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Koha http://www.koha.org/ is an open-source library catalog.

wrong website bro

http://koha-community.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koha_(software)

Koha http://www.koha.org/ is an open-source library catalog.
It has circulation and database. Use barcodes or RFIDs on the books (the tip of extra cover is good).

Many real libraries use Koha for their library database and circulation.

YMMV

/C

I've never used it myself, but I once worked with a librarian who tried out Koha and found it pretty feature-full.

http://www.koha.org/

It might be a bit of overkill, but it has a large user-base and probably has every feature you could want.

Use an open source integrated library system like koha http://koha.org/. These are designed precisely for organizing multiple types of media. While they generally are used at a larger scale, they easily scale down to smaller personal libraries like yours.

Since it's a personal, local library, you will only need to use a few of the available modules -- no need for circulation, acquisitions, etc. While some of your media does have the option for auto-retrieval in more limited media systems like iTunes, for the level of organization, access, and retrieval you want, you will need some manual review.

Some of the problems caused by OCLC can be avoided by using better tools. Evergreen, Koha are both feature-rich, open source integrated library systems. They're not just competitive, in many cases they are just plain better.

Another danger point is Metalib. The Z39.50 profiles are about the only advantage there, aside from the sales pitch. Those are public anyway and could easily be listed centrally by pooling resources to the tune of a few cents per month per participating organization.

However, all that is about the code and the article is about claims of ownership over database content. Well fortunately enough, data can be imported, exported and shared between systems like Koha or Evergreen without ever having anything to do with OCLC. Most libraries, even many library consortia, no longer have any catalogers. In those cases, import the metadata for the catalog from the Library of Congress, that's what it's there for...

I'm surprised the writer didn't evaluate Koha, which is a GPL'ed integrated library management system. It can handle Z39.50 MARC lookups. (For those that don't speak the lingo, that means getting cataloging data, usually from the Library of Congress' public gateway.)

Koha may have been overkill, I guess, since it also has a bazillion features for things like managing branch libraries, cataloging serials, and keeping track of vendor relationships.

Glad to see interest in education on /. Don't forget about http://schoolforge.net./ A careful and highly skilled group working on both software and texts. We are the coalition of groups interested in FLOSS and Education and our membership is international. Here are the apps I currently see as the stack:

Server-based:

* Open Admin for Schools by Les Richardson in Canada, http://richtech.ca/ (mentioned by someone else, too.)
* KOHA, http://koha.org/, the Library OPAC/ILS from New Zealand
* Manhattan, http://manhattan.sourceforge.net/, the WebCT alternative which is a lot easier than Moodle from New England (in the U.S.)
* Moodle if you like the blog look instead.
* http://atutor.ca/ -- Just great.

We also recommend IMP/Horde and Drupal. Can't go wrong.

I recommend schools use Debian on the server and Edubuntu on the desktop. The latter comes with a great start on what you need in the classroom, including TuxPaint, TuxMath, Open Office, The GIMP, Firefox, etc. The great thing about it is that you can choose whether to set it up as a thin client or a stand-alone box and updating is easy using apt-get.

Joining Schoolforge is something anyone really interested in FLOSS/education can do to help.

--
http://iteachnet.org/

Most of it shouldn't even need to be converted. It should be in MARC Bibliographic format, which is generally fairly easy to transfer between databases.

This is true, as far as the bibliographic information goes. There are lots of open-source packages for working with MARC records, like pymarc (Python) or File_MARC (PHP). But the rest of the system is proprietary: holdings records, (which copies do you hold, in which locations, and where is that copy currently - loaned out, lost, on reserve, etc), circulation records, user records, acquisitions records. Sure, it's all just a database schema mapping exercise, if your vendor's license allows you to touch that data directly. Sadly, the past generation of libraries seems to have accepted vendor lock-in as a matter of course; a mistake that we're paying for now and which led directly to the development of Evergreen.

But really, let's be realistic. The major OPAC package is Voyager, which runs on top of Oracle, so runs on anything that runs Oracle. Libraries that don't have Voyager are pretty much all just wishing they could afford it (and the Oracle licenses).

Also check out Koha, which is going to be launched at the Meadville Public Library in PA early next year, and has been in place in a few libraries throughout the world. It runs natively on Linux... I've gotten it to run on my home box (I am currently doing archives work for a local organization) and I think it holds its own against Horizon, III, Aleph and the big boys of integrated library systems.

I wanted to try out Open-ILS/Evergreen, but had some issues getting it to run. Granted, I didn't try as hard as I did with Koha.

In terms of Linux in libraries, there are a few devoted people (and the numbers are growing) pushing for it. I swear, it can not be beat in the public computing arena.

An open ILS just makes sense. It is easily customized, cheaper in the long run, and really, all the ILS software is served through web pages now anyway. Why are libraries spending up to $10,000 a seat for this stuff? It's the learning curve. And FUD.

Birmingham should look at Koha, since one of the problems listed was with the Galaxy library system.

I could go for pages about how library system vendors are generally pretty shady and do an awful lot to keep unwitting customers locked in. All kinds of song and dances come forth. However, it all comes down to the buyers (libraries) not wanting to take the time to find out 1) what they are paying for, 2) what they ought to buy and 3) what they are actually getting. Libraries often end up as a result in a position where the vendors dictate the terms conditions and pricing. Many don't even bother to fulfill the contract since rarely does anyone ever check up on them anyway. A little technobabble will dazzle the one or two brave souls that try.

If Birmingham wants to go whole hog, then they can move to Koha. The makers of Galaxy will be as uncooperative as they can get away with, but they would do that with any threat of migration to any other vendor anyway. There are many ways, few easy, but doable to extract the contents of a library system, even against the vendors will.

If nothing else, Birmingham can look at Koha and see how it meets their needs. Many use it not because it it open source, but because it has the funcitonality they need. All library systems suck, they just suck in different ways. And Koha has quite a few technical advantages over the closed source varieties. However, being open source is one of the stronger non-technical advantages. It means not only that small changes can be done in house, but that larger changes can be outsourced to those that have time, interest and experience. BTW simply threatening to evaluate Koha can bring significant consessions from their current vendor.

Birmingham should look at Koha, since one of the problems listed was with the Galaxy library system.

I could go for pages about how library system vendors are generally pretty shady and do an awful lot to keep unwitting customers locked in. All kinds of song and dances come forth. However, it all comes down to the buyers (libraries) not wanting to take the time to find out 1) what they are paying for, 2) what they ought to buy and 3) what they are actually getting. Libraries often end up as a result in a position where the vendors dictate the terms conditions and pricing. Many don't even bother to fulfill the contract since rarely does anyone ever check up on them anyway. A little technobabble will dazzle the one or two brave souls that try.

If Birmingham wants to go whole hog, then they can move to Koha. The makers of Galaxy will be as uncooperative as they can get away with, but they would do that with any threat of migration to any other vendor anyway. There are many ways, few easy, but doable to extract the contents of a library system, even against the vendors will.

If nothing else, Birmingham can look at Koha and see how it meets their needs. Many use it not because it it open source, but because it has the funcitonality they need. All library systems suck, they just suck in different ways. And Koha has quite a few technical advantages over the closed source varieties. However, being open source is one of the stronger non-technical advantages. It means not only that small changes can be done in house, but that larger changes can be outsourced to those that have time, interest and experience. BTW simply threatening to evaluate Koha can bring significant consessions from their current vendor.

Open Source Library software here:

http://www.open-ils.org/
or
http://www.koha.org/

If you are looking for a software based solution what about http://koha.org/. Koha is a free opensource Library systemwhich runs on Linux OS X and even windows. but it may pay to take bits from some of the other sugestions about organising and even culling your collection.

http://www.emilda.org/ is a similar setup with a smoother user interface. It is not as easy as Koha to install because you have to find perl scripts and install them. Koha has a script to do that.

http://www.koha.org/

From the their self-description:

Koha is a full-featured open-source ILS. Developed initially in New Zealand by Katipo Communications Ltd and first deployed in January of 2000 for Horowhenua Library Trust, it is currently maintained by a team of software providers and library technology staff from around the globe.

It is intended to manage a small library or documentation center: at 3500 books, you are still considered a pretty small documentation center... But it could ease a lot the management of those books, the friends borowing, etc.

They have a lot of success-story. My librarian wife finded it nice when I showed it to her. Even though she refuse to keep woking at home organizing our books. Damn!

Of course, to really help keeping track of the books, you will need a good physical organisation too. But since Koha can talk Z3950, it may be possible to obtain the classification professionnaly done by big libraries: making Dewey or LC classification is _hard_. Librarian don't usually have master degree for nothing... So I would suggest refraining from going that work yourself ; pick a simple organization, since 3500 books is not that big, when you think about it and compare with _real_ libraries...

Good luck!

http://alexandria.rubyforge.org/ for all your library needs in Gnome

http://creativelibrarian.com/library-oss/ Some ideas

http://www.koha.org/ what my wife uses in her library (she is an MLS at a state library)

or...

http://library.rider.edu/scholarly/ecorrado/il2004 /ossfeatures.html

wow, that took me all of 2 minutes and a Hot Pocket to look up.

http://www.koha.org// You can run it on linux or window. It is worth a play if you have the time, runs on mysql, apache and perl. I use it at home and have used the z3950 interface to copy catalogue from the library of Congres, etc. For a normal person I think http://www.librarything.com// is the go.

Hi,

Try Koha http://www.koha.org/. Both Windows and Linux versions.

Used by a number of libraries already.

Software:
Use something like Koha http://www.koha.org/ to create a real catalog and circulation system. Setup a cheap computer to use as a checkout station.

Physical:
Just guessing but with that many book surely you have a room in the house dedicated to your "library". Put up some real shelving so that they are orderly and won't be as easily damaged. Now shelve them in order using something like the dewy decimal system.

The added benefit is that you'll be able to check out books to friends and family and actually know who has what.

Unless you are willing to put the time into setting up Koha or need more control and granularity of data (subject cataloging, cross-references, etc.), I suggest keeping things simple. OpenOffice 2.0's Base has a built in template for setting up a personal library database. Having done original cataloging of books for a library, I can say that you can spend a LOT of time cataloging just a handful of books if follow standard library practice.

I wrestled with this problem for a while myself, and came to two conclusions:

1) No software currently on the market did exactly what I wanted, and I should write my own.

2) Having a master list doesn't help in the slightest unless you can organize things without a database.

I suggest the following order of work:

1) Work out a category list. Do you want sci-fi and fantasy together? Where are you going to store cookbooks? How about technical manuals, encyclopedias, biographies, or textbooks? You can't make a good start at getting organized until you know what you're trying to organize.

2) Think about where you want to store things. Cookbooks should be near the kitchen, programming books should be near the computer, coffee-table books should be on the coffee-table, and so on. This will help more than anything else. Also consider shelf size: I built my own shelves, with some sized purely for paperbacks and some for hardcover, oversized, and trade paper. It's a lot more efficient than trying to fit everything together, which matters a lot with the volume of books you're talking about.

3) Find some software. Figure out what you want, what information is important to you. Personally, I mostly care about genre, binding, title, series title, number within series, authors, how much I liked it, and who I loaned it to (and when). I know someone else with something like 75 fields, including cover artist, publisher, who recommended it, number of pages, and so on. What you want to know about your books is pretty personalized, so you may not find anything perfect. That's why I wrote my own.

3.5) If you're going to write your own, set up at least the database and an entry system. If you're going to buy/download one, do so, and get it working. I hear a lot of good things about Koha, but I wanted to write my own.

4) OK, you've got your databasing system set up, right? You're sure it works, you have a place to keep off-site backups, and you're ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU CAN USE IT WITHOUT LOSING DATA? Re-entering more than a thousand books sucks, a lot. Yes, I've had to do it.
    Well, this is the part that sucks. Take absolutely every book in your house off the shelf and pile it up in fairly empty room. Every book. Set up a computer near the door, and start scanning. If you can manage it, stack things in the room by category before starting ("OK, sci-fi/fantasy gets that wall, cookbooks can go in the corner, and we'll glue the romance novels to the ceiling"), and go by category. Once you've entered a managable number of books, go put them on the shelf they're going to stay on. Don't worry too much about where you put them: you're going to be shifting them around a lot. As you put each book on the shelf, make sure it's in the right spot relative to other books, but don't worry about which shelf it's on.

5) NEVER, EVER, I mean absolutely never, put books on the shelf without entering them. If you do, your carefully built database, built with your blood, sweat, and tears is totally worthless. If you must put them on the shelf, stack them sideways on top of the other books, in roughly the area where they ought to go. It makes it easy to tell which books need to be entered.

Anyway, that got a little longer than I intended, but I hope it helps. Sadly, the version I've been writing really isn't ready for an audience bigger than me, or I'd offer to give you a copy.

I'm in essentially the same boat, thought I only have around 1500 books. I've started a project to catalog and catagorize all of them. I would suggest using Koha. It's an open source ILS (Integrated Library System) built on perl and mysql. It's being used worldwide (originally developed in new zealand). My library system (which i work for) is transfering the whole county to it, and I'm using it for my personal library at home.

There is quite a large amount of open-source software available for library management. A full-blown ILS might be overkill for a personal collection, but I'd suggest checking out Koha and the listings at OSS4Lib.

All the electronic engineering/firmware development people I talk to use gcc for developing at least some of their products. Some use Linux in their products. Some run Linux n their desktops. Most/all of the universities use OSS in their computer science and other programs.

NZ has actually produced quite a bit of OSS code that is in wide usage throughout the world including Koha (http://www.koha.org/), YAFFS (http://www.aleph1.co.uk/yaffs/), much of the KDevelop/gdb interface and many others. The Ozzies are no slouches either.

Why not migrate to an open source library management software package like Evergreen or Koha? More money for books, more control for you...

That's why organizations/resources like Linux in Libraries exist. They are working for putting Linux in public spaces. There are a number of cool projects that this group has pointed me to including Koha, an open source library system and implementers of open source library solutions like LibLime. Check them out.

I am a developer involved with refbase. I say that not to plug the product (it is a bit minimalist for a real library, but there are many individuals, research groups and departments who use it to host papers), but so you know where I'm coming from. I have interacted with the open source bibliographic community & have tried many products & keep an ear to many others.

First, check out the oss4lib blog and openbib. These will point you to a lot of other good material.

Next, absolutely download , which is one of the most full-featured & comprehensive library solution that the F/OSS community currently has.

I personally thing cheshire deserves a shout out too. A clean, FAST python-backed online catalogue with cross-site searching & conforming to a lot of nice standards like MODS.

You should also keep an eye for developments from bibliophile. This is a collaboration between many players of F/OSS literature databases.

You definitely want Koha (www.koha.org). For Koha support, and special flavors: LibLime (www.liblime.com) and for even more library goodness, Keystone (http://www.indexdata.dk/keystone/).

• a library catalogue front end/OPAC
• a library system intranet
• a circulation tracking system
• an acquisitions/budgeting system

Sorry this is not directly related to Thin Clients for libraries, but I had to mention it anyhow Koha - Open Source Library System http://www.koha.org/ It is an excelent open source library management system that should recieve more attention

If so, go here for the Koha Integrated Library System - an open-source ILS used by several libraries in New Zealand and elsewhere.

Also go here for the Open Source For Libraries Web site which has links to numerous open source library systems and tools. Including a story on how Arizona State University West moved entirely to Linux as the underlying OS for their library.

Between those two sources, you should find plenty to check out.

If you're interested in doing this, I suggest you check out Koha, an open-source library cataloging system. The biggest boondoggle at most libraries is going to be the database system the librarians use to check in/out books and search, because in general it's the only piece they have to buy from an outside (proprietary) vendor. Make sure you spend a lot of quality time training the librarians on the new system, because otherwise they'll complain about it not being like the old system, even if it's objectively better. (Believe me, I've seen the kind of holy wars that go on within a library.)

If there was a LUG in town, I'd propose doing this at my own local library, but I'm pretty much the only Linux person in the area. I used to work there, and I got permission to try switching some of the library computers to Mozilla, because the systems were underpowered and the popups were terrible. Unfortunately, one of the patrons complained that their site didn't look right, and the head librarian made me switch it right back. I had just *finally* gotten them to catalog the RedHat ISOs I burned for them when the library (literally) burned down. Argh.

Working as outside help (as opposed to being an employee and trying to change it from within) may alleviate some of these problems; the patience of Job is also helpful. Remember -- it's not about making the library's systems "better" by installing Linux on them, it's making them more *useful* that counts. Good luck!

• oss4lib: Open Source Systems for Libraries
• Koha: Open Source Library System

Koha is a successful open source library catalogue system. Are libraries a vertical market?

You might want to look at this library system that is GNU.
Koha

Barcode interfaces are a minor addition to the user interface. Too bad X11 doesn't provide cleaner alternative input interfaces (there were some removed before a recent release...).

Features include:

* Simple clear interface for librarians and members (patrons) to search right from the front page.

* Customisable search - you choose which fields you want on your search forms when you set it up

* Reading lists for members - now you can find the name of that great book you read last year. NOTE: Our librarians and customers love this, but if you have concerns about keeping this information it could be disabled. This is really useful for helping homebound users get fresh books

* Full acquisitions including budgets and pricing information (including supplier and currency conversion), being kept so that you can see what you've ordered and received - so handy at end of year and audit time.

* Simple acquisitions for the smaller library

* Able to catalogue websites as items, or have them as links to existing biblios.

Features include:

* Simple clear interface for librarians and members (patrons) to search right from the front page.

* Customisable search - you choose which fields you want on your search forms when you set it up

* Reading lists for members - now you can find the name of that great book you read last year. NOTE: Our librarians and customers love this, but if you have concerns about keeping this information it could be disabled. This is really useful for helping homebound users get fresh books

* Full acquisitions including budgets and pricing information (including supplier and currency conversion), being kept so that you can see what you've ordered and received - so handy at end of year and audit time.

* Simple acquisitions for the smaller library

* Able to catalogue websites as items, or have them as links to existing biblios.

Koha

I work in the systems office of a fairly large UK university library, so I tend to keep a close eye on these things. Check out koha, a complete open source library catalogue system, which appears to be growing in popularity.
Also worth a look are the perl4lib and oss4lib mailing lists.

Take a look at Koha most your programmers are hired to do custom work anyway, why would this be anything new? The beauty of linux is that if you need something done, you can hire someone in to customize it for you. You can't do that with windows as they don't give you all the code.

Public libraries, unfortunately, are too often dependent on fiercely proprietary-minded vendors for their daily operations.

Incidentally, the "go get MySQL, you dumbass" posters are missing an important point: libraries use the MARC data standard for catalog records, and SQL doesn't cope well with the kind of tricks MARC can do.