IUPUI School of Informatics to use Koha Klassmates

by Press Releases on Dec 21, 2015

12/21/2015
CONTACT:
Nicole Engard
(888) 900-8944
klassmates@bywatersolutions.com

IUPUI School of Informatics to use Koha Klassmates

ByWater Solutions, an open source community contributor and America’s forefront provider of Koha support, is happy to announce that the more than 20 students enrolled in ‘Library Systems’ and ‘Organization and Representation of Knowledge and Information’ classes at the Indiana University,Purdue University Indianapolis School of Informatics and Computing, and will be using Koha through the Klassmates (http://klassmates.us) program.

William Helling, Ph.D., Lecturer, Library and Information Science spoke of his plans for his students using Klassmates:

“I have been a systems librarian for more than 15 years, and I have taught library systems for Indiana University (IU and IUPUI) for the same amount of time. As a librarian, I have always regretted that so many of my fellow staff members were completely unfamiliar with their own ILS. These staff members were either not encouraged to look beyond their restricted duties or were never even allowed to use the different modules that make up a typical ILS. As a result, I discovered that most librarians were unaware of how an ILS worked and what it could do for them. As a result, I have always been determined to teach my library systems courses using as many hand-on tools as possible. ByWater Solutions’ Koha Klassmates program allows me to do that. With the Klassmates program, my graduate library science students will have staff access to the major ILS modules (Circulation, Cataloging, Serials, Acquisitions, OPAC) that they will eventually deal with in their future careers. We can build a library, determine polices, catalog items, and circulate. We can also work with the administration of the ILS, run reports, and learn to adjust our library. ByWater Solutions’ Koha Klassmates program allows me to give students invaluable experience in a modern and fully-functional ILS — experience that will benefit them as well as the institutions for which they eventually work. I spring 2016 I will use Koha Klassmates in my IUPUI S554 class Library Systems as well as my S503 Organization and Representation of Knowledge and Information.‚Äã”

About Koha Klassmates:
Koha Klassmates is a service of ByWater Solutions, an open source community contributor and America’s forefront provider of Koha support. This service offers free hosted installations of the Koha Open Source ILS to library school instructors in North America for use in their classrooms. Using this service library school students can learn what it means to use a real ILS before entering the workforce. For more information or to sign up please visit: http://klassmates.us/

About Koha:
Koha is the first open-source Integrated Library System (ILS). In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha’s impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloging, acquisitions, serials, reserves, patron management, branch relationships, and more.

Koha’s OPAC, circulation, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies,HTML5, CSS and Javascript,making Koha a truly platform-independent solution. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License (GPL). For more information about Koha, please visit: http://koha-community.org/

About ByWater Solutions:
ByWater Solutions is a full service, high quality support and implementation company dedicated to providing libraries with a lower cost, more advanced level of support for their ILS than a traditional proprietary solution can offer. ByWater Solutions has a proven track record in first rate Koha implementation and support with library systems of all sizes. Our highly ranked, comprehensive support is what sets our company apart from any other vendor in the industry. Partnering with ByWater Solutions to support Koha not only lowers the cost of implementing and maintaining an ILS, but more importantly empowers libraries by giving them the flexibility and freedom they deserve. For more information please visit: /