I used to work there (the State Library of Pennsylvania). And I believe that, technically, it is the "Office of Commonwealth Libraries" (OCL) that would be in the authority position. (The "Office" consists of two "bureaus": the Bureau of State Library (BSL), and the Bureau of Library Development (BLD). BSL is a large library in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. BLD hands out money across the state, deals with certification, and grants, and cooperative contracts, and so on.)
If your library wants to go it alone, I don't see how the OCL or BLD can stop you. But if your library doesn't play the game it won't get any of the meager funds that are still available in an extremely tight state budget. That means you'd have to seek local funding to pay for things (ILS, databases, ILL, etc.) that would have higher non-consortium prices. And few, if any, of the local systems in Pennsylvania can afford to think of doing that. And it's easier for the administrators in Harrisburg to decide on something and then tell libraries that 'this is what we're supporting'. As Kyle wrote, I too think it is 'a strictly financial decision.' Those administrators don't necessarily "have that much authority over individual libraries". But they do hold the purse strings to an ever-shrinking state purse. It always comes back to who holds the purse strings. My personal guess is that a Koha library in Pennsylvania could remain a Koha library. It just won't be able to use the support system that the state administrators are setting up for an Evergreen-based system. But that Koha library wasn't getting state support for its ILS beforehand, so is there a loss? Kurt Bodling Technical Services Librarian George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens -----Original Message----- From: koha-boun...@lists.katipo.co.nz [mailto:koha-boun...@lists.katipo.co.nz] On Behalf Of Cab Vinton Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 8:58 AM To: Kyle Hall Cc: koha; koha-devel Subject: Re: [Koha] The Potential Death of Koha in Pennsylvania Libraries Wow, does the State Library really have that much authority over individual libraries (legal or otherwise)? I would find that hugely surprising. But then here in NH we don't even have any county-wide systems. For the most part, it's every town/ city library for itself ... Cab Vinton, Director Sanbornton Public Library Sanbornton, NH On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 8:44 AM, Kyle Hall <kyle.m.h...@gmail.com> wrote: > The State Library her in Pennsylvania has started planning for a > state-wide ILS. My Director, John Brice attended a tech committee > netting this past Friday, bringing myself and Cindy Murdock as well. > At the meeting, it was announced that HSLC and Equinox will be > installing Evergreen in 33 libraries currently using Millennium. In > all likelyhood, in the future all the libraries in the state will be > required to switch over to Evergreen. Needless to say, my boss and > myself are extremely upset by this proposition to say the least. > > I would applaud the choice of a FOSS ILS, but the choice would not > bring any advantage. It appears to me to be a strictly financial > decision. The idea being pushed at the meeting was to give libraries > as little choice as possible to keep down costs. If we were forced to > switch to Evergreen, not only would our huge investment in Koha via > time and money be thrown away, but we would be forced into a new > system over which we would be no control or ability to customize. We > would have no control over the quality of service, as the servers are > planned to be centralized somewhere within the state. I do not relish > the idea of our current freedoms being taken away. > > Kyle > > http://www.kylehall.info > Information Technology > Crawford County Federated Library System ( http://www.ccfls.org ) > _______________________________________________ > Koha mailing list > k...@lists.katipo.co.nz > http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha > _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list k...@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha _______________________________________________ Koha-devel mailing list Koha-devel@lists.koha.org http://lists.koha.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
