---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Catherine Murphy <Catherine.Murphy@marist.edu> Date: 7 March 2012 13:53 Subject: Koha questions! To: koha-owner@lists.katipo.co.nz Hello, My supervisor asked me to look at Koha and compare its features with our current ILS (Voyager). We had seen a support company's version of Koha a few years back and I started using this company's version for the comparison. Are support company versions of Koha part of the Koha open source community? How different is LibLime Koha from other open source Koha? How many libraries use Koha currently? How many academic institutions? Are most Koha sites hosted? Are any academic institutions maintaining their own open source Koha and working with the Koha community? Is there a list of features Koha offers, compared to traditional ILS? Thank you, Catherine Catherine Murphy / Information Technology catherine.murphy@marist.edu Marist College, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 | 845.575.3000
Salvete!
My supervisor asked me to look at Koha and compare its features with our current ILS (Voyager). We had seen a support
company's version of Koha a few years back and I started using this company's version for the comparison. Are support company versions of Koha part of the Koha open source community? How different is LibLime Koha from other open source Koha?
PTFS/LibLime is running a fork. It is substantially different from Koha. Referring to their fork as open source is being very generous. I think most of the other demo versions are fair representations of the product. Several vendors choose to have master up as their demo, so it's useful for me on the rare occasions when I edit my Newbie Guide. Master means you're seeing the latest stuff. (You prolly knew that since Marist folks are not stupid, but hey putting it out there.) But wait, there's more! http://koha-community.org/demo/ So in the unlikely event that one of our super cool demos is down, another is prolly up.
How many libraries use Koha currently? How many academic institutions? Are most Koha sites hosted? Are any academic institutions maintaining their own open source Koha and working with the Koha community?
This is tough to answer since no one *has* to register Koha. I think I can safely say a lot in response to the first question. XD Here's a page: http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_Users_Worldwide Here's another: http://www.librarytechnology.org/map.pl?ILS=Koha I would say that yes, most Koha sites are hosted at this stage of the game. There are still a number of independents out there, but as the complexity of setup increases, more folks seem to be trending towards having a vendor help em out. This is anecdotal. When last I checked, many academics had the wherewithal to run as independents and the feeling I get from pretty much all academic folks I've run into is that they love to give back to the Community. It makes sense to me that academics are holdouts on the independent side of things since many Universities have their own Computer Science departments that can lend a hand on development (automatic student project ftw) and some of the larger Libraries have plenty of internal IT staff to dedicate to cool stuff.
Is there a list of features Koha offers, compared to traditional ILS?
That sounds like summat another consultant might have handy. If you don't get a response, I'll update my handy dandy table for ye and send it over in the next couple weeks. I just want to add that I think you in particular can see lots of cool stuff were someone to mash the polls to the catalogue. Cheers, Brooke
You might contact Lori Ayer and see what she has to help you: http://www.galecia.com/ Seems like she has some type of document already like what you are talking about. There is a huge difference between Koha.org - Liblime and koha-community.org - the original community of developers and users. LibLime/PTFS is going more in a proprietary direction - "don't touch it we will do it for you" stance. They put the code out there but with a "user beware" stance and little help unless you are a client. Or you can work with any of the other companies that will work with you and you get community development which is 100% open source. Then one would hope any work you put into it would get contributed back to the community in a collaborative way. -- David Schuster Library Technology Coordinator Plano ISD ---- Chris Cormack <chris@bigballofwax.co.nz> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Catherine Murphy <Catherine.Murphy@marist.edu> Date: 7 March 2012 13:53 Subject: Koha questions! To: koha-owner@lists.katipo.co.nz
Hello, My supervisor asked me to look at Koha and compare its features with our current ILS (Voyager). We had seen a support company's version of Koha a few years back and I started using this company's version for the comparison. Are support company versions of Koha part of the Koha open source community? How different is LibLime Koha from other open source Koha? How many libraries use Koha currently? How many academic institutions? Are most Koha sites hosted? Are any academic institutions maintaining their own open source Koha and working with the Koha community? Is there a list of features Koha offers, compared to traditional ILS? Thank you, Catherine Catherine Murphy / Information Technology catherine.murphy@marist.edu Marist College, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 | 845.575.3000 _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
What I have (so far) is a Google spreadsheet that compares Koha and Evergreen features. The version of Koha being compared is the community version of Koha, not any of the Liblime products. It's here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ak7HAdCKcNqtdFRjSnlKTEZRbXpDUmt... Note that it is fully editable so tread carefully! Lori =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lori Bowen Ayre // Library Technology Consultant / The Galecia Group Oversight Board & Communications Committee / Evergreen (707) 763-6869 // Lori.Ayre@galecia.com Availability: http://tungle.me/lori.ayre <Lori.Ayre@galecia.com>Specializing in open source ILS solutions, RFID, filtering, workflow optimization, and materials handling =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 8:51 AM, <dschust@tx.rr.com> wrote:
You might contact Lori Ayer and see what she has to help you:
Seems like she has some type of document already like what you are talking about.
There is a huge difference between Koha.org - Liblime and koha-community.org - the original community of developers and users.
LibLime/PTFS is going more in a proprietary direction - "don't touch it we will do it for you" stance. They put the code out there but with a "user beware" stance and little help unless you are a client.
Or you can work with any of the other companies that will work with you and you get community development which is 100% open source. Then one would hope any work you put into it would get contributed back to the community in a collaborative way.
-- David Schuster Library Technology Coordinator Plano ISD
---- Chris Cormack <chris@bigballofwax.co.nz> wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Catherine Murphy <Catherine.Murphy@marist.edu> Date: 7 March 2012 13:53 Subject: Koha questions! To: koha-owner@lists.katipo.co.nz
Hello, My supervisor asked me to look at Koha and compare its features with our current ILS (Voyager). We had seen a support company's version of Koha a few years back and I started using this company's version for the comparison. Are support company versions of Koha part of the Koha open source community? How different is LibLime Koha from other open source Koha? How many libraries use Koha currently? How many academic institutions? Are most Koha sites hosted? Are any academic institutions maintaining their own open source Koha and working with the Koha community? Is there a list of features Koha offers, compared to traditional ILS?
Thank you, Catherine
Catherine Murphy / Information Technology
catherine.murphy@marist.edu Marist College, 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 | 845.575.3000 _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
_______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
participants (4)
-
BWS Johnson -
Chris Cormack -
dschust＠tx.rr.com -
Lori Bowen Ayre