Small fish in a small pond
I was enjoying a little inner glow following the go-live of Koha at Tikokino School when news of another Koha migration, in Turkey, came through the mailing lists.
There is a bit of a difference in scale between the two projects though; Tikokino School has 45 patrons, Turkey has over 800 000; Tikokino School has just over 2000 items, Turkey has over 8 million.
It would be easy to feel over shadowed by this term of events, but rather than feeling dwarfed by such a large project, I am very pleased that little Tikokino School is able to benefit from the same features that attract much larger users.
Almost half of all New Zealand primary schools have less than 100 students; my own children went to a school with a roll that peaked at 65 and is now much smaller. I have always believed that being a rural or a small school should not mean accepting ‘second best’.
Koha is a world class library management system that allows schools, even small ones, to benefit from features that other systems call ‘add ons’ or ‘extra modules’.
I hope the folk in Turkey get to savour a little inner glow when their project goes live. Best of luck to them.
