Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Shameless plug

One of the lovelier bits of my CV is some volunteer work that I did at the local library while I was in college. I think of it as one of the lovelier bits, of course, because while it was volunteer work, it was going to community service. Take this as a note, if you're under-age, drinking a glass of wine with dinner at a state park can get you in trouble, but ultimately seems to help in the long run. All that being said, some folks that I met while working at that library have gone on to bigger and better things.
The company is called LibLime, they do open-source library software that, from everything I've seen, kicks ass. But please, as somebody who went to school for PR, don't trust me on that. You'd be much better off trusting the Geauga County Public Library system, or, if more convincing is needed, the Guggenheim.
I work in a public library that uses Sirsi-Dynix, which is, when compared to the leading competitor in the area, Triple-I, wonderfully dynamic. Thing is, I still have issues getting the information that I need into the system, and unfortunately, when it goes down, you'd better be able to figure out a way to get it back up yourself, because they might not be around to help. My library is switching to Triple-I in the future, mostly because of reliable support.
Koha, being open source, is inherently dynamic. The work that I'm spending weeks fighting against our software to let me accomplish can, and likely has, already been made into an option on it by myself or a colleague anywhere from Ohio to New Zealand that is looking for the same solution. As far as support service goes, think about it, the underlying software is free, support service is what you're paying for, they'll make good on it.

And really now, being able to renew your books on AIM, that's just cool.

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