Next some librarians from Bowen University reported on their Koha experience, they have been Koha users since 2007. Bowen university has used Koha versions 2.9.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.4, 3.12.3 and 3.18.0
The key findings are
- Koha helped tremendously with the technical processes of the library core functions
- Issues – duplication of barcodes, wrong mapping
- Positive experience far outweighs the few challenges
They covered all the advantages of Open Source, I will link the presentation when it is up, so much was covered I can’t take notes fast enough (where is Nicole Engard when you need her?)
Bowen was started in 2001, as was the library, with the mandate to create first rate graduates. Therefore the library has to use first rate library software.
Reasons it was chosen
- OSS
- MARC compliance
- Hardware agnostic
- Web based
The paper is very comprehensive and covers how Koha is installed, and who is in charge of its maintenance. It also covers all the things they like about Koha, which was great to hear and always good to remember. We as developers spend so much time hearing about bugs, that it is great to hear of things that are working well.
I stopped taking notes to listen, as it was so full of information. I will update the post with the link to the paper when I have it.
