Bess, I will point the folks there at OSS and the eIFL site. What's the
best first step for them to take? Is there anyone nearby that they can
talk to? Is there a way to take training to them?

I'll be trying to assess their technical expertise while I'm there,
which will give us more of an idea of what they might be able to do.

kc

Elizabeth Sadler wrote:
> Hi, Karen.
>
> You and I have chatted off list as well, but I also wanted to remind
> everyone that eIFL-FOSS is about to start our first pilot programs for
> open source ILS migrations. This will include training for systems
> librarians from the pilot countries, and the pilot libraries will also
> be generating huge amounts of documentation about their installation
> and migration processes. For Karen in Kosovo, or anyone else who has
> ties to libraries in the developing world, I can't urge you strongly
> enough to try to participate in a larger programme trying to tackle
> these issues. It is not a replacement for the broader open source
> community (and indeed, as Josh mentions, the Koha list is a fantastic
> resource), but it will supplement that support with training,
> networking, and partnership opportunities that might not otherwise be
> available.
>
> Also, both of our Koha and Evergreen trainers for our upcoming
> workshops are active in code4lib. I love you people!
>
> Cheers,
> Bess
>
> Elizabeth (Bess) Sadler
> Advisory Board Member, eIFL-FOSS
> http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-foss
>
> On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 5:01 PM, Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I would love to recommend Koha, and I will definitely include Koha
>> in my
>> talk about current ILS's. However, 1) I do not know how much technical
>> expertise they have and 2) I do not know how much technical
>> expertise it
>> takes to install Koha. I actually tried installing it from the
>> instructions
>> on the Koha site and failed, so I *do* know they need more Unix
>> chops than
>> I've got. Not sayin' much.
>>
>> I suspect that no matter what system they use, they will at least
>> initially
>> need quite a bit of hand-holding. That's a bit hard to do
>> considering both
>> the geographical and language barriers. But I  hope to come back
>> with more
>> of an idea of what they can do. I fear that I may not be leaving
>> them with
>> any solutions, just more complex questions.
>
>

--
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
[log in to unmask] http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
------------------------------------