OpenBiblio: a free and open source integrated library management system that answers small libraries’ automation needs.
Date
2017-05-30
Authors
Bwalya, Tuesday
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Balkan Libraries Union
Abstract
This paper assesses the suitability of Openbilio as a free and open source integrated library
management system that answers small libraries' automation needs considering the fact that
many free and open source integrated library management systems exit that require more skills
and resources which these libraries do not have. The study was a qualitative technical paper on
OpenBiblio. Qualitative data through documents analysis on OpenBiblio was collected and
analyzed in light of its strengths and weaknesses. Secondly, the author used his personal
experience of working with OpenBiblio to evaluate its suitability for use among small libraries.
The findings show that OpenBiblio is suitable for small libraries because it is easy to install and
configure as compared to Koha, Evergreen and other integrated library management systems
which require immense technical knowledge of Linux, MYSQL, HTML and CSS. Further, it
has also been observed that OpenBiblio can run on a small computer with at least 512Mb of
RAM and can run on both Windows and Linux. The study also discovered that OpenBiblio has
four modules (Cataloguing, Circulation, OPAC, and Patron management that represent the core
functions of small libraries; thus it computerizes the main functions of the library. OpenBiblio
was also found to comply with main library standards such as Z39.50 and MARC 21. The paper
however discovered that OpenBiblio has limited documentation on the Internet that makes it
difficult for new beginners to install and configure it
Description
Keywords
OpenBiblio.
Free and open source software.
Integrated library management system,Library.