[Koha] Can we use Koha?

[Chris Cormack]

On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 03:08:30PM +1100, Tasmanian Environment Centre said:
> 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?

That mostly depends on what skills you have inhouse. If you have someone
with a bit of IT knowledge you can do it yourself. It will still take some
time to install, and to set it up. There are a few libraries in Australia
running Koha, hopefully someone from one of them will see this question and
share some of their experiences with you.

If you dont have the inhouse skills to install Koha, then there are a couple
of people in Australia who could help. 
http://koha.org/installation/support.html

Or we at Katipo could also offer our skills. We will be at
http://online.alia.org.au/ in Sydney in early february. And I think that
Irma (who did a lot of work for Environmental and Earth Sciences Pty Koha
install) will be there also.

> Could we use Koha to make the catalogue searchable online via our website?

Sure can, UNIDO do just that, https://www.unido.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-main.pl
as do the original Koha users (and pretty much the reason Koha exists) the
Horowhenua library trust. http://opac.library.org.nz/cgi-bin/koha/opac-main.pl

> What sort of computer and support software would we need?
> 
With 10,000 items you wont need anything too flash. Koha will run under
windows, but it will run better on a *nix based operating system (Linux,
FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Solaris etc). Really the most important thing is RAM, you
want as much RAM as you can afford basically :) 

Hope this is some help

Chris
-- 
Chris Cormack                                                     Programmer
027 4500 789                                       Katipo Communications Ltd
chris at katipo.co.nz                                          www.katipo.co.nz