[Koha] Venezuela’s National Library evaluated, decided to deploy the Koha Integrated Library System

[Pablo A. Bianchi]

Source: http://blog.bureado.com.ve/?p=466

Venezuela's National Library evaluated, decided to deploy the Koha
Integrated Library System

On the first half of 2008, Venezuela's National Library (BNV)
evaluated the Koha ILS and other FLOSS-based ILSs, together with a
proprietary ILS, and decided to deploy Koha in two phases for the
Library's catalogue, which includes more than two million records, and
the National Public Library System.

The evaluation was made by the Information Technology Office, and
starting February 2008, three independent Koha consultants were asked
for technical help in order to evaluate Koha strengths and
shortcomings, and possible development/improvement plans, as well as
an important migration plan from the legacy NOTIS system. Circulation,
acquisitions and patrons weren't regarded as critical modules of the
ILS, while Cataloguing, Authorities and Serials were given special
attention.

Ailé Filippi and Mariana González, licensed librarians, deployed a
full Koha demonstration and worked for two months with the BNV
librarians in order to establish the desired functionality level. BNV
librarians wanted a new input system for MARC records which allow them
to manually input all fields and subfields, and a very particular
notation for holdings which allows to specify the specific Public
Library where the item is held.

On the other hand, José Miguel Parrella Romero, an IT consultant,
worked with BNV's IT Office in order to recommend and install the
latest Koha3 snapshot, and configured a working proof of concept using
Zebra for more than 70 thousand simulated records. BNV staff export
data from NOTIS and use a proprietary tool to convert those records to
an ISIS database, so it was necessary to write a computer program
which migrates those records to MARC.

While the project is currently waiting for further actions, Fernando
Báez, BNVs General Manager, and Sergio Teijero, IT Consultant for BNV,
have exposed BNV intentions to fully deploy the Koha ILS in short
term, migrating over 2 million records and providing access to
thousands of Public Libraries and users around the World who would
like to access BNV catalogue information using Koha3 OPAC, while
renewing BNV's IT platform.