Greetings, Here's an review published in Library Link newsletter in the Library Technology section.(http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/technology) Regards, Saiful KOHA - AN OPEN SOURCE SUCCESS STORY Brenda Chawner Victoria University of Wellington In 1999, Rosalie Blake, Head of Libraries, Horowhenua Library Trust (HLT), in rural New Zealand, faced a dilemma. The software used by the HLT to handle the day-to-day transactions (everything from lending books to reserving items to buying new material to paying fines) was 12 years old, and no longer being developed by the company that developed it. In addition, the network it used was not expected to be Y2K compliant, meaning that it would need to be replaced. She began the usual practice of issuing an RFP (request for proposal) for a replacement system, but quickly realised that more modern software would not only be expensive, but it would also incur significantly increased running costs for faster telecommunications lines. One of the issues people in rural New Zealand face (along with their counterparts in other parts of the world) is low-quality phone lines that don't support high-speed Internet connections. Though these are slowly being upgraded, installing a better line just for HLT was going to be very expensive (5 times higher than the current system). For a relatively small library system (3 branches currently online, plus one operated by volunteers), this would have a significant effect on the amount of money available to buy resources for library patrons. Was there an alternative? Rachel Hamilton-Williams, of Katipo Communications, Wellington, thought there was. Rather than using Windows clients, why not do something that was based on the Internet? Telnet could be used to provide a simple and fast interface that could work over an ordinary phone line, and a web browser could be used for other things. Katipo submitted a proposal to develop a new system for HLT, based on a fully open source development platform (Linux, MySQL, and Perl), and recommended that HLT release the software as open source as well. This was for two main reasons - first, to give HLT a form of insurance if anything happened to Katipo, and second, because Katipo is primarily a web development company, not a software marketing company. The software would be called ‘Koha’, a Maori (New Zealand’s indigenous people) word meaning ‘gift’. HLT accepted the proposal, and the hard work started. For four months in late 1999, Katipo staff worked with HLT staff to design and develop the system, with the goal of having the core functionality available on the first day of business in 2000. They made it, and Koha became the world’s first open source library management system. It won 2 awards in a single week in 2000 (the 3M Award for Innovation in Libraries and the ANZ Interactive Award, Community/Not for Profit Category). Koha was released in 2000 as open source software under the GNU public license, and is available from Sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=16466. But how well has the idea of an open source library management system worked? There is now an active group of developers on four continents adding new features to Koha, such as improved support for the MARC formats, templates to make the installation easier, and porting the interface to other languages (Polish, French, Italian, Spanish, plus interest in several others). The 'kaitiaki' (a Maori word meaning 'guardian') is Pat Eyler, who lives near Seattle, Washington. Koha 1.2 was released in early June 2002, and Koha 1.4 (incorporating MARC) is planned for later this year. Another project is underway to prepare better documentation for Koha. Steve Tonnesen, Network Technician for Coast Mountains School District, British Columbia, Canada, is a Koha convert. In his own words: ‘Tried it. Was broken. Fixed it. Love it.’ In the fall of 2000, one of the elementary schools in the district approached Steve with a problem. They had been using an Apple II computer with a label printer for printing out library sign out cards, book pockets, and spine labels for the books in their library. Inexplicably, this system had failed (Apple II computers were first introduced in 1977), and they wanted something to replace it. A quick search of the Internet turned up a project called Koha that claimed to be the first open source library automation program. Steve downloaded Koha and tried to get it working. It took a fair bit of fiddling, but he managed to get it up and running within a couple of days. There were definitely some issues that needed to be worked out. Because Koha was originally developed for the HLT, there were a lot of ‘features’ in Koha that were very specific to them. Because Koha was released under the GPL, he had full, legal access to modifying the source code, and began to do so. He rewrote the Circulation module so that it could support multiple user interfaces and created a Graphical User Interface and a Web interface for the Circulation module in addition to the original console interface. He also wrote up a script that allowed Koha to import MARC records either singly or in batch mode, and added a Z39.50 client so that librarians could search for MARC records from other libraries. After Steve had the first school set up using Koha, word got around that a new option was available. There had been a lot of talk about standardizing all the schools in the district on one proprietary library automation program in order to make technical support less troublesome. The problem with this idea always came down to cost. Proprietary library automation programs are not cheap, and the budget of a typical elementary school simply cannot support one. Soon Steve had three schools using Koha as their only library automation program and a few others using Koha as an OPAC on top of their proprietary products (which charge an additional licensing fee for every search station). Recently, when two of the schools using Koha were closed down due to budget restraints, the librarians requested that the proprietary library automation packages in the schools they were moving to be replaced with Koha! Cost is obviously not the only issue. These librarians actually like Koha. Steve contributed his enhancements back to Koha, and, in a nice demonstration of the benefits of using open source software, the HLT is now using one of the improved interfaces to the circulation module in the main library. In August 2002, the Nelsonville Public Library in Ohio announced that it would migrate to Koha over the next year, and Stephen Hedges says "We needed the freedom to change things, to change the code if necessary, because the types of things we want to do are not going to appear in commercial library software for years" (BiblioTech Review, September 2001, http://www.biblio-tech.com//btr11/S_PD.cfm?DO=A&ArticleID=408&issueno=21&XSection=BTR%5Fbusiness) For more information about Koha, see: http://koha.org/index.html You can see the HLT implementation of Koha's OPAC (online public access catalogue) at: http://opac.library.org.nz/ Rachel Hamilton-Williams was recently interviewed about Koha on National Radio (New Zealand), and you can hear the interview at: http://www.radionz.co.nz/digitallife/index.html. For a more general overview of the open source software development model, see: Bretthauer, David (2002) ‘Open Source Software in Libraries: An Update’. Library Hi Tech News 19 (5):3+