CMS), social media tools, security and anti-virus. 

The most trending ILS are abcd developed way back in 1975 and distributed by abcdZim.org; koha and mandarin being promoted and distributed by UZ and CUT libraries respectively.   These ILS are robust in many ways and have satisfactorily served their respective communities. Abcd, koha and mandarin take up 90% of the market share, with the remaining 10% taken up by different proprietary systems such as resource mate and millennium.  Dissecting this further abcd is popular in the NGO sector, Government College and research libraries, schools and public libraries.  Koha and mandarin are popular choices in mostly academic libraries (university), with gradual penetration in the other library sectors. Abcd has a vibrant local community active on facebook (http://facebook.com/abcdZim.org , google circles with links to the international abcd community of developers and users (http://www.abcdwiki.net).  Koha (http://koha-community.org) and mandarin have international communities and less or no local community participation.  

  

In the digital space greenstone and D-Space have proven to be applications of choice especially for Institutional Repositories (IRs) for academic libraries.  They have vibrant and well supported communities through organizations such as ITOCA, INASP.  Linux and ubuntu have become the OS of choice for most Librarians, together with the bundled openOffice for word processing.  Mozilla Firefox is popular and leads the way in browser category, with joomla being a popular content management system for web based applications.  Web 2.0 or 3.0 tools have been embraced for most social media platforms especially facebook hugely popular amongst the Librarians, with twitter, linked-in and google circles enjoying favorable attention.  Avast and AVG are the most downloaded free security and anti-virus systems.  In brief libraries are spoilt for choice period.

Open access resources popular with Librarians include DOAJ (directory of open access journals) http://doaj.org , DOAB (directory of open access books), http://www.doab.org , SpringerOpen, http://www.springeropen.com/journals, INASP http://www.inasp.info/en/training-resources/open-access-resources/open-access-information , Institutional Repositories such as open Access Theses and Dissertations, http://oatd.org .  Again there is an abundance of OA resources to choose from.

Open Access has been totally embraced (100%) by academic libraries and has become a key component to augment research content, especially in these times of serious library budget cuts.  Evidence shows that in all academic institutions ILS training there is a heavy emphasis on Open Access resources.  I have also noticed a gradual uptake of OA resources within the other library sectors especially government college and research libraries as they augment their limited collections.   There is strong and effective support for OA in Zimbabwe especially from INASP and DOAJ amongst a host of OA proponents.

An interesting fact about open applications in our libraries is both the use of open applications and open access especially on ILS OPACs, were they have included open access resources by linking or redirecting clientele to appropriate sites and resources.  So many libraries have built OPACs based on open CMS such as joomla on top of an open ILS application (i.e. ABCD) and made a portal of open access resources.  Wow what a real HOT combo!  But a worrying trend I and other colleagues’ such as my college mate and now a renowned Researcher Takainganhamo Chisita is that we’re are perennial downloader’s of content and little or no uploading of research uptake takes place.  Simply Librarians research and development interest is at its weakest hence we heavily rely on research evidence from the developed world even to prop up our local content. 

My findings confirm that the generality of Zimbabwean Librarians are very knowledgeable about open culture systems; its different modes both open source or open access, ways to source and manipulate these options. Libraries and information centres can make a huge impact on local communities by adopting, implementing and manipulating open applications taking full advantage of ICTs and hopefully make a meaningful contribution in effective dissemination of appropriate information services with overall positive contribution to national development. However, awareness of Open Models or generally ICT tools and applications is low, both in urban and non-urban Zimbabwe. One positive solution is to increase take-up and run Open Models awareness campaigns through manipulation and maximization of available and appropriate ICT tools and applications.  One such activity is the ILS training offered by the US Embassy Harare Resource Centre. 

My dialogue is just a tip of the iceberg and an attempt to stir debate on this subject, so am challenging you to share your open culture experience with me and our LIS community at large.

Suggested Essential Open Resources

1. http://bhowatg.blogspot.com
2. http://opensource.weblearning.net
3. http://www.web2learning.net
4. http://doaj.org
5. http://www.doab.org
6. http://www.springeropen.com/journals
7. http://www.inasp.info/en/training-resources/open-access-resources/open-access-information
8. http://bookboon.com
9. http://opendoar.org
10. http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/research-beyond-google
11. http://www.plagiarism.org

References:

1. Engard, N.C. Oxford: Chandos, 2010. Practical Open Source for Libraries
2. Lalitha, P., 2004. Impact of information communication technology on library and
   information centres.[Internet] Available http://www.alibnet.org/events/lectures/MLSeries7_PLalita.pp. Accessed April 15th, 2016
3. Vinitha, K. (et.al)(2006) Impact of Information Communication Technology on
   Library and its Services. Paper presented at the DRTC-ICT Conference on Digital Learning environment, January 2006 in Bangalore.