Georgia Katsarou then spoke about the history of Koha usage in Greece. She started by introducing where she works, a library in a school called College Year in Athens.
They started with a card catalogue, and then moved to Access (the students like the card catalogue much better). In 2006 they moved to Koha.
Greek Timeline
- 2006-2007 Quiet
- 2008 A few libraries started asking about Koha
- 2009 More libraries, HEAL-links ebooks.
- December 2009 First presentation at a Greek Conference
- 2010-2015 Interest of every kind of library
- 2016 Kohacon in Thessaloniki
Georgia felt that she need to give back, her boss said ok. So she started by translating and ran a blog called KohaGR.
What we must do
- Communicate
- Spread the news
- Have a virtual space
- Ask/Answer/Discuss
- Meet with each other
- Have an annual meeting
- Volunteer
- Public and private work together
- Companies must not be afraid to contribute
- Help those who are in need (libraries with no IT, unimarc users)
- Work together on projects
- Ask for help and ideas from other local communities
What not to do
- Exchange questions, ideas and solutions privately!!!
- Set up our installation and forget about it
- Take for granted other people’s contribution
Georgia presented so well and so passionately, that I feel really invigorated and ready to go on the hackfest.
