[Koha] The Potential Death of Koha in Pennsylvania Libraries

[Kurt Bodling]

I used to work there (the State Library of Pennsylvania).  And I believe
that, technically, it is the "Office of Commonwealth Libraries" (OCL)
that would be in the authority position.  (The "Office" consists of two
"bureaus": the Bureau of State Library (BSL), and the Bureau of Library
Development (BLD).  BSL is a large library in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
BLD hands out money across the state, deals with certification, and
grants, and cooperative contracts, and so on.)

If your library wants to go it alone, I don't see how the OCL or BLD can
stop you.  But if your library doesn't play the game it won't get any of
the meager funds that are still available in an extremely tight state
budget.  That means you'd have to seek local funding to pay for things
(ILS, databases, ILL, etc.) that would have higher non-consortium
prices.  And few, if any, of the local systems in Pennsylvania can
afford to think of doing that.

And it's easier for the administrators in Harrisburg to decide on
something and then tell libraries that 'this is what we're supporting'.
As Kyle wrote, I too think it is 'a strictly financial decision.' Those
administrators don't necessarily "have that much authority over
individual libraries".  But they do hold the purse strings to an
ever-shrinking state purse.

It always comes back to who holds the purse strings.  

My personal guess is that a Koha library in Pennsylvania could remain a
Koha library. It just won't be able to use the support system that the
state administrators are setting up for an Evergreen-based system.  But
that Koha library wasn't getting state support for its ILS beforehand,
so is there a loss?



Kurt Bodling
Technical Services Librarian
George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens

-----Original Message-----
From: koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz
[mailto:koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Cab Vinton
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 8:58 AM
To: Kyle Hall
Cc: koha; koha-devel
Subject: Re: [Koha] The Potential Death of Koha in Pennsylvania
Libraries

Wow, does the State Library really have that much authority over
individual libraries (legal or otherwise)?

I would find that hugely surprising. But then here in NH we don't even
have any county-wide systems. For the most part, it's every town/ city
library for itself ...

Cab Vinton, Director
Sanbornton Public Library
Sanbornton, NH


On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 8:44 AM, Kyle Hall <kyle.m.hall at gmail.com>
wrote:
> The State Library her in Pennsylvania has started planning for a
> state-wide ILS. My Director, John Brice attended a tech committee
> netting this past Friday, bringing myself and Cindy Murdock as well.
> At the meeting, it was announced that HSLC and Equinox will be
> installing Evergreen in 33 libraries currently using Millennium. In
> all likelyhood, in the future all the libraries in the state will be
> required to switch over to Evergreen. Needless to say, my boss and
> myself are extremely upset by this proposition to say the least.
>
> I would applaud the choice of a FOSS ILS, but the choice would not
> bring any advantage. It appears to me to be a strictly financial
> decision. The idea being pushed at the meeting was to give libraries
> as little choice as possible to keep down costs. If we were forced to
> switch to Evergreen, not only would our huge investment in Koha via
> time and money be thrown away, but we would be forced into a new
> system over which we would be no control or ability to customize. We
> would have no control over the quality of service, as the servers are
> planned to be centralized somewhere within the state. I do not relish
> the idea of our current freedoms being taken away.
>
> Kyle
>
> http://www.kylehall.info
> Information Technology
> Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org )
> _______________________________________________
> Koha mailing list
> Koha at lists.katipo.co.nz
> http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha
>
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