Welcome to FOLIO! Start here.

Owned by Holly Mistlebauer
Last updated: Jan 11, 2023 by Tom Cramer
2 min read

The FOLIO Project is a collaborative effort to build a platform of services for libraries.  Linked to this page is information on how to get started with your journey in the FOLIO community.

Onboarding Videos

The community has put together a series of onboarding videos for new libraries and new staff at FOLIO libraries under the YouTube hashtag #FOLIOmemberOnboarding.  They are:

  • Fundamentals of the FOLIO Community (28 minutes): A panel discussion with members of the FOLIO community covering topics such as FOLIO’s governance structure and the relationship between libraries, vendors, and developers, user-experience design, and the FOLIO Code of Conduct.
  • Special Interest Groups (12 minutes): Geared towards subject matter experts, this video describes the role of the Special Interest Group (SIG) in designing, testing, and documenting FOLIO apps.
  • Communication Tools (12 minutes): Covers the tools that FOLIO community participants use to announce, inform, and decide on aspects of the project.
  • Development Lifecycle (10 minutes): Describes the process for how the FOLIO software is built...from user experience design and functional specification to development, testing, and release.
  • Wiki and Issue Tracker (44 minutes): Contains tips on how to make the most out of the project's two primary communication tools: Confluence and Jira.

Collaboration Tools

For an introduction to the tools used in the project, see the recording of this webinar.  The complete list of tools is available on the FOLIO website; these are the key tools:

  • FOLIO Slack channels for real-time chat are available at folio-project.slack.com. Request to join the FOLIO Slack channels here. Many of the developers and systems operation staff use Slack every day as primary means of communicating.  Subject matter experts can also ask quick questions in between meeting times.  Check out the various Slack channels to see which are of interest to you.
  • FOLIO uses JIRA at issues.folio.org for tracking FOLIO tasks and bugs. The account you set up in JIRA is the same account you will use to edit Confluence (our wiki, which you are using right now).
  • Sign up for e-lists of interest at ole-lists.openlibraryfoundation.org. Joining the folio-announce email list may be particularly useful to receive cross-project announcements on releases, events, open meetings, elections, membership calls, formal updates, workgroup task completion, calls for feedback, important reminders, and more.

How FOLIO is Built

Creating a platform of apps with people from all over the world is one of our community's strengths.  Learn how we design apps and develop software with these webinar recordings.  We also have a Glossary of Terms to help you get acquainted with the project.

Getting Started

These pages help you get started depending on your interest in the FOLIO project.