[Koha] National Botanic Garden of Wales implements Koha

[Kate Jones]

*L**ibrary at National Botanic Garden of Wales  successfully implements 
Koha*.

(report by Kate Jones, one of the Volunteer Librarians involved in Koha 
at the NBGW Library).

Librarians at the *National Botanic Garden of Wales,* chose Koha to 
create a catalogue for this new research/reference library, which is 
based within the Garden's Research and Conservation group.  This group 
is headed by botanist Dr Natasha De Vere.

The process started last year, when our Librarian, Margot Greer, heard 
about Koha at a conference.  We then embarked on an evaluation and 
testing exercise, with the help of an IT-savvy student - the son of one 
of the Library volunteers.  We made the decision to go with Koha, had a 
day's training this Spring from Jonathan Field (of PTFS) for three of 
our volunteers, then trained a further group of volunteers ourselves and 
started to import records from the Library at Kew Gardens, where we had 
matching records.  We believe that we were the first library in Wales to 
choose Koha.

Why Koha?  We were impressed by its versatility and the fact it was 
designed by librarians for librarians.  We like the Open Source 
principle... and the fact that it was free was also a factor, as we 
operate on a very small budget - indeed our Library is run entirely by 
volunteers.

We are lucky to have been able to download records for a significant 
proportion of our holdings from the Library at Kew (Royal Botanic 
Garden), and were pleased that Koha made this process so 
straightforward.  We have succeeded in implementing Koha with minimal 
professional IT support, thanks to the enthusiasm of our volunteers.

The project has been led throughout by Margot Greer, a professional 
Librarian, now retired and a Volunteer at the Garden.

We are now at the stage of testing our OPAC on the Garden's own staff, 
students and volunteers - by 'releasing' it via our own internal network 
- prior to going 'live' on the internet in the next few weeks.  Access 
will be via the Garden's public website.  The response of staff to the 
'test' OPAC has been very enthusiastic.

For more information, please contact the leader of the Library Project, 
Margot Greer: library at gardenofwales.org.uk

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/attachments/20101018/29f59b42/attachment.htm