- Koha - lists.katipo.co.nz

A few questions from the "Librarian"
by Sky King 21 Nov '02

21 Nov '02

1. Is there a way to change the default ItemType? Or a way to make it where you have to pick the ItemType while doing "simple" cataloging? 2. If my IT staff wanted to get rid of the dummy data, what would they need to whack (or change)? Sky V. King Adminstration/Library Intern John S. and James L. Knight Foundation One Biscayne Tower, Suite 3800 2 S. Biscayne Blvd. Miami, Fla. 33131-1803

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Koha users page
by Pat Eyler 21 Nov '02

21 Nov '02

I've just set up a page on the wiki for recording libraries (public, private, whatever) that are using (or evaluating) Koha. Please tak a moment and sign yourselves up. Ideally, this can be a resource for getting Koha User Groups started, for pooling resources in developing projects for Koha, and for helping convince other libraries that Koha is in fact a reasonable choice. Oh, yeah -- here's the URL: http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=KohaUsers thanks, -pate Pat Eyler Kaitiaki/manager migrant Linux sys admin the Koha project ruby, shell, and perl geek http://www.koha.org http://pate.eylerfamily.org

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He Panui Koha 21 Nov 2002
by Pat Eyler 21 Nov '02

21 Nov '02

he panui koha 21 November 2002 # # From the Kaitiaki: Sorry that it's been so long since I've put one of these out. It always seems like something else gets in the way, doesn't it? Hopefully the breadth and importance of the news below is engaging enought for you to forgive my lapse in sending things out lately. Development: Paul is closing in on the next 1.3 release and Steve is plugging away at the next 1.2 release, but the biggest development news this time around is administrative. We've decided that the 1.3 series is such a radical departure from the existing 1.2 stuff, that it will become Koha 2.0 instead of 1.4. This release marks a watershed for us, and deserves the recognition that 2.0 will give it. Congratulations to Paul and everyone else who has been involved in the 1.3 work. Community: Chris Cormack (the release manager for the 1.2 series) recently attended two conferences in Ohio, here's what he had to say: Well I think the trip went really well, Stephen and the rest of the NPL are feeling even more positive now. The OLC conference was good lots of interesting topics and tho we were the last session on the last day. We still had about 20-30 people stay to listen about koha. Got to the think linux show the next day and got my pass and stuff. Listened to the Linux terminal server project and other thin clients. Interesting stuff for libraries, specially coupled with the cool serial over ip hubs they were showing off as well. Then came the presentation, I didnt end up using my slides because they were aimed at a more libraryish audience. So I talked about koha, explaining what a library system is to start :-) Then did the history of koha, were we are at now, how they can help, how to get it etc. About 25 people listening. People drove in from Michigan and from Grandview Heights (near Columbus, Ohio), three to four hour drives for both groups, just to talk about Koha and how it might fit into their libraries. (One of the libraies is a consortium that has a circulation of about 1.5 million a year! They'll both be in touch with NPL and Koha. All in all a very positive trip it was heartening how many people had heard of the project. And the guy from debian was keen to get koha into the distro. Koha also had a stall (manned by Katipo and HLT) at the 2002 Lianza conference http://www.confer.co.nz/lianza2002/ -- way to go! On a different tack, I'd like to welcome The Linux Box (http://www.linuxbox.nu/) of Ann Arbor, Michigan as the newest vendor offering commercial support for Koha. If you are interested in supporting Koha, please let me know. We'd be happy to add you to our support vendors page at http://koha.org/installation/support.html French Koha: Paul Poulain has announced that demo.koha-fr.org and fr.koha.org are now live. The first is a demo site where you can play with the emerging 1.3 series (it's especially nice to see that Koha is becoming bilingual). The second site is the french language home for Koha. These efforts are both huge wins for Koha in terms of visibility. Nicolas Morin wrote: And the other day I went to a formation session on library web sites: it turned out every single librarian attending (a group of about 20 people from different libraries) knew that Koha existed : "isn't it that open source library system that's talked about?" So I think librarians awareness about Koha is good here in France : but to really take off we would need one first library to use it. I think what worked well in France so far is that, so to speak, we played a duet : one programmer who can answer questions about the software, the install, etc; and one librarian that can publicize Koha and get colleagues interested. Couldn't we try to set up such "duets" elsewhere? This does look like a good model to follow within our other language translation groups. The french community Koha mailing list is up to 51 subscribers, and there seems to be a great deal of work and excitement on it. Two last bits of news from the french koha community: * the templating of the OPAC now being over, translation of the OPAC will begin very soon : to start working on the translation of the software itself is obviously a major step towards implementing Koha in France. * This week also, Koha-France contributed a list of report features we would love to see implemented in Koha : see http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=ReportFeatures for this list. Any contribution to this list is welcome. If you want to get involved, the Koha wiki is a good place to look at : http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=KohaProject thanks, the Koha team

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Error with Member template
by Don Wright 21 Nov '02

21 Nov '02

I get the following error when trying to search for members. The file is under /usr/local/kkoha/intranet/htdocs/includes/templates/default. I even moved it to an upper level directory to see if that would help and nothing. Could not find member.tmpl in /usr/local/koha/intranet/htdocs/includes/templates /usr/local/koha/intranet/htdocs/includes at /usr/local/koha/intranet/modules/C4/Output.pm line 246. HTML::Template->new() called with odd number of option parameters - should be of the form option => value at /usr/local/koha/intranet/cgi-bin/member.pl line 38 [Thu Nov 21 08:05:14 2002] [error] [client 204.184.247.120] Premature end of script headers: /usr/local/koha/intranet/cgi-bin/member.pl Don Wright Information Systems Manager Aurora Schools (417)678-3373

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Introductory help...
by Jessica Rasku 20 Nov '02

20 Nov '02

I've just installed Koha (some problems but I got it working now), and thought that I'd just just say that I'm impressed. I am trying to get this working, and will be showing it to the local library staff to see what they think of it. Sure, probably some aditions will be required, but those can be done. Thanks for creating this, and thanks in advance for everyone helping to figure out the problems I'm sure I'll run into. Jessica

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Data Conversion - Call Numbers
by robweir＠alum.drexel.edu 19 Nov '02

19 Nov '02

I am converting data from an old system and need some help on which fields in Koha should be used to store the various components of the existing book call numbers. I'm a computer guy, not the librarian, so forgive me if my terminolgy is off. Given the following sample call number: R 220.7 J32c V.1 I am guessing that the first line 'R' for Refernce Book would be an itemtype defined in the itemtype table and then entered in the biblioitems.itemtype field for each book. The second line of course would be stored in biblioitems.dewey field. I'm stuck on the third line which I think is referred to as the Cutter number. Where should that be stored? I see a biblioitems.subclass field, but it is only char(3) which isn't long enough since cutter numbers are typicaly four characters. I think a few of the call numbers have a dewey line and two lines of cutter numbers. If there are two cutter lines, where should that second cutter line be stored? And then for the last line, would biblioitems.volumeddesc be the correct field? One more example call number from the old system: BIOG MORR H C.2 I can probably use biblioitems.itemtype for the first line. I'm stuck again on the second line. And I think the last line needs to be stored in the items table since it is specific to each copy of a book with multiple copies. But which field? I am hoping that once I get the data converted and everything stored in the proper fields, that a client who looks up a book using the OPAC interface will be able to see the entire call number for use in locating the book on the shelves. Will that be the case? Or are my librarians using a call number system that is incompatible with Koha? Thanks in advance for any help! Rob

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Can't modify records
by Jim Thomas 19 Nov '02

19 Nov '02

Hi, My wife is the volunteer librarian at a small private school. I had been meaning to set up Koha for nearly two years, but lacked the time. I finally recruited a friend to pitch in. I gave him a dedicated box, and he installed Debian+Koha. I have plenty of experience with RedHat, so Debian is a new experience for me. He installed Koha 1.2.2. We are seeing two problems with the box. First, the koha web pages take a loooong time to load. I suspect this is a DNS problem, but I'm not sure. I do not have a DNS entry for the box yet, because it's still on a private lan, and I'm relying on our ISP for DNS service. We're trying to access Koha from the machine on which it is installed. The second problem is enough to make my wife question the feasibility of using Koha - after she enters a new book into the catalog, she cannot modify it to correct any typos. She finds the modify page OK, but the machine just ignores the modify button. The cursor doesn't change when she positions it over the button - it's as if shes clicking a non-button. Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the lack of details, but I don't have access to the box right now. -- Jim Thomas Principal Applications Engineer Bittware, Inc jthomas(a)bittware.com http://www.bittware.com (703) 779-7770 The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse - Calvin's Dad

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Acquistions screen error
by C David Rigby 19 Nov '02

19 Nov '02

Dear all, I am having trouble entering books into the koha system for our small library. I can enter an ISBN from this screen: http://iclibrary.lib.virginia.edu:8080/cgi-bin/koha/acqui.simple/addbooks.pl and I reach this screen: http://iclibrary.lib.virginia.edu:8080/cgi-bin/koha/acqui.simple/addbooks.p… However, upon clicking on the "Add Item" button here, I am taken to a blank screen with this URL: http://iclibrary.lib.virginia.edu:8080/cgi-bin/koha/acqui.simple/addbooks.p… and /var/log/httpd/koha-error_log has added this line: DBI quote: invalid number of parameters: handle + 0 Usage: $h->quote($string [, $data_type ]) at /usr/local/koha/intranet/cgi-bin/acqui.simple/addbooks.pl line 269. [root@iclibrary httpd]# If there is anyone who can help with this, then you can have full access to the machine. Koha is the only thing that this machine is slated to do, and I can always change passwords later. I am open to suggestions, including completely reinstalling the koha system. I know a bit about Linux and such, but I am clueless when it comes to Perl, apache and MySQL. Thus, I really do not know how to correct this sort of problem. Thanks C David Rigby cr8s(a)virginia.edu

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Loan Periods
by Larry Currie 15 Nov '02

15 Nov '02

I'm trying to determine whether there is some way within Koha to be able to restrict the loan of certain types of materials to certain types of borrowers. In the itemtypes table, there are blanket settings for loan lengths, number of permitted renewals, and rental charges, and in the categoryitem table rental discounts, reserve charges, fines, reminder notices, etc. are mapped against categories of borrowers and item types. There is also a field labeled "restrictedtype" and in the Koha sample database the value of this field seems to always be NULL. If I were to change the value of this field for a given itemtype and category of borrower, would this prevent that category of borrower from borrowing that particular type of item, or is there another way to prevent certain categories of borrowers from borrowing certain types of items? Larry Currie -- Lawrence W. Currie User Services Librarian California Academy of Sciences Golden Gate Park San Francisco, CA 94118 lcurrie(a)calacademy.org (415) 750-7108 (415) 750-7106 fax http://www.calacademy.org/research/library/

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Re: [Koha] z3950 stalls after one search
by Kevin Johnson 12 Nov '02

12 Nov '02

Ok. I created an apache user, got all of the permissions on the parent directories correct, and ran a few test queries. Was working beautifully. I left if overnight and tried another query this morning. The results page says processing and it's incrementing the time, but it never finishes. In the log file there is the message: Event: '?? Connection.pm:138' died and then $Event::DIED died with: Can't call method "attributes" without a package or object reference at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/i386-linux/Event.pm line 88, <KC> line 10. at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/i386-linux/Net/Z3950/Manager.pm line 220 Does this process have to manually restarted every so often or is this anomalous? Thanks for your help. Kevin At 11:56 PM 11/4/2002 -0800, you wrote: >On Mon, 4 Nov 2002, Kevin Johnson wrote: > > > Hi. I recently install koha and it is mostly working. When I do a Z39.50 > > search however, it will process the first item in the queue, but stall > > after that with other processes marked as pending. If I send a kill > -HUP to > > z3950processqueue.pid it starts working on the next one, but this is > > probably not the desired behavior. If it makes a difference my > RunAsUser is > > not "apache". Other than that I think I followed all the instructions, and > > it is sort of working. Any help would be most appreciated. > > > >It is important that RunAsUser be set to the same user that your web >server process runs as. The web server runs the cgi scripts which signals >the script to wake up and process new requests when new requests are >queued up through the web interface. If the process is running as a >different user, the signal will not work, and the daeemon will never wake >up. > >Steve. > > >_______________________________________________ >Koha mailing list >Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz >http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha ---- Kevin Johnson University of Texas, Institute for Geophysics Senior Systems Analyst 4412 Spicewood Springs Rd -- Bldg. 600 (512) 471-0410 Austin, TX 78759-8500 mailto:kevin@ig.utexas.edu http://www.ig.utexas.edu

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