On Aug 8, 2014, at 10:13 PM, Riley Childs wrote:

> Ok, so you want to access LC data to get Dewey decimal numbers? You need to use a z39.50 client to pull the record, you can do it with marc edit but it is labor intensive.  You would need to roll your own solution for this or use classify.oclc.org to get book info (this doesn't give you API access). Your best bet is classify.oclc.org.
> 
> That aside:
> Honestly you might be better off running with something like Koha, writing a home brew library system is no cake walk, trust me I know from 2 years of experience trying to code one and ultimately moving to koha. Koha can be run on a VPS (Digital Ocean is what i would use) or on an old PC in the corner. I am in a situation similar to yours if you want to contact me off list I can give you some advice.


I 100% agree -- you'd be better off going with something intended for personal libraries (eg Delicious Library) and give it a dedicated machine before trying to roll your own.

oss4lib hasn't been updated in a while, but Lyrasis is maintaining foss4lib.org as a catalog of free & open source library software, and has a 'ILS feature comparison tool' which lists feature differences between Koha and Evergreen:

	http://ils.foss4lib.org/

-Joe