Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library in Stow Ohio Goes Live with Koha ZOOM

March 2, 2007; 06:12 AM
LibLime, the leader in open-source solutions for libraries, announced today that the Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library in Stow Ohio, USA has just gone live with Koha ZOOM.

Stow-Munroe Falls made the decision to use Koha after being informed that their proprietary ILS would no longer be supported. "They gave us no choice but to upgrade," says director Doug Dotterer, "so we formed an ad-hoc committee to investigate our options. We met with 6 or 7 proprietary ILS companies to find out about their products and what they could do for us, but in the end were unimpressed. Our systems administrator suggested we consider open source. The idea of control and ownership over our information as well as cost-effectiveness made Koha very attractive."

"Koha is a full-featured ILS that has plenty of flexibility since it's built on L.A.M.P. ( Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl/PHP ), the same platform used by many commercial web sites such as Yahoo!,"1 says Darrell Ulm, systems administrator for Stow-Munroe Falls..

"We also liked the idea of being able to help steer the development of features in Koha," Ulm explains. "For instance, if we need to add a feature--no matter how specific--we can either develop it in-house, or contract with a support company like LibLime. As more libraries switch to Koha and sponsor new functionality, other libraries will benefit when the next upgrade cycle occurs. Koha has a steady stream of updates, and the momentum for this open-source product is excellent."

Stow-Munroe Falls chose LibLime for setup, data migration and support. "It's like getting the best of the commercial world and the open-source community at the same time," says Ulm. "LibLime has been great to work with and they really know the ILS migration process." Ulm also points to another advantage of choosing an open-source ILS: no vendor lock-in. "We chose LibLime for many reasons, but if a Library wanted to seek commercial support from another provider, it's possible because Koha is open source."

Stow-Munroe Falls made a significant investment in Koha, sponsoring enhancements to authorities control and a more granular circulation ruleset. They also worked closely with LibLime on enhancing the interface to help staff and patrons with the transition process. "This is where open-source software really shows its merits. We're able to take feedback from the staff who will be using the system every day, and make Koha work better for them," says Ryan Higgins, LibLime's President, Products. LibLime in turn contributes such enhancements to the Koha project so other libraries can utilize them.

"Library directors need to understand that technology is transforming the library profession," says Dotterer. "After that is accepted, open source seems like less of a risk. We did a careful cost analysis. When you consider that most libraries using proprietary software have to 'lease' their information from the company and can't make software changes in-house, the ROI speaks for itself. Open source is a cost-affordable and technologically sound choice. It enables libraries to position themselves to be prepared for technology changes in the future."

On March 30, 2007 Stow-Munroe Falls will be hosting a workshop on Koha entitled "Koha and Open Source: A Roadmap to ILS Migration". The workshop will include discussion about the advantages of choosing open-source library automation as well as hands-on 'break-out' sessions. To sign up for this workshop, visit: http://www.neo-rls.org/ and choose workshops from the Information Menu.

1. see the article titled "Open Source at Yahoo": http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail641.html

About Koha
Since it was first put into production in early 2000, Koha has enabled new realities of open access, affordability, and free innovation for hundreds of small and medium-sized libraries around the world. Koha has lived up to its name, which means `Gift' in the Maori language of New Zealand. From the outset, many libraries understood the power of this gift. They downloaded it, they installed it, they changed it, and they contributed their solutions back to the library community.

Several companies around the world support Koha, providing libraries with a full array of services including installation, migration assistance, data integrity testing, staff training, software maintenance, support and customization. To learn more about what services are available visit http://koha.org/support/

About Koha ZOOM
Koha ZOOM represents a generational leap in Koha's development. Notably, it includes a powerful search engine based on Zebra, a high-performance indexing and retrieval engine. Koha ZOOM's search engine can read structured records in practically any input format ( eg. email, XML, MARC ) and allows access to them through exact boolean search expressions and relevance-ranked free-text queries. It supports large databases ( more than ten gigabytes of data, tens of millions of records ) as well as incremental, safe database updates on live systems.

To try out Koha ZOOM for yourself, visit LibLime's demos:

http://liblime.com/demos

About LibLime
LibLime is the global leader in open-source solutions for libraries, with a mission to make open source accessible to libraries. Rather than sell software licenses for static, hard-to-customize software products, LibLime educates libraries about the benefits of open source, enabling them to make choices about how best to provide their communities and staff with better technology services. LibLime then facilitates implementation of open-source in libraries by providing outstanding development, customization, support and training solutions--solutions tailored to each library's needs. For more information, see http://liblime.com.

About Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library
Award winning Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library is the second-largest and busiest public library in Summit County, Ohio. With 38,000 active borrowers and over 150,000 titles, the library continues to expand services, programs and other resources to meet the needs of their growing community. Notably, Stow-Munroe Falls is the second public library in Ohio to switch to Koha. For more information about Stow-Munroe Falls' involvement in the Koha project, please contact Darrell Ulm, Systems Administrator ( tel: 330-688-3295 x117; email: [email protected] ). Their OPAC is available online at:

http://opac.smfpl.org