Wednesday, April 21, 2004 15:05
CDT
Greetings, Peter,
Just a 'quick' reply to your message inquiring
about Koha, that others on the listserv will hopefully augment with their
wisdom.
First, I (and many others) think Koha is a great
system. It is extremely versatile and compared to other ILS that one would have
to purchase at significant cost, it is astoundingly good.
In terms of technical support and further
development, the prospects are at least as good. Most questions to the listserv
receive a response within 24 hours, usually less. The community is very good at
lending a hand with advice.
Development is continual and the nice thing there
is that, being an open source product, your library could direct further
development along lines that would give you features you wanted simply by
financing the programming and/or appealing to the Koha community to see if
some nice volunteer could effect the change you wanted.
As people write in to the listserv with different
questions and requests for features, many are added to the programmer's 'bug'
lists for future work. If you look back at the archive of message, you can see
how much has been accomplished in just one year (something we should all be
applauding and thanking the developpers for)!!.
There are only 2 significant issues that I can see
in terms of your library adopting Koha.
The first is that it would be preferable if
there were a member of the systems administration team who were familiar or
willing to familarise him- or herself with the program so that you would have
technical support closer to home.
The second -- and this is really the major one --
is that Koha is NOT at present compatible viz. LC
classification numbers. I am not sure what the progress has been in the
last several months towards that. I know that the understandable focus of the
developpers has been on achieving a stable 2.0 release, which is now
done.
In the meantime, perhaps somebody on the development side could
reply with a guesstimation on how long it might be until LC-numbers are usable
within Koha. Also, if there is a library that uses LC classification that has
found a way around this issue, it would be helpful to let the community
know.
Hope this lengthy response helps a bit, Peter. I think your library would
ultimately benefit greatly by adopting Koha.
Best wishes in your automation/migration project,
Steven F. Baljkas
library tech at large
Koha neophyte (and cheerleader!)
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 4:09
AM
Subject: [Koha] Library System
I am
an assistant librarian working at Strathmore university, an up-coming
university in Kenya, Africa. We are scouting for a library
system that will address all the aspects of the library. We are using the
Library of Congress systems of cataloging books. We hope to have a system that
is compatible with other departments of the university for we share
enough information with other department. The university has a well laid
computer network.
Is
Koha a suitable system and what are is the best way ahead.
Peter Wanyoike Gichiri
Ass.
Librarian
Strathmore University
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