[Koha] Counting the cost

[BWS Johnson]

Salve!


Rather than take a decision based on your current conditions alone, I
think it is wiser to think on future happenings. I must admit wondering
about a manual system, too. However, you probably circulate more than my
last Library did, at least when I first got there.

That being said, circulation is only a small part of what is done about
the Library. The time savings I enjoyed at the end of the year on
inventory taking was probably enough to warrant Koha. Added to a
*wonderful* OPAC, it was well worth the plodding along. Patrons remarked
with frequency that they found things that they wouldn't have when the
OPAC was up and running.


>I will say, that despite its small size, using an OPAC like Koha would
allow us to potentially serve patrons 
>who live across a wide geographic area, i.e. across South Africa. Also,
we're thinking a Koha 


I am certain that in past there were Koha users in South Africa. I can
remember fielding a query about monks that kept their books in several
separate locations. Poke about the brush and see what you might find; it
might surprise you!


installation 
>might encourage collaborative activity as multiple organisations learn
to share an ILS, and make a wider 
>range of library resources available to respective members, and perhaps
eventually to non-members or 
>other libraries via inter-library loans. Perhaps Koha could help us
make a valuable resource more 
>accessible to society.
> 

*nod* This is certainly well worth turning over in your mind, as well as
discussing with your colleagues.


>Finally, as a non-librarian myself, my understanding is that one of the
key qualities of an ILS like Koha is 


If you work in a Library, you're a Librarian. I like to draw the line at
degreed and non-degreed if one must get one's feathers in a ruffle about
pieces of paper.

I was going to ask for clarification, though. When you had said that you
were on a unique method of cataloguing, did you perhaps mean a unique
method of classification? It's isn't terribly rare to find the latter,
but I'd love to know more about the former. So, do you have a system of
putting books on the shelf and then later locating them that is out of
the ordinary OR are your methods of describing the material at hand
divergent? (It could be both...)


>its ability to point the user to appropriate books, etc. according to
the need - i.e. strong search features 
>build into the software (I assume Koha has this). Often our students
find books by simply looking on the 
>shelf, then choosing ones that look interesting. However, more advanced
library users may find first-rate 
>materials through a more abstract process of heading to the computer
for some leads.
> 

*nod* You'll find the Browse by Date Added feature to be quite nice,
then. I'd leap to the conclusion that some of your users might only want
new volumes.

Cheers,
Brooke 
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