Koha ILS

KohaCon10: Why a Librarian Loves Koha

Lee Phillips from the Butte-Silver Bow Public Library was up next to tell us all why she loves Koha. However, instead of talking to us alone, she enlisted the help of her colleagues by sharing their Koha opinions with us in a video she recorded before leaving home for NZ.

First up was Steph who says ‘the nicest thing for us is the adaptability.’ She also gave me a shout out for answering her question in 11 seconds – I have to admit I don’t remember doing it – but I’m so glad I could help her out by writing an inventory report!!

Another librarian brought up my favorite part of Koha – the reports! She loved that she could export them to Excel and create any report under the sun. I love the power afforded by the reporting module (something no other system I’ve ever used offered).

Next up, the children’s librarian loved the fact that you can see the availability of items right from the search results screen. So when kids run to the shelf and don’t see the book they want, she can quickly look it up and show them how to place a hold on the books that are checked out.

One of the tech services librarians said, ‘It took 6 years to start using Spectrum. 46 hours for Koha.’ You gotta love that!! (and Lee obviously did cause she took this moment to jump up and down in the front of the room 🙂 ) Another librarian shared her point of view and talked about a migration she had gone through 10 years earlier calling it a ‘nightmare.’

My favorite librarian quote from the video was: “The other thing I love about Koha is the open source principles. Libraries are about sharing information – free and open access to information. Most of our proprietary systems are not open and do not share information!”

I hope that the video makes it on to some online venue so I can share it with you all – when it does I’ll put that link here.

[update]Lee has let me put the video up on the ByWater Solutions channel on YouTube[/update]

[tags]kohacon10[/tags]

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