[Koha] 2014 Koha NA Users Group Meeting Summary

[Heather Braum (NEKLS)]

I attended the 2014 North American Koha Users Group meeting in beautiful
Wenatchee, WA last week. Most of the week's notes ended up my hands, so I
get to send out the email summarizing the week, I guess! :)

Attendees spent 2 days discussing various parts of Koha, as well as getting
this North American Koha group off the ground. Friday, a dozen of us
learned how to setup Koha virtual machines and set up git to do our own
testing of Koha, instead of relying on the sandboxes.

Several goals were developed for the group during the week:


   - Purpose: The purpose of this group is to communicate, educate, and
   collaborate amongst North American users of the Koha software and
   strengthen involvement with the global Koha community.
   - Wiki setup: Bare bones wiki already set up: www.koha-na.org. The
   Northeast Kansas Library System (NEKLS) volunteered to set this up and
   sponsor the domain name and provide the server space. This wiki will
   host information, including community participation tips and public
   development ideas and money raised for developments. Specific dollar
   amounts and who's contributing will be behind a password-protected wall (as
   some organizations can't share this info publicly), but the rest of the
   info will be public. We haven't figured out the development part yet, but
   hopefully will soon.


   - Communicate on the Koha-NA listserv more
   - Planning committee for next year's face-to-face conference in a TBD
   location (Include planning for live video/webcasting, for remote
   participation)
   - Online monthly meetings TBD; NEKLS finding out licensing info for
   Collaborate platform
   - Planning committee for the group: Chad Roseburg (NCRL), Joel Sasse
   (Plum Creek), Chris Rohde (Roseville PL), Nick Clemens (VOKAL), Heather
   Braum (NEKLS). Any other volunteers who weren't at the conference, please
   let us know if you're interested in helping lead the direction of this
   group and next year's face-to-face meeting.
   - Membership list on the wiki -- what are areas of experience? IRC
   nicknames.
   - Future goals: nonprofit status, and grant writing


Full discussion notes here:
http://koha-na.org/index.php/Future_of_NA_Koha_Users_Group_discussion

The Wiki that was launched, www.koha-na.org, anyone can register and start
adding content.

All the notes from the event will be available sometime this week on the
new wiki for this group. If any of you attended last week's conference, and
have content to add, please feel free to do so.

Thanks,

Heather Braum
NExpress Coordinator
Resource Sharing Librarian
Northeast Kansas Library System
hbraum at nekls.org

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those cannot read
and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." ~Alvin
Toffler, *Rethinking the Future*