Pat, I do not post to this list that much, but am extremely interested in Koha and the concept of Open Source (free) software. "We are looking for an automation system that is far better than our current system." What do you mean by better, since this often is a subjective term, when calculating cost, efficiency, effectiveness, and optimization (yes they do all mean different things even though they are often used interchangeably). I am working with some universities in Central Asia attempting to set up a complete open source platform for library automation and on-line education (several different applications to start) and often am asked the same question. For this part of the world there is no option, either develop it yourself or do not have it; there simply is not enough money to pay the extortive prices demanded by the major producers of proprietary software. What I have found is that there really is no 'better' library automation package. If there were, everyone would be using it :). The real question is: Why does your institute not pay some open source developers to enhance existing applications to fit your needs; that way you can get exactly what you want, and it will truly be better than what you have. For example, librarys in New York State (USA); spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on such software, yet they will not dump even $100,000 into something like koha, because too many people have their fingers in the pot who would lose money if things were done 'right'. This is not proper or optimal use of taxpayer resources, but apparently those in academia cannot bring themselves to stop feeding at the trough and act like responsible humans. Recently OCLC, after much pressure from some users in the academic community, gave its Virtual Library Portal 'Sitesearch' to the Open Source Community. This application is stable and well developed, works better than most commercial products and now is not only freely available, but some of us have agreed to support it and develop it as part of its Open Source Mission. If you go to OSS4LIB site you can see other applications which are available. My recommendation is to pick up these bits and pieces and use them to develop something which not only would benefit you and others in the community, but which might force a lowering of the extortive prices now being charged for library software. Unless your organization has 'money to burn' this should be the most 'optimal' route. Gerry Gerry Arthus Systems Administrator Long Island Library Resources Council SUNY at Stony Brook Stony Brook, New York US 11794-3399 Phone: 1-631-632-6652 FAX: 631-632-6662 Home: 631-289-7565 Email: garthus@lilrc.org Professor Graduate ComputerScience, Engineering Management, and Environmental Science C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University 720 Northern Boulevard Brookville,New York US 11548-1300 Phone: 516-299-2293 Eyler wrote:

anyone interested in replying to this?

-pate

Pat Eyler Kaitiaki/manager migrant Linux sys admin the Koha project ruby, shell, and perl geek http://www.koha.org http://pate.eylerfamily.org ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 13:27:37 -0500 From: Karna Antoniw <kantoniw@SANROBERTO.EDU.MX> To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU Subject: GEN: library automation systems

Hello everyone,

I need your opinion on library automation systems. Currently, we are using Alexandria as our automation system. However, we are not satisfied with this system (apology to those who use it and like it). We particularly do not like the reports it gives. We find they are not flexible and we are limited in what we can obtain from them.

We would like to switch to another automation system but only if it is worth our while. We don't want to switch to something that would be similar to Alexandria. That would be too much money, time and frustration spent on something which we already have.

We are looking for an automation system that is far better than our current system. Today a representative from Mandarin showed us their system, but we feel it isn't that much better than Alexandria.

Is anyone familiar with L4U? I am interested in what L4U offers. =20

Does anyone have another library automation system they would recommend? Do you have one that you feel is excellent for school library purposes?

Thanks.

Karna Antoniw Librarian Instituto San Roberto Monterrey, Mexico kantoniw@sanroberto.edu.mx

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