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?"

Koha?

[hazem]

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/ [koha.org]

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

Evergreen by Georgia Public Libraries

[C0L0PH0N]

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 [open-ils.org]. 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.

Tellico

[water-and-sewer]

Why not use something as simple as possible? Keep the card system in place, and track it all using a collection manager like Tellico. I use Tellico for my personal library, which is probably about the size of the library you're managing. I'd say keep the card system in place - you're never going to get people to fill out online forms etc. And then use Tellico to answer the questions "What have I got?," "What's been checked out?" and "to Whom?" Seems like that's all you need at this stage.

Re:Evergreen by Georgia Public Libraries

[migla]

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/ [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.

Small? Checkout based on trust? Delicious Library.

[Qbertino]

If your library is small and you have no tracking what-so-ever installed, or only trust-based tracking, Delicious Library [delicious-monster.com] 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.

Re:Koha?

[dingram17]

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/ [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.

Re:keep it simple

[Anonymous Coward]

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.