koha and the eifl-foss ils project randy metcalfe, eifl.net arnold hirshon, nelinet
TRANSCRIPT
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
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
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
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
ILS Project: Call for Participation
• Applications for pilot sites from 12 countries• 11 language groups represented• 78% of applicants wished to pilot Koha
Pilot ProgramConfirmed 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
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
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
Koha in Malawi
Koha seminar: Malawi Library Information Consortium (MALICO)
Photo credits: all photos by Dorothy Eneya, used with permission.
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
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
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
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
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 [email protected]