A community built on helping librarians solve problems
FOLIO is a tool for librarians and as such their input and participation is critical. First and foremost librarians offer perspective and expertise that help shape the functionality that FOLIO will deliver. Through participation and leadership on our Special Interest Groups (SIGs) librarians are able to describe workflows, their challenges, and specify software functionality that will solve them. These conversations often expand to include developers. Many of our Product Owners are Librarians.
Many of the Council members who provide leadership to the project are librarians.
Often the librarians in the community are the ones who roll up their sleeves and do manual testing that is part of our development and release cycle. Working with Product Owners to define what each test needs to cover, librarians might write as well as execute tests using a system like TestRail. Likewise, the community relies on librarians for much of the Documentation effort. Staying up to date is a challenge with the fast-paced development of FOLIO, but the volunteers do a great job.
One of the benefits that many librarians note is the unique experience gained working shoulder to shoulder with librarians from other libraries (countries, types) as well as the opportunity to collaborate directly with vendors in building and supporting an LSP.
FOLIO provides unique opportunities for librarians to be involved in the product lifecycle of an LSP.