What do you Love Most about Koha??

by Nathan Curulla on Feb 15, 2017

What do you love about Koha?

Being the week of Valentine’s Day, I thought it appropriate to talk about the many things we love about Koha! There is so much to love about this ILS that it is difficult to put a list together; from the fact that it was the ILS of many firsts (web based, responsive, open source) to the plethora of features that come with the system out of the box (EDI, free SIP connections, unbridled access to your data) to the fact that being open source, Koha is supported by over 60 companies worldwide, thus giving the power to the user rather than the vendor.  I guess if I was sending a Valentine’s Day card to Koha it would read something like this:

Dearest Koha,

Here are 10 of the many things I love about you:

1. You are free and open source, so anyone can support you, or I can support you on my own
2. You are entirely web based, making it easy for me to implement regardless of my hardware
3. The companies that support you have to provide the best service in the industry, otherwise it is easy for you to break up with them
4. I don’t have to pay for the features you provide, everything you have is included
5. You don’t hold my data for ransom. Ever.
6. You have a fully responsive mobile theme straight out of the box
7. You don’t charge extra for 3rd party systems using SIP2 or NCIP to work with you. You actually encourage working well with others
8. New features are added to you by a collaborative group of librarians from all over the world, and those new features come free of charge
9. You are pretty, both on the staff side and the public side
10. You are supported by ByWater Solutions and they are awesome 🙂

What do YOU love about Koha? Whatever it is, spread the love! Share your experiences with other libraries who may still have the old perceptions and fears about open source so that they too can experience all the benefits of adopting Koha in their libraries.