Library at National Botanic Garden of Wales successfully implements Koha

Librarians at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, chose Koha to create a catalogue for this new research/reference library, which is based within the Garden’s Research and Conservation group.  This group is headed by botanist Dr Natasha De Vere.
The process started last year, when our Librarian, Margot Greer, heard about Koha at a conference.  We then embarked on an evaluation and testing exercise, with the help of an IT-savvy student – the son of one of the Library volunteers.  We made the decision to go with Koha, had a day’s training this Spring from Jonathan Field (of PTFS) for three of our volunteers, then trained a further group of volunteers ourselves and started to import records from the Library at Kew Gardens, where we had matching records.  We believe that we were the first library in Wales to choose Koha.
Why Koha?  We were impressed by its versatility and the fact it was designed by librarians for librarians.  We like the Open Source principle… and the fact that it was free was also a factor, as we operate on a very small budget – indeed our Library is run entirely by volunteers.