Hi Andy
I'm using Koha (www.koha.org ) at the moment, which is one of the leading
open source ones (although I understand that Evergreen is possibly better
for consortia). Probably the best way to get more info about this would be
to post to the LIS-LINK
(https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=lis-link )or LIS-WEB-2
(https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=LIS-WEB2 ) jiscmail groups
(or to root through their archives)- I know there have been a lot of
discussions about this in the past.
In my experience, the software seems to work just as well as most other
mainstream library systems. There are some quirks, as you would expect from
a system that's been developed open source, but the advantage is, there is
constant ongoing development, which means that upgrades are far more
frequent than with propriety systems. If you're not a techy, I understand
it is fairly complicated to set up the systems yourself- I got a specialist
consultancy to set mine up (PTFS- http://www.ptfs-europe.com/ ), and I
understand there are a few other companies than can help.
The Mashed Library Group may also be able to help- they are doing lots of
work with collaboration and information sharing
(http://www.mashedlibrary.com/).
Hope this helps!
Kat
Kat Nower
Information Officer
Race Equality Foundation
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-----Original Message-----
From: UK medical/ health care library community / information workers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andy Richardson
Sent: 12 June 2011 15:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Open Source Library Management Systems
Has anyone played around with Open Source Library Management Systems - such
as Evergreen - mentioned in June's CILIP update... sounds like you could
develop a library management consortia using Open Source.... perfect for an
NHS wide union catalogue and ILL tool. I'm rubbish at downloading stuff like
Open Source and playing around with it - but it's all there on
www.evergreen-ils.org
Andy Richardson
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