ByWater Solutions Earns Highest Scores Among Mid-Size Public Libraries in 2025 Annual Perceptions Survey

by Jessie Zairo on May 7, 2025

ByWater Solutions, America’s forefront provider of Open Source library technology support, proudly announces that Koha with ByWater Solutions received top marks in this year's Library Perceptions 2025 survey published by Marshall Breeding.

Mid-sized public libraries gave Koha, with support from ByWater Solutions, the highest ratings in all categories:

• General ILS Satisfaction
• Overall ILS Functionality
• Effectiveness for print resources
• Effectiveness for electronic resources
• Satisfaction with customer support
• Company Loyalty

Very small public libraries gave ByWater Solutions second second-highest scores in all categories except for print resource management.

The full survey can be viewed at https://librarytechnology.org/perceptions/2024/

Part of the survey includes the ability for users to supply narrative comments with their responses. Here is some of what ByWater partners have shared regarding their experiences:

We find Koha to be an effective and economical solution. ByWater Solutions provides excellent customer support and the open source nature of Koha allows us to participate in customizing the system to work for us, with a lower overhead cost than would be needed for other types of ILS systems. (Library type: Consortium; collection size: medium; ils satisfaction: 9)

We switched to Koha in 2022 and have been very happy with both Koha and ByWater. (Library type: School; collection size: small; ils satisfaction: 9)

Community-Koha is a great product, is mature, and is very competitive with other ILSs and LMSs available to libraries. The justifications for these assertions include the usefulness of the modules of Koha, the comprehensiveness of the different library-related tasks that Koha can handle, the active development of the software, and the helpfulness and interest of Koha's network of user and support communities. The reason why I rated Koha at a 5 on the, "How effective is this product in managing your library's electronic resources?" question above is because I wish that Koha would directly API into OverDrive, Hoopla Digital, Gale databases, and other e-resource vendors to maintain a live index of those e-resources (including their availability for checkout), and empower my patrons to checkout and use those e-resources within Koha's OPAC. I am uncertain if any ILS or LMS can do that though. Aspen Discovery is a discovery service that come close to doing that and we are implementing Aspen next year. (Library type: Public; collection size: very small; ils satisfaction: 9)

Our experiences with Koha and Aspen as Open Source ILS products favorably influences us. We would definitely be open to other Open Source software products that are as robustly supported. (Library type: Public; collection size: medium; ils satisfaction: 9)

About the Annual Survey

The 2025 Library Automation Perceptions Report provides evaluative ratings submitted by individuals representing 2,531 libraries from 74 countries describing experiences with 80 different automation products, including both proprietary and open source systems.

About ByWater Solutions

ByWater Solutions is a full-service, high-quality Open Source support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their systems than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in the first-rate implementation and support services with library systems of all sizes for the Koha ILS, Aspen Discovery, Metabase, and Libki PC Management.

Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions not only lowers the cost of implementation and maintenance of OSS but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit https://bywatersolutions.com.

For More Information

Elise Aiello
Partner Engagement Specialist
ByWater Solutions
bywatersolutions.com
Phone:(888)900-8944