[Koha] RE: Koha in schools

[Pat Eyler]

On Thu, 15 May 2003, Kym Buchanan wrote:

> Pat-
>

Hi Kym,
I'm opening this up to the wider koha user community.  Perhaps some of
them can give you some anecdotal information about how they're doing the
things listed below.

(Everyone else, Kym is researching the use of Open Source/Free Software
in (public) schools.  The information his group finds is then made freely
available to schools through their website -- he just made a great
presentation at a local Linux Fest.)

> I spoke with Derek yesterday and he had many good things to say about
> Koha.

Great!  It's always good to get positive feedback (even second hand).

>
> I still can't get www.koha.org to load, so I have a few questions about
> features.

I'm really suprised that you can't get to www.koha.org ...

> How well does Koha support:
>
> Patron photos?

One library put together a circ interface for Koha that included
patron photos.  It was *very* cool because it brought two nice bits
together:  RFID for scanning books (like 15 at a time) and  a very visual
interface (driven by touch screens) for the librarians.  I'm hoping they
move forward with Koha so that we can get the code moved back into the
mainline distro.

>
> Inter library communication?

This is a bigger question than I can answer.  Do you mean Inter Library
Loan between systems, loans/searches/etc. between branches in a system (or
schools in a district), or communication between people in different
libraries?

>
> Patron Web access to the catalog?
>

This is our primary interface to the catalog.

> Patron Web access to patron records?

Patrons have controllable access to their own records.

>
> A reserve/hold system?

Yes, reserves/holds are supported.

>
> Automated emails about holds or overdue materials?
>

These are easy to generate.  In fact, a Koha user just offered up his form
letter tamplate (and supporting code) to generate enumerated overdue
reminders.

> Generating reading lists or pull lists (so that a teacher might request a
> cart with a few dozen books specific to a class project)?
>

This is pretty easy to support using the virtual bookshelves feature.

thanks,
-pate

> Thanks.
>