By Shannon Brennan and Kathleen Robertson

The last ILCE meeting included a presentation from Victor Zuniga, System Administrator at Poudre Libraries in Fort Collins. He described the library systems relationship with their sister library in San Juan Del Sur (SJDS) in Nicaragua. Their goal is to provide opportunities and information to the community. In considering these goals Victor’s empathic approach incorporating active listening and strong communication led to success of this collaboration. He saw there was a need for an integrated library system, Victor found the open source software Koha and, with SJDS, decided this was the best fit. Victor was able to customize the program and interface to match solutions to their workload. Their work together has blossomed into a 10 year partnership which has continued to expand services in many ways, including 3D printing projects for local high schoolers and entrepreneurs as well as establishing RACHEL – Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning, a portable battery powered device that contains copies of websites, available in offline format. Victor also noted key aspects that contribute to the longevity of this work which includes operationalizing the time he devotes to this and making sure there is a written agreement formalizing the arrangement.

For more information, check out this presentation.