[Koha] The Potential Death of Koha in Pennsylvania Libraries

[Lori Ayre]

Very thoughtful and appropriate responses, James.  I certainly hope
the conclusion Kyle's boss has come to is wrong.  It would indeed
eliminate many of the benefits of moving to an open source ILS.

Moving the state or any other entity into the role of all-powerful ILS
vendor (even if they have more control than in previous times) doesn't
do libraries any good.  I love the fact that so many states have made
jumping onto a shared bandwagon an option but it shouldn't be a
requirement.

To me, this makes it all the more urgent that we get a good
resource-sharing tool developed that works AT LEAST between Koha and
Evergreen.  And it must work really well!  Our plan in California is
to get a few Evergreen and Koha clusters going and then focus on just
that.  We could never impose a common will on California libraries but
we'd like to make it easy to share systems when they want to and share
resources with anyone.

God help us all.  (My use of "god" should be interpreted in the most
generic sense possible)

Lori Ayre

On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 6:05 AM, Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer at aur.edu> wrote:
> In this vein, you may be interested in a new OCLC report: "Research Libraries, Risk and Systemic Change" http://www.oclc.org/research/news/2010-03-25.htm which is not just about research libraries.
>
> They discuss risk management and delineate many of the risks as:
> "Many of the risks rated as high (impact and certainty) pertain to:
> - human resources and organizational culture, including a lack of attention to cross-training and reallocation of existing staff
> - lack of critical skill sets for managing data sets, engaging directly with research faculty, or retooling technological infrastructure
> - an organizational culture that inhibits innovation
> - difficulty in attracting and retaining staff in a competitive environment where fewer  credentialed library professionals are available
> - uncertainties about the appropriate qualifications for library managers who may require skills developed in other sectors."
>
> Then on p. 16 under "Strategies for Mitigation," they continue:
> "We believe that increased reliance on *shared infrastructure* along with increased outsourcing and regional consolidation of services will enable more rapid deployment of the services that research library users want and need moving the following risks into a more acceptable range of impact and occurrence:
> - Library cannot adjust fast enough to keep up with rapidly changing technology and user needs (Risk 19).
> - Increased inefficiencies and expenses due to lack of functionality of legacy systems and IT support (Risk 20).
> - Due diligence and sustainability assessment of local or third party services is not completed, tracked or analyzed (Risk 21)."
>
> Their solution of a shared infrastructure would seem to mirror your case in Pennsylvania. While I understand such a conclusion, the upshot of if seems to be "we sink or swim together." I think that instead of having everyone crowd into the same lifeboat, it would be just as logical to foster individual initiatives, while making sure everyone shared their work.
>
> Still, I can understand that going to this level of trust (the foundation of the entire open source movement) does not come easy to an administrator who is responsible for results.
>
> Perhaps you can reach some level of agreement. I am sure that everyone is nervous and still in the search for answers.
>
> James Weinheimer  j.weinheimer at aur.edu
> Director of Library and Information Services
> The American University of Rome
> via Pietro Roselli, 4
> 00153 Rome, Italy
> voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258
> fax-011 39 06 58330992
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-bounces at lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Kyle Hall
> Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 2:44 PM
> To: koha; koha-devel
> Subject: [Koha] The Potential Death of Koha in Pennsylvania Libraries
>
> The State Library her in Pennsylvania has started planning for a
> state-wide ILS. My Director, John Brice attended a tech committee
> netting this past Friday, bringing myself and Cindy Murdock as well.
> At the meeting, it was announced that HSLC and Equinox will be
> installing Evergreen in 33 libraries currently using Millennium. In
> all likelyhood, in the future all the libraries in the state will be
> required to switch over to Evergreen. Needless to say, my boss and
> myself are extremely upset by this proposition to say the least.
>
> I would applaud the choice of a FOSS ILS, but the choice would not
> bring any advantage. It appears to me to be a strictly financial
> decision. The idea being pushed at the meeting was to give libraries
> as little choice as possible to keep down costs. If we were forced to
> switch to Evergreen, not only would our huge investment in Koha via
> time and money be thrown away, but we would be forced into a new
> system over which we would be no control or ability to customize. We
> would have no control over the quality of service, as the servers are
> planned to be centralized somewhere within the state. I do not relish
> the idea of our current freedoms being taken away.
>
> Kyle
>
> http://www.kylehall.info
> Information Technology
> Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org )
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