Dear Jessica,
 
Welcome to the list and congratulations with the decision to go with Koha and Bywater Solutions.  There are a lot of words of wisdom that the list can offer, so your in the right place :).  I can think of a couple minor stuff to think about.  Mapping your holdings codes to Koha item types probably will be the first one.  Secondly I would look at what receipt printers your currently using and if possible try them out with the demo server (to see if they work with Firefox or not), that probably goes for barcode scanners as well, but we haven't had any problems even with the oldest of our scanners.  Start thinking about how you want your OPAC to look too, Owen Leonard really is the expert on this, http://www.myacpl.org/koha/?p=30 , http://www.myacpl.org/koha/?p=380, and there is a video here http://www.archive.org/details/KohaAndOpacCustomizationWithOwenLeonard.  I can also send you some links to other Koha OPAC's if interested.  Lastly I would think about the reports you do now and get with Bywater Implementation Specialist so you can start planning on converting them to SQL.  That's about all the basics I can think of :)
 
Respectfully,
 
James Ghiorzi
Library Assistant II
San Benito County Free Library
470 Fifth St.
Hollister, CA 95023
(831) 636-4107
From: koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz [koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Tobin, Jessica L [jtobin@fhcrc.org]
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2011 11:35 AM
To: koha@lists.katipo.co.nz
Subject: [Koha] Greetings from a newbie!

Hi everyone,

     My name is Jessica (Jess) Tobin, and I am brand spankin’ new to the Koha community.  I will be taking care of our Koha installation at the Arnold Library.  (we are hosted by Bywater)  I come to this position with several years’ experience working with the SirsiDynix Unicorn/Symphony ILS, so any helpful tips for making that leap are most welcome. J  Actually, any words of wisdom for a newbie would be appreciated!

 

I don’t have any specific questions or issues at this point, just wanted to say hello!

 

Jess

 

Jessica L. Tobin

Systems & Technical Services Librarian

Arnold Library

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

1100 Fairview Ave. N., B1-010

P.O. Box 19024

Seattle, WA 98109-1024

(206)667-6846

jtobin@fhcrc.org

 

Check out what the Arnold Library has to offer you!

http://sharedresources.fhcrc.org/core-facilities/library