In Victoria Northeast Health Wangaratta joined a growing number of area health services by migrating to a Koha hosted LMS.

 

Long term Koha user Peninsula Health took the further step of acquiring a DSpace digital library system to house their electronic holdings.  Peninsula was keen to take advantage of our ability to index the DSpace holdings with Koha, so that both electronic and physical holdings can be located by searching the one unified catalogue.

 

The Australian Nursing Federation (Victoria Branch) switched to the Koha open-source LMS, as did the Australasian College of Health Service Management based in Ryde, NSW.

 

Ballarat Health Services joined Peninsula Health in acquiring a DSpace digital library capability to manage its electronic holdings.

 

So is there something special about health libraries that they have a particular affinity for open source library management systems delivered over the internet? 

 

Edmund Balnaves, Prosentient's principal, believes that many libraries today are exceedingly cost conscious and a hosted DSpace and Koha solution is functionally rich, reliable and good value.    Edmund thinks that  people in the health sector are working together to pick systems that are e-resource aware and have service layers behond the traditional OPAC to enhance the role of the library in the broader health service.