Ex Libris is pleased to announce ELympics, the Ex Libris open-platform competition. Prizes will be awarded to the creators of the best code extensions to Ex Libris products during the competition period.

The competition is open to members of any institution deploying any Ex Libris product, and submissions will be accepted on the EL Commons CodeShare site from November 9, 2009, to March 31, 2010. The winners will be announced on May 31, 2010.

You may submit any code that extends the functionality of any Ex Libris system to provide additional services to end users or librarians. Particular consideration will be given to extensions that offer library services to end users through mobile devices or through social networking sites; mashup utilities that bring Web resources from various providers to enhance the end-user experience; and extensions whose purpose is to achieve better integration with virtual learning environments.

Panel of Judges

• Marshall Breeding, Vanderbilt University

Marshall serves as the director for innovative technologies and research at the Vanderbilt University Libraries and the executive director of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. He is the founder and editor of the Library Technology Guides Web site (http://www.librarytechnology.org/), a columnist for Computers in Libraries, and a contributing editor to Smart Libraries Newsletter. Marshall regularly writes and speaks on a variety of topics related to library automation.

• Sebastian Hammer, IndexData

Sebastian is the president and cofounder of Index Data, a software development company specializing in information retrieval technologies. He has created and released open-source software for 25 years.

• Andrew MacFarlane, City University, London

Senior lecturer in the Department of Information Science at City University, Andy codirects the Centre of Interactive Systems Research with Prof. Stephen Robertson of Microsoft Research Cambridge. Andy earned his PhD in information science from the same department, under the supervision of Prof. Robertson and Dr. J. A. McCann (now at Imperial College London). Andy’s research interests currently focus on parallel computing for information retrieval, disabilities and information retrieval (dyslexia, in particular), AI techniques for information retrieval and filtering, and open-source software development. He serves as the chair of the BCS Information Retrieval Specialist Group, of which he is a long-standing member.

• Yohanan Spruch, Ex Libris

Today the chief technology officer of Ex Libris Group, Yohanan built the company’s research and development organization from the ground up. Yohanan has overseen the development of the complete Ex Libris product suite and continues to innovate with the company’s next-generation products. Yohanan holds a BS degree in mathematics and physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Evaluation Criteria

The judges will select the winning entries according to the following criteria:

• Value to library users or staff (25%)
• Originality (25%)
• Quality of the design, programming, and documentation (25%)
• Ease of implementation (15%)
• Community rating (10%), based on the ratings assigned by users of EL Commons CodeShare

Competition Rules and Eligibility

1. The competition will take place from November 9, 2009, to March 31, 2010, at 11:59 pm (GMT). Code extensions that were uploaded to EL Commons prior to the competition period are not eligible to be entries in the competition.

2. Any user of EL Commons is eligible to participate and may submit one or more entries during the competition.

3. Entries may be submitted by individuals or groups. If a winning entry is submitted by more than one individual, the winners shall be responsible for dividing the prize money among themselves.

4. Contestants shall follow the usual process for submitting content to EL Commons CodeShare and shall apply the tag ”ELympics” to their code contribution to indicate that it is a competition entry. The terms of use that apply to all user submissions to EL Commons [note: add link to EL Commons Terms of Use] also apply to the code contributions for this competition.

5. Contestants must provide a link to a working implementation of their code extension.

6. Contestants must apply an open-source license to their code contribution. However, the type of license is not limited to the default BSD-style license. A list of open-source licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative is available at http://www.opensource.org/licenses.

7. In no event shall Ex Libris or the judges be liable to a contestant or to any third party for acts, omissions, damage, loss, or disappointment arising out of or related to the competition.

8. Contestants’ participation must comply with the policies of their employer regarding their eligibility to participate in contests. Ex Libris may, at its sole discretion, disqualify contestants whose participation is held to be in violation of the policies of their employer. Ex Libris disclaims any and all liability or responsibility for disputes arising between an employee and his or her employer related to this matter.

9. Contestants must be at least 18 years old to enter. Contestants must be members of an institution deploying an Ex Libris product.

10. Ex Libris employees and their families and Ex Libris contractors may not enter the competition.

11. The competition winners must agree that Ex Libris is permitted to publicize their names and affiliation and the description of the code extensions that won the competition.

12. Three prizes will be awarded to the three winning entries, at the sole decision and discretion of the judges.

A prize of $5,000 will be awarded to the first-place winner. A prize of $4,000 will be awarded to the second-place winner. A prize of $3,000 will be awarded to the third-place winner.

13. The decision of the judges shall be final and shall not be appealable.

14. Ex Libris intends to announce the winning entries on its Web site on or before May 31, 2010. Individual winners will be notified by e-mail. Winners shall have 30 days from notification to claim the prize. The prize may be claimed by return e-mail. Unclaimed prizes may, at the sole discretion of Ex Libris, be awarded to other contestants.

15. Ex Libris will invite the first-place winner to attend an industry event or a user group meeting to present his or her work. Ex Libris will cover the winner’s reasonable travel expenses. If the winning entry is submitted by more than one individual, Ex Libris will cover the travel expenses of one representative of the group that won first place.

16. Apart from awarding the prizes associated with winning entries, Ex Libris shall not be obligated to compensate or reward contestants in any way for their participation.

17. All taxes, including income taxes, are the sole responsibility of the winners.