User:Ccraigpmb/sandbox
PMB is a fully featured open source integrated library system. It is continuously developed & maintained by the french company PMB Services.
| PMB | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | PMB Services |
| Initial release | October 2003 |
| Stable release | 4.2
/ July 24, 2015 |
| Written in | PHP |
| Operating system | Linux, Windows, Mac OS |
| Available in | English, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Dutch and Portuguese |
| Type | Integrated library system |
| License | CeCILL |
| Website | www |
Features
PMB follows the rules of the library science. The software provides 4 essential features :
- the economic management,
- the watch and the documentary products,
- the publication of editorial content
- the electronic document management.
It provides an integrated portal of news and management of Web 2.0 content and is the only ILS that doesn't use a third-party CMS for the management of the portal.
It is multilingual (100% English & French, 80% Spanish and Italian) and even supports Arab (translation and UTF8 support) since its 3.0.5 version of November 2006. The latest 4.2 version of July 2015 includes a watch unit (Watch&Share) and allows georeferencing of the collections and several other improvements to the software.
Volumetry
The software is “en production” with around 500 000 records. Tests are done with 2 million records to show its capacity to manage bigger collections. It is regularly installed in public reading “libraries?” networks of 10 to 15 sites.
Interoperability
PMB allows to use the Z39.50 protocol (in order to import bibliographic records that can be directly integrated in the database from different servers). It manages the Unimarc cataloguing format and the ISO 2709 record exchange format. It also includes the XML data format. PMB is also OAI server and client. The user's database can be connected to an LDAP directory or any other base of users reachable by web services. It has an API allowing to integrate it into an existing information system. The integration of PMB into a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is functional in many academies.
Units/Modules
PMB is divided in two modules: the management module and the portal module (or OPAC). The management module includes specific functions for the librarian: circulation (loan/return), catalogue, authorities, editions, SDI (Selective Dissemination of the Information and Watch&Share module), acquisitions, CMS and administration. PMB comes with a user request management feature since 2009. It can, moreover, be completed by the preset addition of an extensions module. At the start, the software was providing a specialised user interface on the catalogue : the OPAC. An improvement to the software in 2012 added a CMS feature offering the ability to make highly customizable portals.
Technic
It is a web application, based on a web server platform (Apache, Microsoft IIS) + PHP + MySQL or MariaDB, which can therefore work on Linux, Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows.
PMB has its own search engine, supporting phonetic searches without needing any complementary search engine.
Documentary languages
PMB can integrate different sorting plans: DEWEY, CDU, PCDM or any other custom sorting plan. It can manage several thesaurus, “EN PRODUCTION?” such as: PRISME, BDSP, MOTBIS, DELPHES, Thesaurus du Management, Vie culturelle, etc. It comes with a management of concepts allowing it to respect the ISO25964-1 rule and therefore the use of indexation languages like RAMEAU or PubMED. It also allows the total implementation of the FRBR model.
History
In its early beta versions, the software was called PhpMyBibli. It has been launched by François Lemarchand(director of the Library of Agneaux) in October 2002. The cataloguing and the application's base have been created during the autumn 2002, followed a bit later by the serials management module. In 2003, Eric Robert, an IT engineer fighting for the free software joins PMB founder François Lemarchand. He then develops the loan module, the Unimarc imports, the statistic files and the Z39.50 client. It is in December 2003, for a presentation at an international conference in Rabat that the 1.0 version was released. PMB then officially becomes an integrated library system (ILS). The OPAC (the user interface) appeared this year too, developed by Gautier Michelin and Christophe Bliard. The most involved developpers at this date (Eric Robert, Gautier Michelin and Florent Tétart) then created the company PMB Services to professionalise the software and to offer the services necessary for interested libraries or companies. The society provides services like trainings and installation of the software (local or hosted) along with all the support services needed to implemetn the software: local installation or SaaS mode, migration or recovery of data, set up, training, construction and design of the portal. The first library to be equipped with PMB was the library of Bueil-en-Touraine (in France). The version 4.1 has been downloaded more than 38 000 times. The 4.2 is available since the 24th of July 2015 and has been downloaded 2272 times on the 15th of September.
Development
PMB was initially licensed under GNU General Public License, which ensures the free availability of the software. Wiki, mailing lists and BerliOS hosting facilities allow communication between PMB developers and users. PMB is now licensed under CECILL free licence, that ensures legal security in France and other countries with similar legal systems.
Requirements
PMB is written using PHP programming language. It requires:
- PHP
- Apache web server
- MySQL database
- Web browser
Quick installation of PMB is possible using
