On Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 3:14 PM, rowan eisner <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Ok, I tried to sign up for WSSL and you have to be in US. Also, if it will
> cost 'a cup of coffee a day' am I right that would be at least $700 a year?
> That's our entire annual budget. So probably only for first world countries
> anyway. And you're meant to have one or two full-time staff which we don't
> have. Still, I'll email them and see what they say. There are probably
> 1000s
> of 3rd world libraries doing everything manually still and if there are
> economies of scale we may be able to afford it.
>

How big are your collections, and roughly how many circulations do you do?
My concern would be that since you lack staff and resources, you'd have some
real headaches if you became dependent on a system and something went wrong
or whoever sets things up goes away.

A traditional system with checkout cards actually works quite well and will
let you see what you own, what is out, and who has it if it should have been
returned. When you add up the time for keeping all the info in the system up
to date, maintaining the system, teaching people how to use it, and dealing
with changes in technology you may not come out ahead with automation.

kyle

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Kyle Banerjee
Digital Services Program Manager
Orbis Cascade Alliance
[log in to unmask] / 503.877.9773