Open source library systems

December 28th, 2006 | by Tim Wilson |

An article at Linux.com about a new open source library circulation system caught my eye recently. We’ve had quite a battle getting a new library system going at work, and although I don’t usually use this space to beat up on vendors I feel compelled to name names. Think long and hard before buying InfoCentre from Sagebrush. OK, I’m done. I feel better.

Koha has been around for quite a while, and I almost installed it on a test server a couple years ago. The Linux.com article mentions a newcomer called Evergreen, and it looks pretty promising too. With two good options out there I think it’s time to give serious consideration to moving away from the expensive, proprietary library systems.

We almost have our InfoCentre system running acceptably now, but our media specialists are so frustrated that I think they’d be willing to consider other options. And here’s another situation where our move toward a virtualized server infrastructure pays off. We can create two fully isolated virtual test servers for Koha and Evergreen without having to scrounge up any real hardware. It’s not the highest priority at this point, but I’ll post some observations about both systems when I get around to trying them.

koha, evergreen, ils, library, infocentre

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  1. 3 Responses to “Open source library systems”

  2. By Chris Craft on Dec 29, 2006 | Reply

    I just read a post over at the k12opensource mailing list via google groups talking about a recent Koha install..

    http://groups.google.com/group/k12opensource/browse_thread/thread/40a5d396c0e23b9a

    Maybe their success will spur you on!

    Yay linux!

    Chris

  3. By John Pederson on Dec 29, 2006 | Reply

    Data is data, web is web, right? Look outside of K12. Are libraries hosting their own independent systems? YMMV, but look hard at those around you. Give them your data and spend your time doing the important stuff.

    Another tip…these K12 library vendors will do *anything* for marketshare. The consolidation of systems everywhere *but* K12 has made keeping these independent K12 accounts critical. The money for them is in the yearly upgrades, maintenance, support, and whatever services they can bundle. They get none of that when you switch products.

    I quit paying _________ for the yearly updates in 2001. In 2005, they waived about $40,000 in upgrade fees when we began shopping around for another vendor.

  4. By Chris Lehmann on Jan 1, 2007 | Reply

    We’re using Koha at SLA. Our librarian was using it at his last school. I had very little to do with setting it up, save some troubleshooting here and there. I’m pleased with what I’ve seen of it so far.

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