looking for library software for my school

Hi!

My school is looking for software to administrate their library. I
thought something like that should be existing, maybe a database or
something similar.

Can anyone give me arecommendation?

Thankx!



--
Michael

r-znvy: zvpunry.wryqra jro.qr (chg gur "@" jurer vg svgf...)
ab fcnz cyrnfr

upro <upro@gmx.net>,
In a message on Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:12:22 +0100, wrote :

u> Hi!
u>
u> My school is looking for software to administrate their library. I
u> thought something like that should be existing, maybe a database or
u> something similar.
u>
u> Can anyone give me arecommendation?

http://www.deepsopft.com/HomeLibrarian/

The code is a bit dated (I can send your some patches). I have compiled
with with RH 7.3 (g++ 2.96) / Tcl 8.3.2 -- it *should* compile with g++
3 and probably Tcl 8.4.

u>
u> Thankx!
u>
u>
u>
u> --
u> Michael
u>
u> r-znvy: zvpunry.wryqra jro.qr (chg gur "@" jurer vg svgf...)
u> ab fcnz cyrnfr
u>

\/
Robert Heller ||InterNet: heller@cs.umass.edu
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller || heller@deepsoft.com
http://www.deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153

upro wrote:
> Hi!
>
> My school is looking for software to administrate their library. I
> thought something like that should be existing, maybe a database or
> something similar.
>
> Can anyone give me arecommendation?
>
> Thankx!

I think R.H. meant this link:
http://www.deepsoft.com/cgi-bin/deep.../HomeLibrarian

There are two major areas of library admin -- handling the books on the
shelves, patron checkouts, returns, fines, etc. The other is the
"business" end. Fines mostly -- petty cash/change exchanging hands in
the library itself.

At the school library where I have worked they are only interested in
the first. The business office handles the, well, "real money"
business of purchases, etc.

You need to find out what is the common standard where you live so that
you can interact with other libraries and publishers. Most library
software (in the US, anyway) uses MARC records in a (sorta) specific
format. This will allow you to maintain your records in a standard
format and greatly vex you at the same time it eases your life. It is
an international standard.

You do _not_ want to adopt one system/standard format only to decide
you want to change to another in the future -- you'll have to re-enter
everything by hand or pay big $ for someone to program a conversion for
you.

Either way, the first time you will have to enter your records by hand
-- this could take 1-2 _years_ depending on the number of books you
have, the number of new books that arrive in the process, and the
number of staff available. This is re: "complete" records -- shorter
time for the info needed to get started, maybe 2-4 months.

Then there are inventories at end of the year for which you will
definitely want a bar code reader to do the work. Do this from the
start -- waiting requires going back and entering the barcode numbers
_for_each_book_. Easiest to do this when doing the initial book data
entry. At the very least, give your books bar code numbers now even if
you wait to get a reader.

Then there is the question of what cataloging system to use. The most
common software in the US is Columbia, and it supports both Dewey and
LOC. You will almost certainly use your current system.

And, since you've cleverly obscured your geographic origin, you may
need to consider the need for language support, ie., the software must
be able to perform sorts and collations in accordance with the language
you use for your records.

If your school is small and you don't mind going your own way, use the
simplest, easiest to use system you can find and don't bother with the
extras. There is little to recommnend an extensive feature set that is
non-standard and will prove deadly when/if you decide to use a standard
format in the future. Just make sure it can export records to text,
..dbf, or MARC records to avoid having to start completely from scratch
again.

Hopefully this is enough to get you googling. There's tons of stuff
out there re: academic library software. You may even find something
free, standards based, and capable of meeting you basic needs.
hth,
prg
email above disabled

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upro wrote:
> Hi!
>
> My school is looking for software to administrate their library. I
> thought something like that should be existing, maybe a database or
> something similar.

There are several Open Source "Lending Library" management packages available
on freshmeat.net and sourceforge.org

One that comes highly recommended is Koha (from http://www.koha.org/ ). Koha
was written up in a 2003 Linux Journal article, and apparently is used by a
large number of public libraries instead of propriatary library management
software.

- --
Lew Pitcher

Master Codewright & JOAT-in-training | GPG public key available on request
Registered Linux User #112576 (http://counter.li.org/)
Slackware - Because I know what I'm doing.
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Lew Pitcher wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> upro wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > My school is looking for software to administrate their library. I
> > thought something like that should be existing, maybe a database or
> > something similar.
>
> There are several Open Source "Lending Library" management packages
available
> on freshmeat.net and sourceforge.org
>
> One that comes highly recommended is Koha (from http://www.koha.org/
). Koha
> was written up in a 2003 Linux Journal article, and apparently is
used by a
> large number of public libraries instead of propriatary library
management
> software.
>
> - --
> Lew Pitcher

Thank you, Lew. I could not think of the name of this to save my life
and was too busy at the time to google.

I can highly recommend it for a school on a budget and it is more
powerful than you might imagine. Of course, full power means someone
familiar with db application programming, but out of the box, I was
impressed with my 2 month spare time test drive. That was 18 months
ago and it looks to be coming right along.
Thanks again,
prg
email above disabled

upro wrote:
> Hi!
>
> My school is looking for software to administrate their library. I
> thought something like that should be existing, maybe a database or
> something similar.
>
> Can anyone give me arecommendation?
>
> Thankx!

Try the GPL version of MySQL MaxDB, it's an enterprise database
as Oracle or Informix. It has a very good web interface to
administrate it and some Windows programs to do the same job.
It also has ODBC (for windows and unix) and JDBC drivers.

But you will need an application that uses the database. You
can use PHP to build one or use something like Access to
do the job.

--

Jose Maria Lopez Hernandez
Director Tecnico de bgSEC
jkerouac@bgsec.com
bgSEC Seguridad y Consultoria de Sistemas Informaticos
http://www.bgsec.com
ESPAÑA

The only people for me are the mad ones -- the ones who are mad to live,
mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,
the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn
like fabulous yellow Roman candles.
-- Jack Kerouac, "On the Road"