[Koha] Cost Analysis Information
Jim and Laurie Barnes
czechbarnes at gmail.com
Fri Apr 9 06:19:14 NZST 2010
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 at 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
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2010/4/7 Marty <ontariowolf64 at 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 at gmail.com>
wrote:
From: Jim and Laurie Barnes <czechbarnes at gmail.com>
Subject: [Koha] Cost Analysis Information
To: koha at 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
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