Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:31:42 +0530 From: L J Haravu <haravu@newgenlib.com> Dear List Members I am responding to several mails we received after the announcement of NewGenLib as open source. In particular I am responding to the very relevant questions, suggestions of DR Arunachalam, Dr I R N Goudar and Shwetank Upadhyaya. 1. The development company, Verus Solutions Pvt. Ltd.., (VSPL) and Kesavan Inst. of Information and Knowledge Management (KIIKM) will continue to work on new versions and enhancements to the software. 2. We will soon contact Developer communities interested in ILMS software to download and join the development effort and/or give new ideas that would help enhance the software 3. Right now, we are busy with building a new version (3.0) with many new and customizable features and enhanced support to metadata and interoperabiltity standards. In fact the requirement specifications for this came jointly from FAO and us after a demonstration cum training programme that was held at FAO, Rome in June 2007. The new version, also open source, will become available sometime in June 2008. 4. Like other open source ILMS offerings, we hope that communities of practice will emerge over time so that there is healthy exchange of experiences and mutual technical support. 5. The discussion forum, https://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=210780 should be used to report problems and solutions right from download issues to those in the functional modules. There will be answers from the developers and others that will hopefully democratize the support of the software 6. There is already a specialist IT services company, a sister company of VSPL called Verus IT Services Pvt. Ltd. (VISL) which will offer customer-specific services beginning from Installation, data conversion/data migration, training and ongoing support. These services will be charged for and a package of services is being worked out and will soon be announced. The idea is to help libraries implement the software and build library networks via service costs rather than product investments. We are also considering the possibililty of subscription-based services. 7. We will be approaching funding agencies in India (DSIR, DOE, RRRLF, etc.,) and abroad to help us conduct workshops and training programmes in different parts of the country/overseas. We are also seeking support of training centres such as DRTC and Schools of Library Science; professional bodies such as ILA, IASLIC, RCIS, SRELS, INFLIBNET, other library associations to help us take the software to public, academic and research libraries. We will look forward to the suggestions and support of the List members. DRTC has already promised their help. Dr A R D Prasad as all of you know has been a champion of open source and he has also been a source of inspiration to us. I hope I have been able to answer some of the concerns and views expressed by various professionals and I look forward to your support and suggestions. L J Haravu Trustee, Kesavan Inst. of Information and Knowledge Management