Open source software (OSS) is gaining popularity
in the library profession nowadays and emerged
as an alternative model of and revolutionised the
software development. In the last decade, several
attempts were made to develop software for libraries
on open source platform and as a result, many open
source library automation software, open source
digital library software and other useful OSS for
libraries drawing the attention of librarians. Avanti
Library Systems grew out of a project started in
1998 by Peter Schlumpf to develop a simple low cost
open source library system for small libraries. The
Evergreen Project was initiated by the Georgia Public
Library System in 2006. Greenstone software was
originally released in 2000. E-print was developed
at the University of Southampton, UK and its first
version was released in 2000. The first version of
DSpace was released in November 2002. KOHA that
was originally developed by Katipo Communications
Limited, New Zealand for the Horowhenua Library
Trust in 1999 was released as free software under
General Public License in 2000. On 9 January
2008, New GenLib was declared Open Source
Software under GNU GPL License by Verus Solutions.
VuFind was developed and maintained at Villanova
University’s Falvey Memorial Library and released
in 2007. Open Journal Systems (OJS) is an online
journal management and publishing platform that
was first launched in 2002 as OSS.