The largest new Evergreen release in years provides important new functionality for all types of libraries, including new curbside pickup and course materials modules.
The course materials module makes reserve collections more discoverable and easy to manage. The module provides functionality for library electronic resources and open educational resources, in addition to print resources, whether cataloged or not. Libraries can also use the module to manage displays and summer reading, temporarily changing the shelving location and easily reverting after the display time is over.
Curbside pickup provides an interface to facilitate contact-free pickup of library items. Both staff and users can schedule pickup appointments, and borrowers can use the module to inform the library upon arrival.
In the catalog, a new modern catalog interface is now standard in the staff client and a new Bootstrap-based prototype public catalog is available. The current and prototype public catalogs provide enhanced print and email options for catalog records and holdings. Support for the open source web analytics platform Matomo is now native to Evergreen catalogs with the ability to track consortia library usage individually.
Hold management is also improved with a dedicated interface for managing unfillable holds. Improvements to staff interfaces using Angular continue throughout Evergreen.
The release includes contributions from 43 individuals and 26 institutions, twice the number of the prior release, continuing progress through the pandemic. The contributed enhancements are overseen by a group of 13 committers who review and approve all software additions to core software for the general releases.
"Evergreen 3.6 came together during a difficult time by the work of many members of the community. There are far too many to thank individually in a press release, but I would particularly like to thank my co-release managers Michele Morgan, Terran McCanna, and Jason Boyer for their efforts," said Galen Charlton, a member of the release team for 3.6. "I am excited about the many new features we were able to include during a shortened release cycle, including a new course reserves module and a revamped public catalog design."
Evergreen continues to be the leading ILS for consortia and delivers local flexibility and granularity of policies that no other software can match. Evergreen offers the most interoperability for libraries via its truly open APIs. Evergreen is open-source software, licensed under the GNU GPL, version 2 or later and is available to all for download at no cost from the Evergreen web site at https://evergreen-ils.org/
The Evergreen community is made up of individuals, libraries, companies, and other organizations that support the Evergreen Integrated Library System. Evergreen is highly-scalable software that helps patrons find library materials and helps libraries manage, catalog, and circulate those materials, no matter how large or complex the libraries. More than 2,000 libraries around the world use Evergreen.