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Joanne S

The Code4Lib Journal - How Hard Can It Be? : Developing in Open Source - 0 views

journal.code4lib.org/...1638

IMT122 Essential Reading Week 06 Task 06 Koha

shared by Joanne S on 22 Nov 12 - Cached
  • We experienced freedom to explore alternate avenues, to innovate, to take risks in ways that would have been difficult under the direct control of a district council.
  • patrons made it clear that while they appreciated that computers were a necessary part of a modern library, they did not consider them the most important part.
  • Our overall objective was to source a library system which: could be installed before Y2K complications immobilised us, was economical, in terms of both initial purchase and future license and maintenance support fees, ran effectively and fast by dial-up modem on an ordinary telephone line, used up-to-the minute technologies, looked good, and was easy for both staff and public to use, took advantage of new technology to permit members to access our catalogue and their own records from home, and let us link easily to other sources of information – other databases and the Internet. If we could achieve all of these objectives, we’d be well on the way to an excellent service.
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • "How hard can it be" Katipo staff wondered, "to write a library system that uses Internet technology?" Well, not very, as it turned out.
  • Koha would thus be available to anyone who wanted to try it and had the technical expertise to implement it.
  • ensure the software writers did not miss any key points in their fundamental understanding of the way libraries work.
  • fairly confident that we already had a high level of IT competence right through the staff, a high level of understanding of what our current system did and did not do.
  • The programming we commissioned cost us about 40% of the purchase price of an average turn-key solution.
  • no requirement to purchase a maintenance contract, and no annual licence fees.
  • An open source project is never finished.
  • Open source projects only survive if a community builds up around the product to ensure its continual improvement. Koha is stronger than ever now, supported by active developers (programmers) and users (librarians)
  • There are a range of support options available for Koha, both free and paid, and this has contributed to the overall strength of the Koha project.
  • Vendors like Anant, Biblibre, ByWater, Calyx, Catalyst, inLibro, IndServe, Katipo, KohaAloha, LibLime, LibSoul, NCHC, OSSLabs, PakLAG, PTFS, Sabinet, Strategic Data, Tamil and Turo Technology take the code and sell support around the product, develop add-ons and enhancements for their clients and then contribute these back to the project under the terms of the GPL license.
  • FRBR [5] arrangement, although of course it wasn’t called that 10 years ago, it was just a logical way for us to arrange the catalogue. A single bibliographic record essentially described the intellectual content, then a bunch of group records were attached, each one representing a specific imprint or publication.
  • The release of Koha 3.0 in late 2008 brought Koha completely into the web 2.0 age and all that entails. We are reconciled to taking a small step back for now, but the FRBR logic is around and RDA should see us back where want to be in a year or so – but with all the very exciting features and opportunities that Koha 3 has now.
  • In the early days, the Koha list appeared to have been dominated by programmers but I have noticed a lot more librarians participating now
  • "Adopt technology that keeps data open and free, abandon[ing] technology that does not." The time is right for OSS.
  • Joanne S on 22 Nov 12
     
    For more information about Koha and how it was developed, see: Ransom, J., Cormack, C., & Blake, R. (2009). How Hard Can It Be? : Developing in Open Source. Code4Lib Journal, (7). Retrieved from http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/1638
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