Re: [Koha-devel] Koha Foundation

[Joshua Ferraro]

On Wed, Mar 22, 2006 at 09:03:15PM -0300, Andres Tarallo wrote:
> Joshua Ferraro wrote:
> > Well, opting to join another group would be one way to go but
> > for the kinds of things I'd like the Koha Foundation to do it
> > probably wouldn't be ideal. For instance, it'd be neat if we
> > had a collaborative record-sharing system for Koha libraries
> > that they could subscribe too (nominal fee just to keep it going),
> > submit records to and use records from other libraries. 
> This would be nice, but I don't see that this couldn't be done under the
> umbrella of a bigger fundation.
How easy would it be to hire someone to work for 'the foundation' and do
original cataloging or to maintain the infrastructure if Koha developers
and Koha libraries weren't actually the ones running the non-profit? (I
ask out of ignorance).

> > That would
> > be much easier to set up with an organization that _we_ were 
> > running so that _we_ could make purchase decisions, etc.
> >
> > Also, I'd really like to go after some grant money -- at least
> > in the US, there are lots of non-profit grants available for
> > library projects that could really help us out in finding
> > resources for development projects. 
> Hmmm. .. Here in latin america libraries are like cinderella, the parent
> you hide in the cellar. Everyone agrees that are important but when
> investment is needed  is dificult to find may. Apart from that there's a
> strong marriage between libraries, UNESCO an CDS-ISIS (and his
> derivatives).  Maybe for develoers in developed countries this is usefull
Well, that's true in the US too, but there are some specific grants that
libraries or non-profits can go after (some Federal like the LSTA, but
some State-level as well) that we would stand a very good chance of 
getting if we were a bit organized about it. I think libraries and
grant committies would really support a well-organized effort to 
provide a highly-developed open-source ILS (since in the US at least
an ILS often takes up a considerable portion of the library budget).

Cheers,

-- 
Joshua Ferraro               VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                                Featuring Koha Open-Source ILS
address@hidden |Full Demos at http://liblime.com/koha |1(888)KohaILS