On the 3rd December EIFL-FOSS is organising a webinar looking at OpenBiblio, an open source integrated library management system of particular interest to small libraries with limited technical expertise and resources of less than 50,000 volumes

OpenBiblio is based upon MARC21 record format but any compatible format records may be imported (the session will also mention MarcEdit, free software for helping to get records into a format suitable for importing). OpenBiblio contains modules for OPAC, circulation, cataloguing, administration and reporting from the database. It has been translated (localised) into Spanish and Armenian and is distributed under the GNU General Public License, meaning it can be freely used and shared by anyone. It is used widely, for example by regional and municipal libraries in Armenia and by primary schools in Chile.

The principal speaker will be Tigran Zargaryan, Director of the National Library of Armenia and also EIFL FOSS Coordinator for Armenia. He led a project for EIFL FOSS in 2011 to roll out OpenBiblio to small and rural libraries in Armenia. The second speaker, Irakli Garibashvili, the EIFL FOSS Coordinator for Georgia, will report on his work using OpenBiblio with both public and academic small libraries in Georgia, as well as how he used OpenBiblio to introduce the very concept of Integrated Library Systems (ILS) software to libraries who had never used one before.

Online Workshop Details

• Title: OpenBiblio - getting small and rural libraries online and into the digital age.
• Date: Monday, December 3, 2012
• Duration: 09.00-10.00 GMT / UK time (10.00-11.00 CEST / Rome, Italy)

How to register

To register your interest in attending the workshop, please email simon.ball [at] eifl.net. The session is open to anyone to attend but places are limited. If it is oversubscribed, priority will be given to participants from EIFL partner countries.