We have a collection of books and papers we want to track and check in and out like a real library. Ideally, the system would be accessible over the Internet and allow for the use of a bar-code scanner to simplify the check-in and check-out process. Commercial library solutions we have looked at are more expensive than what we can afford, and they don't seem flexible enough to support our in-house naming conventions. Is there any open source or moderately priced software that might fit our needs?

Try Koha , an open source integrated library system released in early 2000 and backed by an active development community.

Koha runs best on Linux platforms behind an Apache Web server, and uses MySQL for database storage.

Koha is installed through a straightforward script, included in the distribution. Once up and running, you will have to prepare your listings for import into the Koha library system. Libraries typically use machine-readable cataloging record formats for the representation and communication of bibliographic and related information in a machine-readable form.

 The program MarcEdit , has tools for getting your listings into the right format for Koha import.

Koha also supports tracking bar codes and can be used with several different scanners.