[Koha] average cost of a Koha install?

[Stephen Hedges]

Adam Steer said:
> The whole aim is to be able to say 'well, for your average school
> library, it might cost something like $xxxx if you need an external
> contractor to install and configure things..' - before having to go
> through the quoting process. A couple of ballpark figures might be
> handy..

As Brooke pointed out, the install is relatively quick.  But remember,
Koha as installed won't do anything useful until you set your local
parameters, and that can be a _very_ lengthy process.

As with everything else, you get what you pay for.  If you're paying a $20
hourly rate to someone who knows nothing about Koha, then you're going to
spend a whole lot of money before you get what you want.  It's far better
to pay more per hour to someone who knows Koha and will spend fewer hours
on your job.  I would say the very _minimum_ rate in the US for someone
who knows Koha should be $50 per hour.  Expect to pay much more for a Koha
"expert."

So if you figure that setting the system parameters required "most of a
weekend" for Brooke, the cost of setting up a library (where all the work
was done by someone other than the library) could easily hit $1,000 or
more, not including the cost of any new hardware.  And that also doesn't
include the cost of importing any records from an existing system...

Which means this is a good time to once again make the point that free
software is not free of charge -- unless you have the knowledge and time
to do it all yourself.

Stephen

-- 
Stephen Hedges
Skemotah Solutions, USA
www.skemotah.com  --  shedges at skemotah.com