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Need help for a new calendar (performance improvement and library opening hours) BZ17015
by Francois Charbonnier 03 Feb '17

03 Feb '17

Dear community, We submitted a patch recently that would benefit many. It solves two old bug put on hold for a while (Move calculation code out of C4::Calendar) and (hourly loans doesn't know when library closed). If you a have a bit of time ahead of you to help us get it upstreamed. It will be much appreciated! When I read again the description from bugzilla, I felt that an overview of the work and its benefits will help you get involved. * *_*Short version*_ : The communinity and some of our clients noticed two issues : 1. Hour loans doesn't know when a library is closed 2. We have performance issues when checking in overdue book or managing overdue fines. We identified that both issues are related to the way Koha does date calculation. To improve and fix these issues, we developped a new calendar with a couple of new features. _The benefits of this new calendar are_ : 1. management of the libraries opening hours (new feature). 2. performance improvement when circulating items and managing fines. In particular, when checking in overdue book or managing overdue fines. 3. help to setup holidays/closed days from one year to another (new feature) To acheive this, we redesigned the calendar database table and rewrote part of the code in charge of the date calculation. We used this work to move part of the code and separate what's in charge of the calendar and what's used to do the calculation. This way, we solved two bugzilla issues opened a long time ago : https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=11211 (Move calculation code out of C4::Calendar) (opened by Jesse Weaver on the 2013-11-06) https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=8133 (hourly loans doesn't know when library closed) (opended by Nicole C. Engard on the 2012-05-21) For now, BZ 11211 blocked BZ 8133. All features from the old calendar is available in the new calendar. The new calendar passed all the unit tests. The patch for the new calendar is here : https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=17015 _* *__*Long version*_ : The calendar's database table contains only rules to set whether the library is closed or not. If Koha needs a date or a range of date (was the library closed that day? how long is this book overdue? etc.), it has to be calculated using these rules. Depending on the type of transactions, how Koha does the calculation is not always efficient. For example, a return of overdue books can take as long as many seconds (for 2 months old overdues for example). We redesigned the calendar table to be able to give Koha the information it needs to do the calculation in a more efficient way. In the calendar's new table, we don't store rules anymore. Each day from the calendar is now stored (an entry for each day). For each day, we can indicate if the library is open or closed. We took this redesign opportunity to add the library opening hours as well. That way, Koha gets straight the information it needs to determine if the library is open or not, it can take into consideration the opening hours (good for hour loans and the date range calculation is simplified by using the information stored in the database. No need to calculate it based on different rules anymore. Among the patches we submitted, we have a script to benchmark checkin and checkout transactions. The benchmark of checkin is more indicative of the performance improvement. Here is an example of collected statistics. When an item is returned the day the checkout expires, the calculation time decreased of 22% (for 100 checkins, the calculation time drops from 52.2s to 40.7s). When an item is 2 months overdue and returned, the calculation time decreased of 70% (for 100 checkins, the calculation time drops from 154s to 46.6s). _How does the new calendar work_ ? Before the first use, a script will populate the new calendar table with on entry for each day of the year. This script can retreive your actual setting to keep track of your old set up. It also creates all the entries for future years. The basic set up would be : the library wants to have a 1 year overview of the calendar so they can set it up in advance. The script creates every entry in the table to be able to set up the calendar 1 year in advance. Then, another script will be scheduled to run every day. This script will add a new entry for every day spent. In this manner, Koha keeps a 1 year advance overview at all time. The advantage of this last script is to help the koha admin to set up the calendar in advance. Each time the script will add a new entry (a new day), it will check one year in the past how the same day was set up to try to determine if the library should be closed or not : - If the date is a unique holiday : the script will not keep it for the new entry. - If the date is a repeatable holiday : the script will keep it. (For example, a library closed every saturday) - If the day type was "floatting" (it's a new type of holiday) : the new entry status is "needs confirmation". Thus, when setting up the calendar, I have two options : 1. I know it's a repeatable holiday every year or very week, I choose the date type 'repeatable'. When the script add a new entry, it keeps the holiday. 2. I want to check the holiday every year to adjust the settings (for example, Easter stat holiday), I choose the new date type "floatting". Then, when the script add a new entry, it doesn't assume the library is closed but change the date status to "needs confirmation". Then I will be able to overview these "need confirmation" holidays and set them up when I get the information. The script manage the opening hours as well. It checks the previous week settings instead of the previous year. The other new feature to help setting up the calendar is in the way Koha can create holidays between two dates. When creating this range of dates, you can : - either use a specific day and copy its settings to all the dates in the range. - or use a range of dates and copy the settings of each day to each day of the new range. Besides that, the calendar keeps all its actual features. The patch for the new calendar is here : https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=17015 Thank you very much! François -- François Charbonnier, Bibl. prof. / Chef de produits Tél. : (888) 604-2627 francois.charbonnier(a)inLibro.com <mailto:francois.charbonnier@inLibro.com> inLibro | Spécialistes en technologies documentaires | www.inLibro.com <http://www.inLibro.com>

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Item types in Koha
by Gaetan Boisson 03 Feb '17

03 Feb '17

Dear all, there's a part of the Koha set-up i found always creates a lot of confusion with new libraries: the possibility of having the item type taken into account for circulation rules at the item or at the bibliographic level (the item-level_itypes system preference). Things are to a certain extent made worse by the French translation for item type, which translates back to "document type". That translation does make sense to some extent though, because if you decide to use "bibliographic level item types" then "item types" sounds like the wrong name. In a lot of libraries you do want to have a list of document types here, but not always. There are 2 features behind this : identifying item types (search and display), and defining circulation rules. Koha allows you to separate both, and a common scenario is to have the system preference at item level, and a different piece of information at the bibliographic level. This is because at the bibliographic level, you can say for instance that this record is of the "novel" type, and indeed all items attached to it will be novels, and it has a couple items, one of which is a physical copy, another one is an ebook, and a third one is a physical copy as well, but linked to different circulation rules for some reason. So usually the type at the bibliographic level makes a lot of sense for searching, and the one at the item level much less. Unfortunately in that case, the one at the item-level will be the one used for searching, identifying, etc. I am curious to know whether the current wording and situation is confusing for other users as well. My proposal would be to add a "record type", that would look very much just as "item type" does. The system preference could be reworded but the feature remain the same. It would just clarify things, and we could get rid of the "document type" terminology, which currently, in French, ends up being very confusing since most of the time it defines circulation rules and is not linked to what librarians would see under the "document type" taxonomy. My guess is that in English, there's a similar ambiguity with "item type" possibly ending at the bibliographic level. What is your experience on this? Does this seem like a good idea to clear things up? Best, -- Gaetan Boisson Chef de projet bibliothécaire BibLibre +33(0)6 52 42 51 29 108 rue Breteuil 13006 Marseille gaetan.boisson(a)biblibre.com

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Koha 16.05 Released
by Brendan Gallagher 03 Feb '17

03 Feb '17

It is with great pleasure that we announce the release of Koha 16.05, a major release of the Koha open source integrated library system. Koha 16.05 is a major release, that comes with many new features and enhancements. See the full release notes here: https://koha-community.org/koha-16-05-released/ Download http://koha-community.org/download-koha/ Debian Packages will soon be available in the repository. Thank you to everyone who helped make this work! Koha!!! Please note – Ubuntu 16.04 support is still WIP and isn’t supported at the moment, due to stricter MySQL version 5.7. All installs and updates should be done on versions previous to MySQL 5.7. Cheers, Brendan -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brendan A. Gallagher ByWater Solutions CEO Support and Consulting for Open Source Software Installation, Data Migration, Training, Customization, Hosting and Complete Support Packages Headquarters: Santa Barbara, CA - Office: Redding, CT Phone # (888) 900-8944 http://bywatersolutions.com info(a)bywatersolutions.com

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Koha 3.22.16 release
by Julian Maurice 03 Feb '17

03 Feb '17

The Koha community is proud to announce the release of Koha 3.22.16. This is a maintenance release and contains several bugfixes. The full release notes are available at https://koha-community.org/koha-3-22-16-security-release/

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To hide empty biblio records in OPAC
by lukasz.mesek＠alingsas.se 03 Feb '17

03 Feb '17

Hi, I have deleted quite a lot of empty biblio records lately, but they still appear in database. Till moment we do restart of index I would like to hide them at least in OPAC. Is it any way in Koha administration to do this or in any other place? Med vänlig hälsning Lukasz Mesek Vuxenbibliotekarie Alingsås bibliotek lukasz.mesek(a)alingsas.se

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Hold: Patron is from different library
by rfblanchard 03 Feb '17

03 Feb '17

when I try to place a hold I see the msg in red: *Patron is from different library* This happens for all books even when the parton is from the correct library. I checked the syspreferences and they seem to indicate that holds are setup OK How can I fix this ->koha 16.11.02 -- View this message in context: http://koha.1045719.n5.nabble.com/Hold-Patron-is-from-different-library-tp5… Sent from the Koha-general mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Announcement: Koha-US Feb 8 mtg
by Christopher Davis 03 Feb '17

03 Feb '17

Dear Colleagues, I would like to invite you to the February 8th meeting of Koha-US scheduled for 10:30 am Central Time at https://kslib.zoom.us/j/450230564 . Please visit http://koha-us.net/index.php/Minutes2017-02-08 to read the agenda for this meeting and for other details. Koha-US is currently seeking new speakers/presenters and panelists for this conference. We are also asking Koha users for conference theme suggestions. I'll see you at the meeting. Cordially, Christopher Davis Secretary, Koha-US cgdavis(a)uintah.utah.gov P. S. Please excuse cross postings of this message

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Is it possible to reserve available books?
by Michael Kuhn 02 Feb '17

02 Feb '17

Hi In Koha it is possible to place holds on books that are CHECKED OUT. Is it also possible to place a reservation on a book that is NOT checked out? The idea is that the user is at home, finding an interesting book in the OPAC - the book is available but he cannot go immediately to the library to pick it up. Thus he wants to place a reservation on the book so noone else can check it out - the library will then take that book out of the shelf waiting for the user to arrive at the library. This means: * In the OPAC there has to be a possibility for the user to place the reservation * The library needs to be informed so the book can be taken out of the shelf, waiting for the user Is this possible in Koha? Best wishes: Michael -- Geschäftsführer · Diplombibliothekar BBS, Informatiker eidg. Fachausweis Admin Kuhn GmbH · Pappelstrasse 20 · 4123 Allschwil · Schweiz T 0041 (0)61 261 55 61 · E mik(a)adminkuhn.ch · W www.adminkuhn.ch

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Re: [Koha] Authority
by Selma Aslan 02 Feb '17

02 Feb '17

Hi All, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Ankara, Turkey, Library has recently moved to Koha from a local software, and my response might be irrelevant, but I would like to share our experience. When we merge two authorities in the Authorities Module, the result does not show up immediately. I gather Zebra takes its time to process for a couple of minutes. I wonder if the result was expected to be seen immediately. In our case I tried to reprocess an already processed authority and an got error prompt simply because I hadn't realized system's need for time at that stage. Selma -------------------------------------------- On Thu, 2/2/17, Joy Nelson <joy(a)bywatersolutions.com> wrote: Subject: Re: [Koha] Authority To: "Luis Moises Rojas" <lmoisesrojas(a)gmail.com> Cc: "Koha" <koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz> Date: Thursday, 2 February, 2017, 18:52 I would suggest that you check to be sure that you have the indexer running to index your authority records. And to link the authority record to the bibliographic record you will need to run the cronjob called link_bibs_to_authorities.pl But before you enable that cronjob check the Authority system preferences to be sure they will behave in the way you want them to. joy On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 9:50 AM, Luis Moises Rojas <lmoisesrojas(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Sorry > > Is the authority record not showing up in search results when you look for > it? > Are you expecting the authority to link to the bibliographic record? > > We need both > > On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 11:46 AM, Joy Nelson <joy(a)bywatersolutions.com> > wrote: > >> When you say 'it is not update' can you explain a bit more what you are >> expecting to see happen? >> >> Is the authority record not showing up in search results when you look >> for it? >> Are you expecting the authority to link to the bibliographic record? >> >> joy >> >> >> >> >> On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 9:37 AM, Luis Moises Rojas <lmoisesrojas(a)gmail.com >> > wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> Where could activate: merge_autority.pl? >>> >>> When we type a new Authorities it is not update. >>> >>> What are we doing wrong? >>> >>> >>> -- >>> *Luis Moisés Rojas P.* >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org >>> Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz >>> https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Joy Nelson >> Director of Migrations >> >> ByWater Solutions <http://bywatersolutions.com> >> Support and Consulting for Open Source Software >> Office: Fort Worth, TX >> Phone/Fax (888)900-8944 >> What is Koha? <http://bywatersolutions.com/what-is-koha/> >> >> > > > -- > *Luis Moisés Rojas P.* > > -- Joy Nelson Director of Migrations ByWater Solutions <http://bywatersolutions.com> Support and Consulting for Open Source Software Office: Fort Worth, TX Phone/Fax (888)900-8944 What is Koha? <http://bywatersolutions.com/what-is-koha/> _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha(a)lists.katipo.co.nz https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

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Authority
by Luis Moises Rojas 02 Feb '17

02 Feb '17

Hi, Where could activate: merge_autority.pl? When we type a new Authorities it is not update. What are we doing wrong? -- *Luis Moisés Rojas P.*

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