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Ask Slashdot: Tech For Small Library Automation?

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-little-help-here-please dept.

Kozz writes "I've recently been tapped as 'the tech guy' at my church where a group familiar with library automation wants to get digital with the relatively small catalog. Right now all the materials are simply on shelves, and people take an item down, fill out the paper card and drop it into a box, and we hope that people correctly calculate their own due dates and return the materials. We had a card catalog, but it went largely unused. We're looking for a complete solution for both administration and self-checkout; label printing, checkout receipts, and so on. Have any Slashdot readers found yourself in this position, and do you have recommendations based on your experiences?"

4 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Evergreen by Georgia Public Libraries by C0L0PH0N · · Score: 5, Informative

    The "Evergreen" library system is free and open source, and was initiated by the Georgia Public Library System in 2006, and is currently in use by over 850 libraries, including a "parish" library. You can check it out here: http://open-ils.org/about.php. The site also has a link to a showcase of libraries already running, and on the Internet. The "client" runs on Windows, Mac or Linux. I think the server runs on Linux.

    1. Re:Evergreen by Georgia Public Libraries by migla · · Score: 5, Informative

      I noticed that the FAQ about Evergreen states the following:

      "Evergreen was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of a very large (more than 270-member) library lending consortium whose members collaborate but are not in lockstep on policies. Evergreen needed to be able to handle large indexing and transaction loads while supporting highly-configurable policies for each member library. "

      Also the above mentioned KOHA seems to flaunt very complex features (not that these two would then necessarily be complicated or overkill).

      Openbiblio, claims to be targeted at smaller libraries.
      http://obiblio.sourceforge.net/

      I don't know anything about any of these, but maybe worth a look.

      From the main site, it doesn't look like much is happening, but a post in the dev part of the forums indicates a new version is being worked on.

      --
      Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
  2. Re:Koha? by dingram17 · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you are going to use Koha, I suggest going to the community based library that developed it, not the company that grabbed the source and grabbed trademarks all around the world. The 'original' developers are at http://koha-community.org/. LibLime (the other guys) have even tried to stop the Koha developers using the name Koha - the very name they came up with. Koha is Maori for 'treasure', and this free software is certainly a treasure for libraries that don't want to spend a fortune on software.

  3. Re:keep it simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't listen to the "write your own" crowd.
    ILS software has been done to death, and there is alot more to it than you might think even for a small collection, just ask any library sciences grad.
    We have used koha several times and very much like it. There are other solutions. Web based is definately a bonus.
    Given the isbn may of these systems will fill out the book info for you.