[Koha-devel] Convincing City IT Dept.

[MJ Ray]

"Ed Veal" <EVeal at mail.ci.lubbock.tx.us> wrote:
> [...]  However, what has happened is that they seem to think
> that they have the expertise to do this on their own. I shudder at the
> thought. They have already set up a server and are wanting my advice and
> guidance in migrating data. My advice is to contract it out, we don't
> have the resources or the expertise to accomplish this. 
>  
> So my question is how do I convince the IT department of this? I can't
> seem to get it through to them that this is not just any old SQL
> database.

I'd insist on a pilot service and set tests for it.  The IT department
may have a good business reason for blowing its entire budget and then
some (probably) on learning Koha and all the associated technologies,
or they may not, but they've got to make that decision if it's their
budget paying for it.

If it's not their budget, get the budget holder to buy from a chosen
supplier instead of drifting into the internal IT department.

I'm somewhat mixed about this sort of thing.  While I'd love more work
for Koha support companies, it's not a closed circle, education is one
of the cooperative principles that I hold dear and training a city IT
department into being a Koha support service could have some benefits
for the Koha community.  It's actually quite rare that TTLLP deploys
Koha on an all-in-one service plan - while I've nothing against doing
that, we more often train local IT workers in the basics like keeping
the system running, and concentrate on the "interesting" problems.
The more people who know Koha, the better!

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237