Could this be the start of the future of OPACs? Casey Bisson has developed an OPAC that is built using the WordPress Weblog Platform. I think this is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly it was initially developed as a personal project that he worked on at night and on weekends. Secondly it means an OPAC gains access to some of the Web 2.0 / Library 2.0 technologies we’ve been hearing about lately. Lastly, and most importantly, it’s being used now by the Lamson Library at Plymouth State University. There is also a plan to release the source code so others can build on the work of Casey, which is encouraging.
I look forward to seeing how this project will develop and if other libraries will take it up. In a broader context, I look forward to see what other projects will be happening in the Library sector in the future. I personally think that it’s going to be a very interesting time indeed.
What do others think?
First seen on LibrarianInBlack.
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August 9, 2006 at 12:06
I was looking at this last night. What I found interesting was his interview with himself about the development of the project: http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11133/.
He makes the very worthwhile point that there will probably always be some kind of monolithic ILS for managing internal library processes, but that the OPAC doesn’t have to look like that.
It really inspires me to do more playing to get some of the skills those of Carey or Dave Pattern (http://www.daveyp.com/blog/).
The other day my manager asked me about how you’d put a tag cloud interface on an OPAC…I mumbled something about writing a script sitting between the OPAC and the user, harvesting the search data..then googled it and saw that Davey P had knocked up such a creature in his spare time. http://www.daveyp.com/blog/index.php/archives/46/. See also 2 follow up posts under “Taggytastic”.
August 10, 2006 at 20:30
I’ve been using Wordpress (WP) since version 1.2 to 2.0.3 at http://www.bhatt.id.au/blog/ and traffic to it has grown from maybe a 1000/month to 200,000+ month over the last 2 years, enough for me to earn most of my income from it
To get wordpress to do what I want I’ve hacked its code in many many places and discovered some alarming holes in its security and functionality including an annoying tendency for it to randomly rewrite words in very large articles when saving them eg: choosing became chosssing in one of my recent articles
Unfortunately hacking it to bits means that its impossible to upgrade to the newest release fixing various security holes unless you have a lot of time (several dozen hours) and know the code intimately
Thats not to say WP can’t be modified to do jobs that are similar to blogs eg: I modified WP to create a “Corporate news” section at http://www.cogentis.com.au/news/
To sum up, its a brilliant bit of software, its free and IMHO is the best of breed blogging package … but modifying it to do something completely different like being an OPAC interface is not viable in the long term.
August 11, 2006 at 07:41
Neerav,
You make an interesting point, however I think something like the WPopac is indeed viable in the long term.
While having only one person adjust the code is a time consuming exercise if the project gets enough people behind it the time becomes less, and new features begin to emerge.
I also think that by modifying the WordPress codebase this much you would have to accept the fact that you could no longer automatically upgrade to the newest release. By diverging from the code this much you’re essentially creating a brand new project, which you’re more than entitled to do as it is Open Source software.
In the end I think a project like this is indeed viable in the long term, but it is dependent on the size of the community that ralies around the project.