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Koha and the eIFL-FOSS ILS Project

Randy Metcalfe, eIFL.net Arnold Hirshon, NELINET. Koha and the eIFL-FOSS ILS Project. About eIFL.net. eIFL.net Dedicated to enabling access to knowledge through libraries in developing and transition countries More than 50 country consortia as members Building national library consortia

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Koha and the eIFL-FOSS ILS Project

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  1. Randy Metcalfe, eIFL.net Arnold Hirshon, NELINET Koha and the eIFL-FOSS ILS Project

  2. About eIFL.net • eIFL.net • Dedicated to enabling access to knowledge through libraries in developing and transition countries • More than 50 country consortia as members • Building national library consortia • Negotiating licences to electronic resources held by publishers • eIFL-Open Access (OA)‏ • eIFL-Intellectual Property (IP)‏ • eIFL-Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)‏ • Working in Africa, Middle East, eastern Europe, and Asia

  3. FOSS Program • Advocacy of free and open source software (FOSS) use in libraries • Raise awareness and understanding of FOSS • Facilitate engagement with FOSS development communities • Undertake projects of special significance to eIFL.net members

  4. FOSS Champions • Volunteer country coordinators • Main conduit of information to the program and to consortium libraries • (Usually) connected to the local FOSS community • Share experiences, ask and answer questions, support each other • ILS identifed as their priority concern

  5. ILS Project • Develop support documentation to aid evaluation of and migration to Koha or Evergreen • Develop support network across eIFL.net for Koha or Evergreen deployment and use • Facilitate engagement with Koha and Evergreen development communities

  6. ILS Project: Call for Participation • Applications for pilot sites from 12 countries • 11 language groups represented • 78% of applicants wished to pilot Koha

  7. Pilot Program • Additional Participants • (if funds permit) • Koha • Nigeria: Kaduna State University • Kenya: St Paul's University • Evergreen • Ghana: Kwame Nkrumah University Science and Technology • Lesotho: Lesotho College • of Education Library Confirmed Participants Koha • Armenia: National Academy of Sciences Fundamental Scientific Library • Georgia: National Scientific Library • Malawi: National Library Service • Palestine (West Bank): An-Najah National University Library • Mali: Universite of Bamako, Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry Library Evergreen • Nepal: Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya • Zimbabwe: Midlands State University Library

  8. Project Plan • Initial workshop training event for all pilot sites in Armenia at end of May 2008 • Koha and Evergreen developers participating • Case studies will be developed for each pilot • Support documentation project using DocBookWiki – final version to be released in English, French, Russian, and Arabic • All applicants invited to join eIFL-FOSS country coordinators' email discussion list to ensure knowledge transfer throughout project

  9. Koha in Malawi Koha seminar: Malawi Library Information Consortium (MALICO)‏ Photo credits: all photos by Dorothy Eneya, used with permission.

  10. Why Koha? • Longevity • Koha project began in 1999, current stable release: 2.2.9, version 3.0 in beta • Localization • Koha is in use world-wide with solid support for a variety of languages • Community • Koha user and developer email lists are very active, with extensive documentation available on the Koha wiki • Support • numerous small companies offer support contracts for Koha

  11. Why Koha vs. Evergreen?the reasons vary significantly Evergreen • Nepal: staff knew Koha and wanted to broaden their skill set • Serials and acquisitions modules not available for a couple more months • Uses PostGresQL database Koha • Most familiar ILS for countries that already have advanced use of OSS • Uses MySQL, and many libraries already have experience with it • Complete ILS (important if using an ILS for the first time, e.g., Georgia) • A larger development community = more likely to be able to network with others in a neighboring region, and to leader and support others • Libraries investing in Koha's future development, and most won’t migrate to a new ILS for more than a year Issues of scale not the big factor it might have been expected to be • Koha said have challenges if collections >300,000 volumes • Koha 3.0 uses Zebra indexing, which should resolve many scaling issues

  12. Koha Challenges • Installation • requires solid Linux administration, MySQL, and Perl skills • Community • asking questions on FOSS email discussion list can be intimidating for those new to it • Support • most support companies are small and may not be able to meets needs in eIFL.net countries

  13. Meeting Challenges • Training event • installation, deployment and localization • Koha developer involved in training • Community • eIFL-FOSS community could be a stepping stone to direct participation in Koha development community • Support • support documentation effort • liaising with regional commercial support

  14. Further Information • eIFL.net http://www.eifl.net/ • eIFL-FOSS http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-foss • Blog http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-foss/foss-blog • Email list http://www.eifl.net:8080/mailman/listinfo/eiflfoss • Randy Metcalfe, eIFL-FOSS Program Manager randy.metcalfe@eifl.net

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