[Koha] koha - consortia

[Kivilahti Olli-Antti]

Hello Mr. Maileseni and Mr. Sasse.

A very interesting question.
Firstly you should tell us what kind of features you need for a consortium?

I know you can run a succesful consortium with zero consortial features 
and probably this will be the best way for your staff and your patrons, 
since it is really simple to have unified settings. It is also the most 
clear solution to your users if you allow transportation of items 
between libraries.

If you are not transferring material between libraries and want to limit 
the availability of your items to a specific library, you can do that 
with UseIndependentBranches-feature. If you want libraries A, B, and C 
to form a sub-consortium and libraries D, E and F to form their own; and 
limit permissions and holds and acquisitions between consortias, while 
sharing the same user and bibliographic database, Koha wil limit your 
barrier building, but you should aim to resolve those issues politically 
by making compromises.

Tho if you have only 6 libraries I recommend you unify practices, let 
everyone edit each others item and patron records and work more closely 
together. It is proven that libraries deliver more success by working 
together than building or maintaining artificial walls. Especially since 
everyone is cutting our budgets.

Olli-Antti Kivilahti
Project Manager
Open Library 2014
Joensuu Regional Library

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On 04.11.2013 15:15, koha-request at lists.katipo.co.nz wrote:
> From: Richard Maileseni [mailto:rmaileseni at gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, November 03, 2013 7:53 PM
> To: Joel Sasse
> Subject: Re: [Koha] koha - consortia
>
>   
>
> Our consortia has only six libraries, is there any way for me to test the
> setup of a library consortia on koha?
>
>   
>
> On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 6:49 PM, Joel Sasse<jsasse at plumcreeklibrary.net>
> wrote:
>
> Could you be a bit more specific? I administer Koha for a 32 member library
> consortium and each library has different loan periods and fine structures
> as well as patron categories unique to some members. Koha handles this quite
> well.
>
>
>
> Koha also allows for different overdue messaging preferences and checkout
> slip configurations for member libraries.
>
>
>
> Joel Sasse
>
> Network Systems Administrator
>
> Plum Creek Library System
>
> 507-376-5803