Hello all, I have two questions that I could use some help with. Please excuse the broad strokes but we are just starting to consider a move and haven't zeroed in on particulars yet. Generally though, we are wondering if it be cheaper to move to an Open-ILS system (in the short and long term) or stick with a tried but expensive solution? And which open-ils solution is more appropriate for a K12 institution.
Background: We are a small School District of approx. 1600 pupils with 1 primary, 1 middle and 1 high-school. We have approx 30K books in our catalog which is currently hosted by Sirsi Dynix/Horizon. Our librarians are interested in moving to an Open Source Solution because we think it will be cheaper to operate in the long run. We currently spend 5K a year for hosting and library budgets are being cut way back next year. We've spent a little time looking at KOHA and Evergreen. Both seem generally to fit the bill, but there are specific things our three librarians don't like about either system. They're general response seems to be that neither system seems "just right" for needs particular to a K12 institution e.g. an environment where students might be identified by name rather than patron bar-code, where patrons are created in bulk via import from a SIS (we use Skyward), etc. So here's some questions that I hope folks can help me with: - Does anyone know of a hosted KOHA or Evergreen Demo that has been tailored to a K12 setting? I'd like to help the Librarians to find a demo to try out that is based on such an environment. - Does one system or another enjoy a clear advantage in terms of flexibility of design? I noticed that EverGreen is based on XUL, so I assume it is meant to be very adaptable. - Is either system more clearly suited for the K12 environment? - Does either system win points from the standpoint of maturity of the project or availability of paid hosting and support? - Is the assumption that an open ILS istallation will be cheaper hosted solution true or should our librarians not assume that Free Software means cheaper software? We would very likely be looking to have this solution hosted. I hope that you'll take a moment to help me refine my thinking so that I can help the librarians in our district refine theirs! Thanks for your ideas! John
