- Koha - lists.katipo.co.nz

RE: Koha in schools
by Pat Eyler 15 May '03

15 May '03

On Thu, 15 May 2003, Kym Buchanan wrote: > Pat- > Hi Kym, I'm opening this up to the wider koha user community. Perhaps some of them can give you some anecdotal information about how they're doing the things listed below. (Everyone else, Kym is researching the use of Open Source/Free Software in (public) schools. The information his group finds is then made freely available to schools through their website -- he just made a great presentation at a local Linux Fest.) > I spoke with Derek yesterday and he had many good things to say about > Koha. Great! It's always good to get positive feedback (even second hand). > > I still can't get www.koha.org to load, so I have a few questions about > features. I'm really suprised that you can't get to www.koha.org ... > How well does Koha support: > > Patron photos? One library put together a circ interface for Koha that included patron photos. It was *very* cool because it brought two nice bits together: RFID for scanning books (like 15 at a time) and a very visual interface (driven by touch screens) for the librarians. I'm hoping they move forward with Koha so that we can get the code moved back into the mainline distro. > > Inter library communication? This is a bigger question than I can answer. Do you mean Inter Library Loan between systems, loans/searches/etc. between branches in a system (or schools in a district), or communication between people in different libraries? > > Patron Web access to the catalog? > This is our primary interface to the catalog. > Patron Web access to patron records? Patrons have controllable access to their own records. > > A reserve/hold system? Yes, reserves/holds are supported. > > Automated emails about holds or overdue materials? > These are easy to generate. In fact, a Koha user just offered up his form letter tamplate (and supporting code) to generate enumerated overdue reminders. > Generating reading lists or pull lists (so that a teacher might request a > cart with a few dozen books specific to a class project)? > This is pretty easy to support using the virtual bookshelves feature. thanks, -pate > Thanks. >

2 1

Codabar barcode number/image generator
by Ben Ostrowsky 15 May '03

15 May '03

Hi folks -- In response to a question on perl4lib, I whipped up a barcode generator that will make 1-30 barcodes at a time, given the 5-digit prefix and what follows it. http://bernie.tblc.org/~ostrowb/barcodes.html It uses Codabar, which is what we're using at our Dynix library. If any particular symbology would be especially helpful, let me know and I'm sure I can make that available. Would this be useful as a part of Koha's staff functions? Obviously you'd have to do something to get these onto labels, but you could at least insert the images into a word-processor document with a label template... If it's useful, I'd recommend adding some sanity checks to drawbarcode.pl like the ones in makebarcodes.pl -- a referer check, at the very least. And I should probably have an option to calculate the next barcode just by scanning in the last barcode. Ben

2 1

RE: [Koha] Koha and RSS
by Árni Loftsson 15 May '03

15 May '03

Great idea. What I would like to see was a service where the Patrons could go in and define their interest. Books by a certain author or about some subject for example programming. That could be a part a personalized portal to the library's OPAC where you could see your loans, the book you reserved etc. That way patrons could keep at track of any new books which matches their interest or they could see which books by their favorite author were recently returned. List of most reserved is also very usefull that way you can easily buy extra copies when needed. Árni Loftsson Libarian/systemadministrator Skanderborg Public Library Denmark > -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- > Fra: Pat Eyler [SMTP:pate@eylerfamily.org] > Sendt: 15. maj 2003 01:10 > Til: koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz; koha-devel(a)lists.sourceforge.net > Emne: [Koha] Koha and RSS > > A couple of us have been playing around with creating RSS feeds from Koha. > We've come up with an engine which makes this pretty simple, and will be > releasing it shortly (separately from Koha proper until after Koha 2.0.0 > comes out). > > Before we do release it, I wanted to get a bit of feedback on the idea in > general. If you're impatient, you can go look at > http://www.kohalabs.com/rss/ for screenshots and links. > > ===What is it: > RSS is a method for publishing small chunks of data. The first example > was a list of the 15 most recently acquired items in the database > (probably nice for the avid reader/fan), a different version could be > written to show recently acquired DVDs, CDs, videos, etc.. Another > example shows the 15 items seen least recently by the system (perhaps > they've been lost or misfiled). I'm sure that there are other potential > uses for both library patrons and for library staff. > > Nobody wants to see the raw RSS data, but there are a number of tools > (called 'aggragators') which can be used to display the information in a > useful way. (The screenshots linked to above show an aggregator called > evolution.) > > ===What kind of feedback do I want: > Well, something other than 'it sucks' or 'c00l d00d!'. I'd like to know > if you think this might be useful. Are there other kinds of data you'd > like to see in this format? Are there things you'd like to provide to > your patrons like this? > > thanks, > -pate > > > > _______________________________________________ > Koha mailing list > Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz > http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

1 0

book number format
by T & J Kotula 15 May '03

15 May '03

Just an easy question. It seems that members' numbers are prefixed with the letter V. What is the prefix for book numbers? Better still what are all prefixes used by Koha? I'm just about ready to order bar codes for all of our 7000 books and want to make sure I'll get the right ones. I'm assuming that the number format and the checksum formula for members and books are the same. Thanks tomasz kotula.

1 0

Barcode scanner - keyboard wedge or not
by T & J Kotula 15 May '03

15 May '03

Excuse my ignorance on the subject, but do I need to use a 'keyboard wedge' scanner or can I just connect one to a serial (or USB) port and somehow expect it to work with Koha - with the help of some software I assume, if so which one. I will appreciate any hints on how to get the scanner working. I haven't bought one yet, but want to make sure I will get the right one :-) PS. I intend to use Code39 and a 7-digit book number with a checksum (an excel spreadsheet with a formula was recently posted on this list) PPS. Eagerly awaiting Koha 2.0 Thanks tomasz kotula

3 2

Koha and RSS
by Pat Eyler 15 May '03

15 May '03

A couple of us have been playing around with creating RSS feeds from Koha. We've come up with an engine which makes this pretty simple, and will be releasing it shortly (separately from Koha proper until after Koha 2.0.0 comes out). Before we do release it, I wanted to get a bit of feedback on the idea in general. If you're impatient, you can go look at http://www.kohalabs.com/rss/ for screenshots and links. ===What is it: RSS is a method for publishing small chunks of data. The first example was a list of the 15 most recently acquired items in the database (probably nice for the avid reader/fan), a different version could be written to show recently acquired DVDs, CDs, videos, etc.. Another example shows the 15 items seen least recently by the system (perhaps they've been lost or misfiled). I'm sure that there are other potential uses for both library patrons and for library staff. Nobody wants to see the raw RSS data, but there are a number of tools (called 'aggragators') which can be used to display the information in a useful way. (The screenshots linked to above show an aggregator called evolution.) ===What kind of feedback do I want: Well, something other than 'it sucks' or 'c00l d00d!'. I'd like to know if you think this might be useful. Are there other kinds of data you'd like to see in this format? Are there things you'd like to provide to your patrons like this? thanks, -pate

1 0

Re: Koha compatibility with our distribution.
by Pat Eyler 12 May '03

12 May '03

On Mon, 12 May 2003, Nyle F. Landas wrote: > Hello, Hello Nyle, > > Is Koha compatible with Lindows OS which is based on the Debian > distribution? www.lindows.com > Koha runs quite well on debian linux. as far as i know, no one has yet tried running it on Lindows. It should work quite well. I'm CC:ing the koha user mailing list on this reply to see if anyone can give a better answer than this. -pate > Thank you, > -Nyle >

1 0

Barcode scanners and Macs
by AMSEA Computer/Web Tech 12 May '03

12 May '03

Anyone here using a barcode scanner with a fairly new Macintosh computer, i.e., one that was made after they dropped the ADB ports and went to USB for all their peripherals? And you're using OS 9 and/or OS X? The guy at Custom Sensors (http://csensors.com) just said their scanners aren't (yet) compatible with newer Macs, and he doesn't know when the manufacturer might have updated software. They have some ADB type scanners that are supposedly Mac compatible, anyone happen to be using one of those on a newer Mac with an ADB-to-USB adapter? I have no idea if that would even work. Thanks in advance, of course. Kris F. ___________________________________ Kris Finkenbinder, Computer/Web Tech Alaska Marine Safety Education Association 1297 Seward Ave. #101 Sitka, AK 99835 907-747-3287 tech [dot] amsea [at] alaska [dot] com

2 1

Database Schema
by Timothy R. Butler 10 May '03

10 May '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I was just wondering, if I want to take a bunch of entries and insert them into MySQL, is there a certain way this should be done? What tables should the items go into? I thought perhaps someone could point me to a document explaining the schema or something so that I can insure I can get the data in efficiently. Thanks, Tim - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler Universal Networks www.uninet.info ==================== <tbutler(a)uninet.info> ==================== | Christian Portal: | Have you not learned great lessons | | www.faithtree.com | from those who braced themselves | | GNU/Linux News: | against you and disputed the | | www.ofb.biz | passage with you? --Walt Whitman | -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+vVUTK37Cns9gJ0gRAsCpAJ9teNtIVLgjE2ZfxS6VY5MWQOnfMACeOVAJ 0rPSihDDzPrQuEZELSqm/GY= =4lyb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 1

new developers
by Pat Eyler 10 May '03

10 May '03

In the course of the last week, I've added two new developers (from France) to our Sourceforge site. It looks like I'll be getting to add a couple more (from Argentina) in the near future. I'm really excited to see more groups joining up with Koha, and I can't wait to see the kinds of things that start happening. Let me take this opportunity to talk about four things: 1) If you're interested in working on Koha, please let Chris, Paul, or I know. We can always use people who want to work on coding, testing, writing documentation, or what have you. Even if your Perl skills aren't the greatest, there are plenty of ways you can contribute. 2) If you are registered as a developer, but you haven't been active in the last year or so, please get in touch with me. I promise I won't try to talk you into working on the project, I just want to see if you're still there and still interested. 3) We're hitting the home stretch towards 2.0.0, this means we need to be extra careful about what we do with our sourcecode. If you're a developer and you've got an idea for a cool new feature, please DON'T add it to koha yet. If you've just got to work on it, please do so outside the normal cvs tree -- once 2.0.0 is out, we'll be relaxing this stance. 4) If you want to work on Koha, but don't know where to start, please take a look at bugs.koha.org ... there are a lot of little things that need to be fixed. Please feel free to grab a bug and squash it. thanks, -pate

1 0