<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<title></title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Hi folks,<br>
<br>
(Apologies in advance for the HTML mail, but i couldn't find a better
way to represent the table below...)<br>
<br>
I've been evaluating implementing a couple of small libraries (my
church and home, both around 1000 volumes) on Emilda and Koha, and i'd
be interested in comments from people about their relative strengths
and weaknesses. I'm coming from the perspective of a K-12 school IT
manager with a Unix
background. I don't know much about library cataloguing (although i'm
learning), and MARC is almost incomprehensible to me (as it is to all
of the librarians i know). <span class="moz-smiley-s1"><span> :-) </span></span><br>
<br>
I'd really love to convert my school (about 80,000 resources) from a
proprietary system to Koha, and i'm using these libraries as guinea
pigs. However, my call is not final at school: there are a number of
other staff to convince. The merits of free software would have to be
pretty strong for us to only save around AU$1000/year (the maintenance
contract on our existing library system), not to mention that there's
no local phone support. Neither Koha nor Emilda seems to have the
features to challenge the more school-oriented library systems yet.<br>
<br>
Here are my perceptions so far:<br>
<br>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th valign="top">Product<br>
</th>
<th valign="top">Pros<br>
</th>
<th valign="top">Cons<br>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">Emilda<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<ul>
<li>Very easy to install on Debian</li>
<li>Z39.50 cataloguing is easy to set up and robust<br>
</li>
<li>Simple interface</li>
<li>Easy to hack on (PHP-based)<br>
</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<ul>
<li>Exposes a lot of MARC & Yaz; adding search and
cataloguing fields requires advanced skills</li>
<li>Developer/user communities not so active (user mailing list
about 1/10th the traffic of Koha's)</li>
<li>Requires login to self-loan and -return</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">Koha<br>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<ul>
<li>Nice features in interface (e.g. cover images)</li>
<li>Pretty (the suggested demo sites look awesome!)<br>
</li>
<li>Seems to have quite an active developer and user community</li>
</ul>
</td>
<td valign="top">
<ul>
<li>Install not so simple - no Debian package; requires messing
about with CPAN </li>
<li>Requires separate Z39.50 daemon that, when last i used it
(not the current version), broke easily and frequently</li>
<li>Interface is moderately complex (a moderate amount of MARC)<br>
</li>
<li>I hate Perl (i know it to a reasonable level of competency,
and write scripts in it regularly - i just hate looking at it).<br>
</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br>
Can anyone comment on whether:<br>
<ul>
<li>Koha has pros for Emilda's cons? (Self-loan and return seems to
be one.)<br>
</li>
<li>Koha's cons have improved since i last looked at it?</li>
</ul>
<br>
Are there any other considerations that i should be looking at? Low
maintenance is a priority for me - after i've implemented the systems,
i won't have a lot of time to spend on them. Both products seem to fit
the bill in this respect, although i haven't tried to restore one from
backup yet. <span class="moz-smiley-s3"><span> ;-) </span></span><br>
<br>
Thanks for listening,<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Paul
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://paulgear.webhop.net"><http://paulgear.webhop.net></a>
--
Did you know? Microsoft Internet Explorer and Outlook have a poor track
record for security <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878"><http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878></a>. Why not
try one of the more secure alternatives from <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://mozilla.org"><http://mozilla.org></a>?
</pre>
</body>
</html>