[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Can Evergreen do this

[Sally Fortin]

Hi Jim,

Since your collection contains photos and artifacts in addition to 
traditional books, you may want to look into open-source collections 
management software.   This software is often utilized by museums to 
catalog a wide range of objects, and they support a variety of metadata 
standards.   This software might give you more precise cataloging for 
your collections.  My ESI colleague, Angela Kilsdonk, mentioned a couple 
of products that you might want to explore:

CollectiveAccess <http://www.collectiveaccess.org/>
CollectionSpace <http://www.collectionspace.org/>

If you decide to use Evergreen or Koha, then you would be using MARC 
records to describe your objects and books.   As Galen and Jason 
mentioned, you could simplify the MARC record so that your description 
is very basic, which could make cataloging simple for your staff.  You 
may want to look at the demos for each and try to catalog a few items 
from your collection.  That might give you a sense of how they work and 
if they would meet the needs of your collection and your staff.

Hope that helps!

Thanks,
Sally

On 3/28/2012 6:18 PM, Jim Hall wrote:
> I'll try to answer each of you.
>
> Steve Wills: I checked the site you linked. I can't picture the church
> buying the Dell. They are determined that we use an old HP server that
> they have replaced. If we can get the software setup alone, maybe.
>
>
>
> Sally Fortin: It sounds like you're working on an interesting project!
>   Steve just made an interesting suggestion for working with digital
> content, and I have a few general questions that might help as you
> search for software to administer your church library:
>
> 1. What type of special collections do you have, e.g. photographs, objects, etc?
> **** Photos, paintings, artifacts, printed material, audio tapes -
> think of a museum.
>
> 2. Do you have digital content to make available?
> **** Not yet, but we will.
>
> 3. What kind of access do you want to provide to these items? Do you
> want to loan any of your collection(s) out to church members, the
> community, etc.? Or do you simply want to make these items "findable?"
> **** Access will from a computer in the church. Online someday, maybe.
> Nothing will ever be loaned to anybody. Findable and viewable but not
> touched. The items that will be viewable will have historical
> descriptions, dates, people, etc., and one to several photos of the
> materal. That's a healthy database.
>
> 4. Outside of special collections, what is your library collection
> like? It sounds like you have traditional books in addition to your
> special collections?
> **** Special Bibles, faith related books, tapes and, discs; and a
> fairly extensive number of ordinary books such as you would find in
> any library.
>
>
>
> George Dulmovich: Both systems are adept and flexible enough to manage
> a wide variety of collections, small and large, including "special
> collections."
>
> I don't want to discourage you from looking at Koha or Evergreen, but
> both systems would require your staff / volunteers to work in
> MARC21-based environment, which IMHO may be a big barrier for a small
> volunteer-driven library looking at adopting a Koha or EG solution.
> **** This may not be a problem if a good frontend can be found
>
> FWIW, my former boss is using this system in her church's library:
> www.resourcemate.com. It's not MARC21 compliant, etc., but she
> indicated good experience with it, especially given the number of
> non-librarian (and non-techie) volunteers engaged in managing,
> supporting their library.
> **** I will tell them about resourcemate at the meeting this Saturday.
>
>
>
> Jason Etheridge: Though I believe with Koha the record editor has
> labelled fields, so you could stick with Title and Author for
> simplistic cataloging (or with Evergreen, just remember 245 = title
> and 100 = author).  I know that would horrify a cataloger versed in
> MARC, though, and you'd be losing subject headings, record types, etc.
> **** I'll ask them what this will mean to them.
>
>
>
> Galen Charlton: In addition, Koha's MARC framework system would allow
> setting up a very minimal template for entering bibs so that
> volunteers don't have to even see anything other than (say) title and
> author.  Evergreen's record template system can also be used for
> setting up minimal templates, although they expose a bit more of the
> MARC.
>
>
>
>
> I do need to have you folks understand that the two committees want
> the same software to handle both library and museum. I don't know if
> that is at all possible, but I was tasked with asking, so I am.
>
> Jim


-- 
Sally Fortin
Director of Education
Equinox Software Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
Tel:    770-709-5572
Email:  sfortin at esilibrary.com
Fax:    1-866-497-6390