First blog posts are notoriously content-free. But not this one. Instead of just saying, "Hello, world!", I will try to outline how I will be using this blog in future, the kinds of posts you can expect to find, how this blog relates to projects within the eIFL-FOSS program, and how to respond to blog entries. But first, let me tell you who I am.

My name is Randy Metcalfe. I am the Program Manager for eIFL-FOSS.

eIFL-FOSS is a program of eIFL.net which advocates free and open source software (FOSS) use in libraries in developing and transition countries. It aims to raise awareness and understanding of FOSS, facilitate eIFL.net member engagement with FOSS development communities, and undertake projects of special significance to eIFL.net members.

The project of special significance to eIFL.net members that we are undertaking, is a project supporting evaluation of and migration to FOSS integrated library systems (ILS), in particular Koha and Evergreen.

If you decide to follow this blog, perhaps by adding its feed to your favourite blog reader (you can find the urls for the feeds in the top right corner of the main blog page), then you will hear a lot about Koha and Evergreen. You will also hear about various aspects of free and open source software, and of FOSS development, that strike me as particularly salient. You may even have to suffer a few personal posts about conferences I attend, or libraries I, or one of my colleagues, visit. I will be pointing to shining examples of excellence in FOSS deployment or development. I will also be ruminating on the lessons to be learned from less shining examples. But mostly the posts will keep coming back to core issues in the eIFL-FOSS ILS project.

Together with my colleague Tigran Zargaryan, who is the Project Co-ordinator for eIFL-FOSS, and an entire cohort of eIFL-FOSS country co-ordinators, we will be exploring the software available from these FOSS development communities. We will be testing it, piloting it in libraries in different countries, investigating the support documentation currently available, writing some of our own documentation to help each other evaluate our current setups, and eventually migrating to either of these FOSS ILSs. Or not, as the case may be. The goal here is not to migrate to a FOSS solution merely because it is a FOSS solution, but rather because in some particular case it is the best solution. Just how "best" is cashed out there, of course, is likely to be a subject of numerous blog posts.

I will be learning right along with everyone else. In fact, you will quickly discover that I know less about how libraries work than anyone else involved in this program. Some of the folks involved also know considerably more about the technical end of software than I do. Others know considerably more than I do about writing code. But that's not surprising. Any vibrant community - and I hope and trust the eIFL-FOSS community will become one - is made up of people with different histories and skill sets, and probably also differing personalities and preferences. What we share is a common interest in learning how to engage with and participate in FOSS development communities to serve a particular end, our shared itch if you will, to help our libraries serve their users even better.

I hope the above sounds like the kind of blog you might want to stay in touch with. If it does, be sure to add the feed for it to your blog reader. I expect to be posting here at least once per week. And I promise they won't all be as long as this one :-)

Comments for this blog are currently constrained only to registered users of the eIFL.net site. We will probably open that up as soon as we can ensure that we have a way to avoid blog spam. But you can still send me your comments by email, and I will be sure to make mention of them on the blog. You can write to me at randy.metcalfe[at]eifl.net. I look forward to hearing from you.

Oh, and one last thing...Hello, world!