We currently use Sagebrush Spectrum as our library catalog server. It’s a real workhorse and we’ve had very few problems with it on the whole. However, there are a few major issues that they still have yet to resolve. Chief among them is the fact that they still don’t have an OSX client yet. The server will run on OSX, but not the client. They do have a client that runs in classic mode, but we’re considering dropping classic. I don’t even know if Tiger support classic mode! So we may be in a situation where we have a library server that our clients can’t even use. The easy solution would be to just add on the web catalog. That would be perfect because not only would we no longer need the client software, but people could access the catalog from home as well! Sounds great, eh? Unfortunately that add on doesn’t work with OSX either. You have to run it on Windows 2000/2003 server.
So now the situation is that we either keep classic mode and continue using the classic client, or buy a new server and purchase the Windows version of Spectrum. I shudder to think of the costs involved there.
Enter Koha - the Open Source Library System. It seems to be pretty robust. Has plenty of the features that I would look for and there are several libraries using it right now.
The big question is, can we export what we have and then use it in a very similar manner to what we use right now? To be honest, I don’t know. But I can definitely find out. You see, we have a few old PC’s that are currently gathering dust. They don’t have an OS on them and are taking up space in the closet. So I’m going to dust one off, throw on a basic install of Fedora Core 3, and load up Koha. I’m going to try to export out all my library records and import them in to Koha. I’m going to try to import in all of our users. Then I’m going to try to set up a bar code reader, print some labels and experiment with the web interface. If it all works, I may even set it up on the librarian’s desk and ask them to use it alongside our normal library server. See if it actually works in production.
And why would I do all that? Because it’s free and open source. Because I can do it without investing thousands of dollars into it. Because I don’t have to buy an entirely new server to run it. Perhaps the more pertinent question is why wouldn’t I do it?
What a wonderful community to be a part of.
Sounds very, very familiar. I love when I read my own thoughts online. We are currently looking at pulling in a new library management system…Sagebrush and Follett being the two leading candidates. Meanwhile, I’ve been banging around with Moodle and Drupal recently…all the time thinking “if this can be done for free, a library automation system should be very, very simple”. I found Koha last week and have our technicians building a Debian box right now to give this thing a ride. Please continue to share your experiences!
Cool, I wish I had the time/energy to play around with old computers and Linux …. maybe this summer. My wife’s old Compaq is begging to be freed from the confines of Windows 98.
6/25/2005
Have you been able to import your old database of books into Koha?? Can u share that experience? We have a medium-large size department technical library with a in-house developed Library software, which uses MS Access as the database. I fear the database structure has been designed for convenience and the vision of our Librarian rather than a Industry standard manner. For eg we may not have a ISBN no as a field, but we will have a UDC numbering and an Accession number for each book. We also keep a large number of Standards (IEC/..) and it also needs to be maintained. Any expeiences which can be shared??
Anand Shankar
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