[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
    -------------
    NOTICE: The information contained in this electronic mail message is 
intended only for the use of the intended recipient, and may also be protected 
by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USC Sections 2510-2521. If the 
reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified 
that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is 
strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please 
reply to the sender, and delete the original message. Thank you.



  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



--------------------------------------------------------------











---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 100408-1, 04/08/2010
Tested on: 4/8/2010 8:19:28 PM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2010 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/attachments/20100408/f2dc70db/attachment-0001.htm 


More information about the Koha mailing list