[Koha] Can we use Koha?

[BWS Johnson]

>> Hello Koha
>> 
>> We are a not-for-profit organisation and we run a small library
(approx
>> 10,000 items). We currently use a manual card system but would like
to move
>> to a system such as Koha.
>> We have seem Koha online and it looks very good, but can you please
tell us
>> a bit more?
>> What would it cost for start up and ongoing maintenance?


Howdy antipodean folks! We've the same number of approximate items. I
feel your pain, as I too am on a manual card system until things are all
catalogued. We're getting there, thanks to Koha!

My server ran us about $700. If I were to get the same components today,
I would expect to pay round $500. Remember if you run Linux that you've
got an extra $100-$200 since you won't need to pay for Windows. My
server is still overpowered, but if I were buying something new, I would
still get a tier under top of the line. Here's what I got


Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz 533MHz FSB w/ 512KB (BOX) 
Kingston 1GB KIT DDR400 PC3200 CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM 
Codegen CAT-3307-CA Mid/Mini Tower ATX 350W PSU 
ENERMAX 80mm Adjustable Speed Case Fan
Mitsumi 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Silver (Drive Only) 
Samsung 52x32x52 Internal CD-RW Drive ATAPI (OEM/Black) 
2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Buffer SATA HDD
Asus P4P800 i865PE P4 ATX Audio/GbLAN/SATA/RAID/AGP8X

We later added the second drive for easier backup. We also ended up
getting an el cheapo video card at a local store.

If you can rope in a local geek (and chances are you can) it should take
them just a small part of their day to install Koha. It took my husband
(who is very geeky indeed) about 2 hours. Upgrades take my husband about
10 minutes.
Now, the hard part is setting the Parameters, which took me about a
weekend of trial and error. Once you get them set though, you don't have
to fuss with them again. Also, I wrote a Newbie Guide 

http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/koha_wiki/index.php?page=NewbieGuide

that tells you what those settings are, and now there's online help
available with Koha. So hopefully, it won't take you a whole weekend.
Because Koha is webbased, you can access it from anywhere. Both your
patrons and your staff can. This was great for us, because before Koha,
we only had one computer to do cataloguing on. We would have had to
purchase rights to use another computer for about $2000 if I wanted
another cataloguing/staff station. With Koha, you can catalogue from
anywhere! Just like you can check your holdings from anywhere.
I've also found that it runs faster than III did, especially when I'm
cataloguing. This could be me, but I doubt it. I nab a lot of my MARC
records from III libraries, and they seem much slower to me.

Cheers,
Brooke @ Hinsdale MA 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.katipo.co.nz/pipermail/koha/attachments/20050105/b29936b7/attachment.html