Hi there, If you're just getting started learning about Koha or have been on this list for a while but haven't really gotten involved too deeply in Koha, this e-mail is for you. Regardless of whether you have programming abilities, you can get involved in the Koha development process. Do you have ideas for neat features to be included? Would you like to learn to program Perl? Do you have some financial resources that you could contribute (even a few hundred dollars goes a long way)? Can you translate Koha into your native language? Here are some ways you can get involved. 1. Join the Developer's Mailing List: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/koha-devel 2. Want to Learn to Program with Perl? Here's the book many of us learned on: http://learn.perl.org/redirect?url=book;bookstore=amazon;bookisbn=0596001320 You can also check out http://learn.perl.org which has lots of free Perl resources. 3. How to Contribute Financially First off, understand that although Koha is free, many of us developers make a living _supporting_ Koha. The more money we can make with Koha, the less we need to find other jobs to make ends meet. So if you've got any monetary resources that you can devote to Koha, please consider it. Even a small sum can go a long way. How to get the ball rolling? You could write a private message to one of the developers, naming the project you would like to 'sponsor' and the amount of funds you can devote to it. You could develop an RFP (Request for Proposal) if your idea is large (NCIP for example), and then notify the koha-devel list. Check the support page for a list of folks who can support Koha: http://koha.org/installation/support.html 4. Translating Koha into Your Language If you're willing to devote time translating Koha into your language please do! We're going to need help translating the website as well as the Koha interfaces and documentation into as many languages as possible. Join the koha-devel list and introduce yourself as a translator. 5. Give Us Feedback If you're able, install Koha, play around with it, and give us feedback. If you can't install it yourself, you can try out the Koha demos. There are a couple of full demos available: LibLime's 2.2 Demos: OPAC: http://opac.liblime.com login with card numbers 1-10 and password 'liblime' Intranet: http://koha.liblime.com login with username 'circ' and password 'liblime' HLT/Katipo 2.0 Demos: OPAC: http://opac.library.org.nz Intranet: http://hlt.katipo.co.nz login with username 'hdl' and password 'testing' Go ahead and use these demos to the full, add borrowers, check out books to them, add items, do your worst! :-) and then let us know what you'd like improved. So ... the bottom line is, get involved! :-) -- Joshua Ferraro VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE President, Technology migration, training, maintenance, support LibLime Koha ILS, Mambo Intranet, DiscrimiNet Filter jmf@liblime.com | Full Demos at http://liblime.com | 1(888)KohaILS _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz http://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha