Hi all,

we are looking for an open-source solution to manage scheduling for our meeting rooms, including a way for patrons to reserve the rooms (with staff approval). We are happy to modify something to fit our exact needs if it is already solid. We've been trying to work with the vendor Evanced for their Spaces product, but we have been disappointed by the lack of customizability and the black box problem.

I'm aware of OpenRoom and MRBS, and searching the c4l archives I've found discussion on this topic, but that thread was from nearly three years ago. What are people using nowadays?

I like OpenRoom's apparent simplicity, and that its feature set is nearly exactly all we need. However, my concerns with it are the use of php's mysql_* functions, which have been deprecated in favor of mysqli; and the many notices/errors it shows when I've run it on a test server. (The installation guide seems to anticipate this: "If you are experiencing problems with OpenRoom such as being unable to log in, modules (such as the calendar or day view) not loading, or random warnings or notices appearing on pages, until the code has been corrected to fix these issues, you may want to try suppressing notices and warnings by modifying your php.ini file in your PHP installation, and restarting PHP." But that provides scarce comfort.) Also, I can see recent patches on Sourceforge, but the forum there seems basically dead.

I'm also looking at MRBS, but haven't installed it yet or formed a clear opinion. I'm interested to hear others' thoughts, and whether there is a good solution out there I haven't heard about yet.

P.S. Hat tips to Matt Sherman for suggesting OpenRoom, and Peter Murray of Lyrasis for doing a free webinar about FOSS4Lib, which led me to MRBS.


Best,
Dominic


Dominic Bordelon
Librarian I
Computer Services
East Baton Rouge Parish Library - www.ebrpl.com
(225) 231-3720