Thanks very much Chris and Marty for sharing -- very helpul. One our biggest challenges is lack of experience with Linux so Marty it was good to hear of your success in this regard. Further, we would be importing existing MARC records and so the main labor costs would most likely be with installation and setup. In the mean time, would agree with Lori if anyone else has further specifics to offer that would be great as I think this is the sort of helpful information which would be beneficial to others considering Koha as an option Thanks very much again Laurie ----- Original Message ----- From: Lori Ayre To: Marty Cc: Jim and Laurie Barnes ; koha koha Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 6:09 PM Subject: Re: [Koha] Cost Analysis Information I'd love to hear this level of detail from other libraries. I get this question from libraries all the time so it would be to capture it somewhere. I'd like to post it at Open Source - Open Libraries in our Q&A section if there are no objections. And I hope a couple more larger libraries will contribute answers. Lori ----- Original Message ----- From: Chris Nighswonger To: Jim and Laurie Barnes Cc: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 7:53 PM Subject: Re: [Koha] Cost Analysis Information Here is our experience: We have several libraries on campus. Only the main library (just under 8000 items) is on Koha at present, but all are slated to be moved over the next year or two. Hardware/OS: Two Dual Core Pentium IIIs 1GB ram 70GB raid 1 Ubuntu Server 9.10 Cost: $0.00 (This server was taken out of service at a local dentists office during an upgrade and donated to our school) We "manually" cataloged all of our books by harvesting records from various publicly available z3950 servers. Each record was edited for applicability to our library and we also added data to some fields to enhance OPAC content. We used Koha's label module to generate all of our labeling. In order to gain the functionality we felt was lacking in this module, we re-wrote the entire module. By and large, the label creation was the least time-consuming part of cataloging. Barcode/spine labels were printed on a Ricoh AP400N network printer. There is nothing magic about this brand/model. They would print as well on a $50 Brother or HP or <your_favorite_brand_goes_here>. Working with the equivalent of one full-time cataloger and three part-time catalogers putting in 40+ person-hours per week it took roughly 2.5 years to touch all ~8K items. Keep in mind that we were also searching out and editing bibs for each item as well. I have no idea of what sort of $$ the labor translates into as some of this was essentially volunteer time. Our barcode scanner is a Metrologic MS9590 bought new for $183.00. We began using the system for circulation about 3 weeks ago and have happy library staff and patrons. Kind Regards, Chris Christopher Nighswonger Faculty Member Network & Systems Director Foundations Bible College & Seminary www.foundations.edu www.fbcradio.org ------------- NOTICE: The information contained in this electronic mail message is intended only for the use of the intended recipient, and may also be protected by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USC Sections 2510-2521. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please reply to the sender, and delete the original message. Thank you. 2010/4/7 Marty <ontariowolf64@yahoo.com> Seems nobody has answered your question yet, so I'll give it a shot. Our library has about 6000 items (mainly books, but also DVD's, VHS, audiocassette and CD's) We are running Koha 3 with Zebra on an older Pentium 4 computer, I would like it to be a little bit faster, Koha 2.2.9 seemed quite a bit faster on some tasks. On the other hand, I absolutely love the very powerful search on the Koha with Zebra. We use barcodes, we found a cheap barcode reader, (I can give you the supplier once I get home, don't remember the name now) and we print barcodes and spine labels on an older Brother HL-1230 laser printer. The software we use for the barcodes and spinelabels is kbarcode (see kbarcode.net) which is Open Source and very powerful. You can also design & print patron cards with it. I prefer kbarcode over Koha's barcode system, because it's easier to bulk print and can do way more than just barcodes (we added an extra table in the database for kbarcode to use, and kbarcode can also put information on your label that it queries from anywhere in the koha mysql database) As for installation time; depends a bit on your Linux OS experience. (I did not know anything about Linux when I installed my first Koha, I have learned a lot ;-) ) But, if you have a high speed internet connection you could install everything needed in a few hours, max. Koha 3 does not run on Windows I believe, but believe me, almost anything Windows can do, Linux can do as well or better. (Koha 2.2.9 will run on Windows I think, correct me if I'm wrong guys!) Where things are going to get slow is if you have to enter data manually. It all depends on how many items you have of course, but it helps to have it in some electronic format. I managed at the time to create a .csv file from a very old custom made library program and enter this into Koha. My costs; IBM certified used computer (comes with mouse & keyboard): $ 165,- (Canadian $, you probably can find cheaper, don't know where you guys are located) Monitor: Find a free CRT monitor or buy a cheap LCD Barcode scanner: I think ours cost about $ 50,- at the time Printer: Almost anything black & white will do. Our Brother Laser is on it's last legs, but it came free. I have to start hunting for another one. Of course, a faster computer is always nice, and a 40 GB hard drive is rather small nowadays, but if you are on a budget you have to take what you can get. There are not really any specific library items needed, unless you want to use a label printer. Can't help you with personnel, our library runs on volunteers. But I can tell you there are always things to do, never knew a library was so much work when I started. Of course, since I am the first person with some library knowledge I constantly run into things that apparently never bother other people, like non-fiction being shelved alphabetically by author! Try to find something... what a nightmare. So, I have to find Dewey numbers etc. Anyway, I hope this gives you some idea, you can always go faster and better than we did. Marty --- On Thu, 4/1/10, Jim and Laurie Barnes <czechbarnes@gmail.com> wrote: From: Jim and Laurie Barnes <czechbarnes@gmail.com> Subject: [Koha] Cost Analysis Information To: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz Received: Thursday, April 1, 2010, 3:31 PM Dear Koha Listserve, We are in the process of doing a cost analysis for installation and self-hosting of Koha and would be interested in detailed budget information including equipment, personnel, and maintenance costs for a small private library. If you have this sort of information and would be willing to share we would be most grateful. We would be interested especially in specific equipment needs and the amount of time needed for installation. Thanks With Best Regards, Laurie Barnes -------------------------------------------------------------- --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 100408-1, 04/08/2010 Tested on: 4/8/2010 8:19:28 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2010 ALWIL Software. http://www.avast.com