Norwich BioScience Institutes chooses Koha open source library management system, hosted and supported by Open Fifth
Last updated on: 27th May 2025| 27th May 2025 | Helen Symington
Press Release
Norwich BioScience Institutes (NBI) has chosen Open Fifth to host and support their Koha library management system. Open Fifth (then PTFS Europe) launched NBI’s Koha system in 2012, with support until 2018 when NBI opted to self-host and support with their internal IT resources.
Open Fifth migrated NBI to an Open Fifth hosted system and will provide ongoing hosting and support services to Norwich Bioscience Institutes to ensure its success in supporting these collections into the future.
Koha library management system
With over 18,000 systems worldwide, Koha is one of the most widely used library management systems (LMS) in the world. Koha is entirely web-based for both staff and public functions. This helps make the system light, easy to use, easy to deploy and easy to manage.
Koha’s impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. It includes modules for circulation, cataloguing, acquisitions, serials, course reserves, user management, interlibrary loans, and more.
Helen Symington, Sales Executive, shared:
“I am delighted that we have been able to continue to assist Norwich BioScience Institutes with their Koha library management system, meeting their evolving needs and internal capacity through launch, self-hosting, and now their return to our fully-supported service.
Welcoming a returning customer after a period of self-hosting is a testament to the flexibility and ease of open source solutions and one of the many reasons we, as a company, prefer to work with them.
On a personal note, my initial degree is in biology and so I am looking forward to combining my love of libraries and science as I support NBI into the future.”
About Open Fifth
Open Fifth Limited (formerly PTFS Europe Limited) is a UK-based company with the vision to make technology easy for libraries. We focus on enabling library users through high-quality, open source software solutions. Our way of working is characterised by listening, finding solutions, reliable delivery, and above all open communication. Our highly skilled team has a friendly and approachable style in delivering our quality implementation and support services.
We proudly work with customers across all library sectors, including public, academic, health, governmental, museum, law and special libraries. The reason so many customers continue to choose us is that we solve problems, we don’t sell software. When libraries join us as a customer, they are gaining the expertise of our developers, trainers, data migration experts, and experienced account managers to support them throughout the journey. As an ISO/IEC 27001 accredited company, you can also rely on the quality and integrity of the support we’re providing.
More information on Open Fifth: www.openfifth.co.uk.
Any questions? Please contact Helen Symington.
About Norwich BioScience Institutes
Norwich BioScience Institutes is a world-class national facility for the study and application of genomics in animals, plants and microbes. NBI comprises four international centres of excellence in plant science, microbiology, harnessing food for health and controlling food-related disease: Earlham Institute, John Innes Centre, Sainsbury Laboratory & Quadram Institute Bioscience.
