[Koha] A basic question

[Stephen Hedges]

				If you're a little tired of looking for errors in scripts, how about a 
philosophical question -- how many different kohas should there be?

I've noticed that there are some significant differences in what libraries from 
different areas of the world expect their software to do.  For instance, while 
ten-digit barcodes seem to work well in the South Pacific, in the US (and 
Canada?) the fourteen-digit barcode for both book ID and 'member' ID seems to 
be becoming a de facto standard.  And then there's the whole MARC record 
discussion -- just whose MARC format are we discussing?  There's Paul's MARC 
standard in France, there's USMARC, and I get the feeling MARC may not really 
be all that important Down Under.  And while tracking and storing information 
about ethnicity is necessary in New Zealand, most libraries in the States would 
find that idea disturbing.

It almost seems as if there are unwritten standards controlling the basic 
features of library automation systems in different countries.  If you think 
about it, this makes sense.  Libraries act like government entities (indeed, 
they often are), so its not surprising that they try to do things the same way 
whenever possible, to allow them to interact more easily.  But they seldom have 
any need to interact with libraries outside their own country or area of the 
world, so regional differences have developed.

Let's use our library (Nelsonville Public Library, Nelsonville, Ohio, USA) to 
illustrate my point.  We have been investigating the possibility of using koha 
to replace our current Sanderson system.  In listing the things we would need 
to change to make koha work for us, we so far have identified:
 - lengthen the barcode fields
 - accomodate batch imports and exports of bibliographic records in USMARC 
format
 - do away with the ethnicity fields
 - add support for the Z39.50 protocol to allow us to share catalog records 
with other libraries in the state of Ohio
 - and add support for the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) to 
allow us to share user records with other libraries (and thus participate in 
the statewide resource sharing system).

While these modifications are necessary to make koha a viable alternative for 
our library, they would be useless for Paul Poulain's library (or Roger Buck's 
library, or Steve Tonnessen's library, etc., etc.)  So let's put my original 
question a little differently -- is one version of koha enough?  Maybe there 
should be groups in different areas of the world working to develop regional 
versions of koha.  Or has that happened already and we just aren't hearing 
anything about it?


Stephen Hedges
Director, Nelsonville Public Library
95 W. Washington St., Nels.,OH 45764
(740) 753-2118    fax (740) 753-3543