[Koha] Comparing Koha with commercial systems

Joshua M. Ferraro jmf at liblime.com
Thu May 17 06:41:46 NZST 2007


Sent on behalf of John Brice:

Dear Mr. Bissels:

Joshua Ferraro forwarded your e-mail to me concerning documentation of
Koha publicity and sales materials.

Early last year the Crawford County Federated Library System decided to
proceed with the Koha ILS.  We compared Koha with some other commercial
software.  Of the nine libraries only one was convinced to go with Koha
at the start the other eight preferred a commercial vendor software.

When CCFLS was considering Koha and other commercial software packages
there were not any sales brochures.  We went to the developers web site
and we did a site visit to Nelsonville to see Koha in action.  However,
the biggest sales tool we had was the actual program.  Since Koha is
open source we downloaded the software  installed it on an old computer
we had lying around.  We then imported two libraries Marc records.  We
called this our proof of concept presentation.  When we demonstrated to
the librarians, with their own data, they were really impressed.  
However, one library complained that they did not like the look of the
templates.  So one of our IT staff revised the template to look the way
the librarians asked.  This really impressed the libraries that with
open source if you don't like something you can always change it
yourself. Or if you can't do it yourself hire someone to follow YOUR
specifications.

With the proof of concept we were able to show all of the libraries that
we could import the records, change the look and feel of the program to
our specifications and get it up and running.  With all of these steps
proven in the selection process we really did not need sales materials.  
CCFLS did develop a number of documents internally mostly comparing and
contrasting Koha and a couple of other ILS's.

In fairness, and with the idea of giving you all of the information we
currently have a relationship with Liblime.  Liblime came and give our
libraries a demonstration of the program and also demonstrated the
program through a video conference.  We also hired Liblime to add the
Zebra index to the program.  .Currently CCFLS and Liblime have a
contract for support.

If you have any questions about Koha please feel free to email me at
jbrice at ccfls.org.

Sincerely,

John Brice
System Administrator
Crawford County Federated Library System



-- 
Joshua Ferraro SUPPORT FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE 
President, Technology migration, training, maintenance, support 
LibLime Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS 
jmf at liblime.com |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "gerhard bissels" <gerhard.bissels at uclh.nhs.uk> 
To: koha at lists.katipo.co.nz 
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 9:34:02 AM (GMT-0500) America/New_York 
Subject: [Koha] Comparing Koha with commercial systems 

Comparing Koha with commercial systems 


Dear All, 

I am starting a small specialist library and have to select a Library Management System. 

Opting for one of the big vendors seems easy to justify because everybody else does it. However, before I can seriously look at something as unusual as Open Source I need to be able to present a watertigh, fair and thorough evaluation method. 

I would be interested in the procedure and related documentation which other libraries used when they had to select a LMS. If you had documents you could share with me I'd be very grateful! 

Kind regards, 

Gerhard 

Gerhard Bissels 
Librarian 
The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, UCLH NHS Foundation Trust 
60 Great Ormond Street 
London 
WC1 3HR 
Gerhard.Bissels at uclh.nhs.uk 
++44 20 7391 8825 

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