Library catalogue software?

[zag]

Are there any Open Source Library catalogues around that are any good?

 

We currently use Oliver but Softlink want to charge £1,500 quid to upgrade to the SQL version and I'm simply not prepared to pay for, so looking alternatives.

Edited May 18, 2010 by zag

[James2k]

Not Open Source but there is another firm called MicroLib (MLS)

[p858snake]

Here is a comparison of three Open source Library Management Systems (although its from 2005) and http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=opensource+library+management shows a couple more possibilities as well.

[robk]

We are just in the process of moving from Softlink Alice to MLS Eclipse.net. We were not impressed with Softlink's customer service. MLS appear better, but its early days.

 

Not seen anything open source recently, but thats not to say it doesn`t exist!

[zag]

Any idea how much you paid for Eclipse.net?

[Sylv3r]

I've recently had demos of both Oliver and Eclipse .net and from initial thoughts I much prefer the look and feel as well as the features of Eclipse .net

 

@zag - if you were to host it yourself internally your looking at about £3.5k

[SYNACK]

Here is the one that we use which is avalible and well supported in the UK Access-It Library and Resource Manager

 

Not open source or free but seems to work fine.

[special_k]

Eclipse.net here, cant find the purchase order so i couldnt tell you how much. However according to the Gods that are Civica (BSF in Sheffield) we are to throw away Eclipse and use their own system called Spydus. Any info on Spydus guys? Ive been told its a fancy spreadsheet that doesnt work very well.

[_techie_]

Hi

 

We use ALICE here (predecessor to Oliver), but are moving to Oliver possibly next year.

I am sad to hear that you think the customer support is poor, as I have had very good service from them, with a few minor issues we have had.

Considering the ageing technology ALICE is built on, they have had managed to resolve everything we have thrown at them, including a basic rebuild of some corrupted files.

 

I am looking forward to OLIVER, especially as they have been developing some Moodle blocks, which can provide reading lists etc etc....

We will be sticking with Softlink. The person who has helped us in the past was called Simon, who was very helpful. Not too sure if this will help you though. I admit that sometimes you need to..."can I speak to someone a bit more qualified etc" but you normally get through to someone who knows what they are talking about.

 

Cheers

_techie_

[tmcd35]

Just started the move from Eclipse 2 to Eclipse.net. We paid in the region of £1500 for everything (including SIMS intrgration and Fronter Integration).

 

Eclipse.net can be slow. I've found using Win2k3 rather than Win2k8 and using SQL Express 05 rather than SQL Express 08 helped boost speed a bit. We're running in a VM with 2 CPU's and 4Gb Ram. The other thing that seems to help with speed is adding the Eclipse.net webserver to IE's trusted sites list.

 

Our librarian wasn't happy when I first showed her Eclipse.net and she was shouting for a refund, wanting to stick with the older Eclipse 2. However 2 weeks in a and we've rebuilt the server around Win2k3 and SQL05, and spent some quality time together really looking at the new featues and differences and she's getting more confident and happy.

 

I must say, apart from speed, I'm impressed with what I've seen. It looks very powerful, with some good search and customisation options.

 

We're looking to go live fully from September.

[powdarrmonkey]

The leading open (and free, as in speech) library solution is called Koha, boasting multiple world-wide public libraries and several awards.

[goodhead]

we have been with MLS for very long time and being using eclipse 2. We recently bought .net hosted. Have had major problems with it. Was very slow to access stuff. indenti kit didn't work. Had plugin issues also. We are now in process of going back to eclipse 2. Thats having issues with data conevrsiion now also.

[ZeroHour]

Just thought I would post a warning, we have had nothing but pain with our oliver install and its archaic database which meant we have had to contact their support a lot. The support is poor I can confirm and the product looks cruddy. Softlink support didnt even know what proxies were... They have supposed to have changed the db in the newest version but they wouldnt offer a sensible price for an upgrade and I have lost all faith in the company so we are looking at others now.

[p858snake]

I never used it personally, but my Highschool used AIMS Concord AIMS - the smartest way to manage a modern school library

[zag]

Just thought I would post a warning, we have had nothing but pain with our oliver install and its archaic database which meant we have had to contact their support a lot. The support is poor I can confirm and the product looks cruddy. Softlink support didnt even know what proxies were... They have supposed to have changed the db in the newest version but they wouldnt offer a sensible price for an upgrade and I have lost all faith in the company so we are looking at others now.

 

Yep I had the same experience with the SQL upgrade costs. Its shocking they want to try and charge £1000 for an upgrade of the database only!

[TechMonkey]

we have been with MLS for very long time and being using eclipse 2. We recently bought .net hosted. Have had major problems with it. Was very slow to access stuff. indenti kit didn't work. Had plugin issues also. We are now in process of going back to eclipse 2. Thats having issues with data conevrsiion now also.

 

That's not promising. We originally bought Eclipse.net a few years back and had so many problems with it we got them to downgrade us to Eclipse2. The issue keeps popping up about whether to upgrade or not and this has answered that question for now.

[MK-2]

we use access-it and to be honest it's been great. support is top notch, have given me guides and help at very short notice, the librarian loves it too

[SHimmer45]

we have been with MLS for very long time and being using eclipse 2. We recently bought .net hosted. Have had major problems with it. Was very slow to access stuff. indenti kit didn't work. Had plugin issues also. We are now in process of going back to eclipse 2. Thats having issues with data conevrsiion now also.

 

 

We went through this pain with .NET when we upgraded, we held off for a year as they were having so much bother at schools who had adopted early, and were advised to by the SLS

 

Main Issues we had were:

Slow to access resources (latest updated fixed this) (December 2009 ish)

MLS Scripting Internet Explorer Plugin causing the keyboard to drop characters

very limited documentation.

Email setup isnt detailed in the older manual versions and the details of what .NET needs is buried in the .NET directory on the server.

Identikit doesnt really work.

Various UI bug's (guarding salutations only displaying 1st character from manual import, Silverlight doesnt resize properly on a 15" screen)

it does have nice features and can help bring a library to the pupils but there are too many rough edges and i feel the customer is doing alot of their testing.

 

They have been trying to sell us the hosted solution and the moodle plugin's but we are not going to be doing this as we have just got it to a stage where it is nice and stable and working well, also their support desk can be hard to get hold of, however when they supply the information it is clear and easy to digest.