[Koha] Questions about using Koha in our primary school

[paul POULAIN]

georgejenner at belgacom.net a écrit:

>Hello there
>
Hi George,
If you're from french-speaking part from belgium, you should be happy to 
learn there are french-speaking ppl too here...

>The main question is one you must receive frequently.  Does platform independence really include Windows?  The computer has been purchased and I assume it 
>came with Win XP (I haven't seen it yet).  I don't think I could convince them to use Linux, even if I had a clue about it myself.  In any case, I want to test out and 
>demonstrate Koha using my laptop which runs Win ME.  I see from the installation notes that it has been installed on NT and Win 2000 with considerable difficulty.  
>Can you tell me how difficult?  I have no knowledge of perl or Apache.  Does that make it pointless trying without years of study?
>
I don't know, as i've only a linux box and NEVER seen a XP computer.
There are some ppl trying to work on a NT port of koha with IIS. It's 
not working for instance.
The easiest way should be to convince your partners that the linux box 
costs nothing more. If the computer is supposed only to be used with 
koha, there is NO reason not to do it : the OPAC can be used under 
Netscape/mozilla, which works as IE...

>The next question is about languages.  The OPAC at our school would be presented in at least 5 European languages, including Greek.  The school has 5 language 
>sections, plus Irish, but all other languages in the European Union would be represented in the book collection.  So would a multilingual OPAC be difficult to 
>produce?
>
with templating system, not too difficult to do. the main problem will 
be to have translations of the templates. French will be on the road 
soon, italian and spanish should occur soon we hope. indian too, but 
it's not a EU language ;-)

>There would possibly be some benefit to Koha from this, and perhaps this could be our contribution to the cause: translations of key documents into all these 
>languages.
>
Welcome on board. You should hear from Nick soon (doc manager)

>Next question.  The library will be staffed by volunteer parents with less computer knowledge than even me.  There won't be a trained librarian for at least 3 years.  
>Would this present a problem?  Is the system sufficiently simple and robust that we can't get into much trouble?
>
If they can surf on the web, they can use koha.

>Next question.  As the collection will be started with donated books, we need to catalog them.  There is a shareware proggy that purports to take an ISBN and then 
>search the internet for the book, then places the biblio dat in a database.  It's called Readerware.  It says it even gets the cover art and includes that.  I think that 
>having cover art would be really nifty for a primary school library.  So could the OPAC show that.  Is this simply a question of having an image in a field of a MySQL 
>database.  And is that possible?
>
there is a Z3950 client in koha, that permits importation of MARC datas 
from all over the world, if you have Z3950 server addresses.

>I'll stop there.  If you can give me good news I'll start downloading.  I've got a couple of months to get it going as the school year starts in September in Europe.  As if things weren't weird enough.
>
>Thanks for any help
>George
>
Happy to see a new european interested in koha.
--
Paul, from france
koha release manager for version 1.4