Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Tech For Small Library Automation?
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?"
I don't know how small your library is but if it's large enough to warrant a card catalog then I'd suggest first putting all the books in the correct order and making sure the card catalog is accurate. dewey decimal system is your friend here.
Once you have that down and not before, you can set up a basic database for your books.
See if this works... first hit on google:
http://www.primasoft.com/pro_software/library_software_pro.htm
245 dollars for a complete package is dead cheap. This is a way better idea then programming your own access database. Do that if you're a bigger library or want customization. You probably don't care.
Look around for some sort of complete all in one package. I just posted the first hit on google for this stuff. They have demos... try it out. Apparently they have barcode compatibility which will make check in and out a lot simpler.
But all of that said... the books have to be in order and the card catalog has to be accurate. If people are going to procrastinate about organizing the books until the software is installed then do it backwards. But that's way more important then the database. A library with the books out of order is dysfunctional unless it's tiny.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
... what makes you think people will bother learning and using an even more complicated electronic system? Non univerisity library users (generally) tend to be the older generation. They don't have the ooo-shiny! approach to computers so if its a hassle they won't use it. End of.
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.
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.
The main advantage of this is that anybody can browse the library's collection anytime they want. On Sunday mornings they flash the URL up on the stage.
We're still using the paper checkout process though. The old ladies that run the library are 80+ years old, and are former librarians back when Eisenhower was in office. I figure one tech upgrade at a time is all they can handle.
He who laughs last is at 300 baud.
Why would scanning and ebooks make Jesus cry?
Isn't he the guy who copied all that fish and bread and distributed it for free to all those hungry people?
That's kind of like we now copy and distribute knowledge, information and culture for free to people starved to learn and enjoy culture?
I imagine the bakers and the fishers industry associations of judea (BIAJ and FIAJ, respectively) were real pissed back then .
If we can give knowledge, information and culture to people for free, we obviously should, just as we should copy the fishes and the bread to feed the hungry if we had the power.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
You wouldn't download a wine cask.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
If your library is small and you have no tracking what-so-ever installed, or only trust-based tracking, Delicious Library might be the right thing. It's a personal solution focussing on private collections, but it is very fun and easy to use, supports barcode scanning with simple webcams and retrieves its item/katalog data via the web by scraping amazon and other sources when adding items, so you'll save yourself the hassle of data entry.
Even if you use a different solution in the end, the data retrieval system might be worth looking at, to save yourself data-entry headaches.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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.
When a church -- or other small organization's -- library falls into disorder, it's usually because the little old lady, who served as the volunteer librarian since she was middle aged, has gone to her reward.
Unfortunately, no amount of automation can make up for this. Your system -- no matter how advanced, primitive, simple or whatever -- really requires an owner. Without this, it will fall into disorder just as the previous one did and you'll be back to square one.
If you can't find a new volunteer librarian, don't do it. You'll spend most of your time cataloging, and then entropy will take over.
I am not a crackpot.