Costs

(Please add in any details regarding Costs for the collection)

The library will need an annual subscription to OCLC's Worldcat Database. While this will incur a substantial cost, the reduction in staff time otherwise involved in creating original catalogue records will more than compensate. For the cataloguing workflow, the Worldcat database will provide a quality and readily available source of good cataloguing copy (Libraries Australia, n.d.). Another potential cost for the library includes staff training for the assistant librarian, who will be trained to carry out cataloguing duties. While the Koha LMS is free of charge, costs may be incurred in time wastage, as open source systems often require a greater level of IT skill, and are not as intuitive as proprietary software. Koha has a customer support service, which will help somewhat in reducing levels of time wastage. The library will also need to purchase up-to-date AACR2 and MARC21 manuals, for when staff queries regarding the content standard and metadata scheme need to be answered. Costs will also be incurred through acquisitions. The library will continue to keep acquisition costs in line with their annual acquisitions budget.

(Gary's addition)

While there is no cost in obtaining the software for the Koha LMS considerable training of staff is required, however in the experience of other institutions this cost is still far lower than the installation costs for proprietary LMS. The cost of availing of PTFS technical support is difficult to estimate, but in studies from other jurisdictions indicate that overall costs of implementing open source LMS is approximately one fifth of proprietary systems.