I received several hits from people on Open source software and also
from someone who had compiled a hit last year. Hope this helps.
Try OPALS at www.mediaflex.net - an open source program - easy to use
with wonderful tech support -I migrated to OPALS from Spectrum and love
it!
If you have a linux server, Evergreen looked to be absolutely
outstanding. I wanted to use it, but our tech guy wouldn't support
Linux.
I have been using OPALS open source since Jan 9. Downloading MARC
records is very easy. I started circulating with my K-2 students last
week and hope to have enough data in to circulate with 3-6 next week.
The software is free-you can find it by doing Google search. There is a
service that helps set it up and provides tech support and they will
host for you if you don't have a server -- for a fee, of course. The
fees are comparable to what I have seen commercial companies charge.
The product is good, documentation also good, and the people I have been
in contact with (via email) very helpful. No one product works for
everyone, but check it out. It may very well be what you are looking
for.
I run an open source free circulation software called Koha. We do have a
programmer in our school district that "tweeks" it to be useful for our
particular needs, so I haven't seen it in its pure form.
I am in the midst of switching my catalog after a year with Koha (my
first year on the job). While I like the spirit of open source
cataloging I would not recommend it unless you know how to write code
yourself or have a seriously dedicated tech person (my tech department
is awesome, but they also have the rest of the school to think of, and
if the dean's office needs something, I'm not going to get what I need
all that soon).
The lack of tech support is a *huge* downside; there were many things
I'm certain Koha was capable of doing, but my lack of expertise meant I
wasn't able to make it happen, which was incredibly frustrating. My
school's conversion to Koha was the first time the library had been
automated, so I'm not sure about uploading records from another system.
My guess is that it's possible, but you'd have to figure it out on your
own, which means coding expertise on your part or MARC expertise on your
tech department's part. Original cataloging was do-able but tricky--for
some reason I was never able to get subject fields to repeat, which was
incredibly annoying. I was able to use Titlewise with my system, but it
took a long time for the Follet rep and me to figure out where to pull
the data from in order to get accurate results.
There are companies you can hire to provide tech support for Koha
(which, I know, sort of defeats the purpose of it being free, but you
get what you pay for) which I would STRONGLY recommend doing if you do
end up going in this direction, even if just for conversion and initial
set up--maybe the whole first year, as things will pop up that you
didn't think of at first.
We're currently using Athena, and have been for the past 10 years. Over
the past couple of years we researched several alternatives to Athena,
and eventually settled on Koha. We figured price over a ten-year
period,
so that support would be factored in, as well as the initial price of
the program and the conversion.
To make a long story short, we've picked Koha as the replacement
system.
The biggest selling point was that they will host it, which means that
they take care of backups and upgrades, and of course, tech support.
Currently, Athena does NOT let you search and import records from LC.
All of the systems we looked at did. TitleWave ought to be able to
check
Koha. If they can't today, they will tomorrow, since Koha is growing
quickly.
One of the other advantages of Koha is that they will develop features
that YOU ask for. Of course you have to pay for that, but whatever you
have them develop will be added to the next update for everyone.
I have been using Koha for the past two years so I'll try to answer
your questions.
Benefits--It's web-based and that allows students and staff access from
home. You or your tech people have the ability to customize it to
your needs.
Downsides--If your tech guy hasn't a clue about OpenSource (Linux,
Perl, MySQL, etc.) you will have to contract out for support which can
be
costly depending on where you get it from.
Your questions/concerns:
1. I worry that an Open Source (not necessarily Koha) program is
problematic because there would be little-to-no tech. support.
There are companies that support Koha--LibLime is one of them, but can
be costly. We contract with them for a very reasonable rate but others
who have looked into them have gotten a much higher cost--the cost
that led them to Follett Destiny.
2. Also, would I be able to upload my current catalog to this new
program or would I have to re-catalog everything? What about original
cataloging?
Your current catalog would be able to be uploaded into KOHA. There is
an instruction manual online that goes through all steps. There are
templates set up for different materials or you can customize and build
your own templates. Koha has the Z39.50 ability which means you can
enter in library catalogs IP port information so that it will search
those
catalogs for a match to the ISBN or title, etc. you entered. We have
the Library of Congress, OCLC and others as some of Z39.50 sites.
3. Is an Open Source program going to be compatible with title
matching and titlewise collection analysis?
I have been able to upload my records into Titlewise for title matching
when putting orders together and I have been able to do the collection
analysis as well.
There are some school districts that have Koha running without using a
vendor. There aren't a lot of schools using it--mostly public
libraries, academic libraries and special libraries. The program is
not
perfect and there are some things I'm sure people would say are a step
back
instead of forward but the KOHA community of developers are always
working on making things better. There are many upgrades in the newest
3.0
version that I haven't had the last two years. There are demos set up
on the LibLime.com website. Choose the Public Library demo. You can
try the OPAC and the staff screens.
I believe the one the Baltimore City Schools is an open source. It is
called Koha. It has taken a lot of time to tweak it for our use. I don't
know much more about it.
You should look into Koha, http://www.koha.org/. I know a colleague here
in Colorado is using Koha but you will need some fairly good open source
programmers to help you set it up and maintain it as well.
Lori Pilgrim
Media Specialist
Woodland High School
800 Old Alabama Rd.
Cartersville, GA 30120
(770) 606-5800 ext. 5279
lpilgrim@bartow.k12.ga.us
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