Recommendations for zotero-friendly web-based library system?

kithairon · June 28, 2015

Looking for suggestions for a webbased OPAC System for a small, dedicated library (<10'000 books) in the humanities. The current, non-webbased system is system is Concourse OPAC Booksystem. One desideratum would be ease of use with Zotero. A Zotero user and sympathetic to the institution I'm ignorant of library systems and thought users of this forum are bound to have some ideas. Thanks for thoughts.
Marc

zuphilip · June 28, 2015

I think VuFind is working pretty well with Zotero (if all metadata options are activated) and it is also Open Source. If you can afford enough money then there might other possibilities. However, these "discovery systems" are build to scale also much further than 10.000 items and you may need someone to maintain such a system.

However, just for the integration with Zotero, this might be too much. Maybe, you can receive some MARC data over a Z39.50 interface from the library system?

kithairon · June 29, 2015

Thanks, zuphilip, for your suggestions; have passed them on to the respective people redesigning the library system.

adamsmith · June 29, 2015

I'm less of an expert on this than zuphilip (who actually is an academic librarian) but from the Zotero side, we've been very happy with Koha implementations, too. Also free and open source.

kithairon · June 29, 2015

@sebastian: Thanks. Will add this to the list of recommendations.
Grateful for both of your hints – and so are the guys of the small library.

zuphilip · June 30, 2015

Yeah, it depends on what you are looking for exactly. Koha is AFAIK a library systems, i.e. where the librarian can manage all their data and especially information about users and loans are saved. VuFind is a discovery system which is used on top of an library system (e.g. Koha) and will give the users a search interface (OPAC, discovery system) with possibilities to interact.