PMB (software)
PMB is a fully featured open source integrated library system. It is continuously developed and maintained by the French company PMB Services. Features PMB follows the rules of the library science. The software provides 4 essential features : the library 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 Arabic (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 geo-referencing of the collections and several other improvements to the software. Size The software is used with collections up to 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 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 French 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 the watch module Watch&Share), 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 specialized 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. Requirements 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. PMB is written using PHP programming language. It requires: PHP Apache web server MySQL database Web browser Documentary languages PMB can integrate different sorting plans: DEWEY, UDC, PCDM or any other custom sorting plan. It includes the management of several thesauri, a feature that is actually in use with thesauri such as: PRISME, BDSP, MOTBIS, DELPHES, Thesaurus du Management, Vie culturelle, etc. It comes with a management of