Open Source Library Implementations
2:30 PM – 3:15 PM
Karen Kohn, Collection Development Manager, Arcadia University
Eric McCloy, Executive Director, Library and Information Technology, Arcadia University

How to prepare for a migration

Why? Access to the data MY way

web design was stunted

Web accessibility poor

Thick client outdated and tedious to upgrade

Saves TCO

Excited about OPAC interface improvements

Total ILS savings 25%

Setup Koha server and started nightly dump from Sirsi, began z39.50 search into Koha from Drupal website

It was appealing how easy it was to customize for each person

Weekly meetings for changes and bug reports – will go live sooner than expected

Break project into manageable chunks

Improvements are seen quickly

Leave staff time for development

IT not afraid of data migration

Focus on database structure not on what reports you can get, because you can do anything with a good data structure

Koha and web Drupal site each on virtual machine – Linux 2gb and runs fine – MySQL and perl