Koha - An Open Source Integrated Library Automation System

Abstract

The explosion of computer and communication technologies, which are referred to as information and communication technology (lCT) have affected almost all aspects of human life including library. Libraries have been looking forward for better technologies even before the onset of the computers. Now in the information era, in order to avoid obsolescence of information, library professionals are applying advanced technologies to enable its user community to get the right information at. the right time. In order to achieve this objective, libraries are automating their services. To automate library services efficiently and effectively one needs an integrated library automation package. There are several commercial library automation packages now available but the costs of these packages are beyond the reach of most of the libraries especially the school and college libraries. Koha is the first open source library automation package, which can be downloaded from the Internet site (http://www.koha.org). In this paper we have briefly discussed different features that are supported by Koha.