As of this past Monday five out of the six libraries in the first nhaisLOCAL group have live Koha systems up and running. The 6th one had a problem sending their data to ByWater for loading and is now expected to go live in early August. There are always lots of little things to learn, and tweak, and sort out with a new automation system and the Group 1 libraries are in the thick of this process at this point.
Getting the first group of libraries up and running has been a learning experience for NHAIS Services as well as for the individual libraries. Among the many lessons we learned are that we need more structured ways to collect data to move libraries from their current systems (or their current card catalogs) to Koha and that six was too big a group to comfortably shepherd through the process.
Our next group of libraries will be going live by early 2014 and will include a maximum of 3 libraries. Then we will add up to 3 libraries at a time over 6 month periods. Once we have gone through a couple more cycles we will reconsider the pace and quantity of new nhaisLOCAL libraries that can be implemented.
A collection of information and observations about the nhaisLOCAL open source library automation project. Pricing and terms are available on the nhaisLOCAL webpage. Questions about this project should be directed to Mary Russell, Librarian, NHAIS & Technical Services, NH State Library.
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