[Koha] Official Koha Newsletter: Volume 2, Issue 2: February 2011

[Nicole Engard]

Please read the newsletter online for live links:
http://koha-community.org/koha-newsletter-volume-2issue-2-february-2011/

Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328)
Volume 2, Issue 2: February 2011

Table of Contents

    * Koha Developments
          o Koha 3.2.5 Available
          o RFC Roundup: System Administration
    * Koha in Libraries
          o South Taranaki District Libraries move to Koha
          o Koha Article: OSS in Italy
          o Koha in Mongolia
          o Koha in the Maldives
    * Koha Events
          o KohaCon 2011 in India


Koha Developments

Koha 3.2.5 Available
by Chris Nighswonger

Please note: This release is a security release. It is strongly
recommended that users apply this upgrade immediately to production
systems. If you are installing a new system, please use this version
rather than earlier versions.

The package can be retrieved from:

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.02.05.tar.gz

You can use the following checksum and signature files to verify the download:

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.02.05.tar.gz.MD5
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.02.05.tar.gz.MD5.asc
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.02.05.tar.gz.sig

Release notes for 3.2.5 can be found here.

RFC Roundup: System Administration
by MJ Ray

This month, I’m looking at some Requests For Comments pages about
Systems Administration improvement ideas. If you’ve any comments on
any of these, please visit the wiki and just edit the pages to add
your ideas or comment on the suggestions that are already there.
Alternatively, you could start a discussion on the email list or web
forum at http://koha-community.org/support/.

    * Enhance renewals parameters
          o This page says the suggestion is aimed at Koha 3.4, so
time is running out for it. It’s currently the really short idea that
“Renewable
            … should be part of smart-rules.pl and take more
parameters into account: ability to renew X time for patron Category
Y, for item type Z in Branch A”. Could you tidy this idea up, link it
to a bug and get it ready for development? If so, please visit the
wiki and help Koha develop.
    * Managing permissions on acquisition module
          o This is a more complete request, suggesting we follow a
similar model for the acquisitions module as for the tools module,
with much more granular permissions. It suggests splitting acquisition
permissions into nine smaller permissions which would allow different
users to be authorised to do different parts of the process. If you’d
like to see the suggested split and maybe suggest groupings or others,
go to visit the wiki.
    * Improving statistics on acquisitions RFC
          o Well, the other side of monitoring acquisitions is to
collect statistics for reporting afterwards. This RFC was aimed at
Koha 3.2, so either it needs marking as completed, or it needs
updating for 3.4 or 3.6.
    * Support for Syndetics enhanced content RFC
          o I think this might already be in Koha 3.2 – at least my
Koha site has a Syndetics section in the Enhanced Content system
preferences page. If you use Syndetics with Koha, could you update
this page to say that it is completed and working, please?
    * Translation Process: Installer and Javascript libraries improvements
          o This RFC needs some work to make it clearer what users
want from the developers when it comes to installing other languages,
and
            probably linking to an enhancement bug.
    * Guided reports serials RFC
          o A plan to expand the guided reports concept to the serials
table, sponsored by St Etienne University and developed by BibLibre,
expected for/deadline: 2011-05-01 – I think that will make it just
miss Koha 3.4′s release, so there should still be time to comment on
the wiki.

Please Contribute!

Please, if you have any feedback or encouragement for any of the
above, follow the link and add comments, or start a discussion. It
really does make a difference, helping Koha to develop in the best way
possible, in collaboration between users and developers.


Koha Libraries

South Taranaki District Libraries move to Koha
by Susan McMillan

The South Taranaki District Council (STDC) Libraries are pleased to
announce that they are changing to Koha in March.

While initially skeptical that a “free” system could provide for the
needs of a modern public library (in South Taranaki’s case made up of
seven branches), staff were pleasantly surprised with the features
that Koha offers straight out of the box.

After Council’s IT Manager, Pete Sayers and Customer Services
Librarian, Cath Sheard, attended Koha10 conference last year the IT
department decided to trial Koha. Soon Cath and I were getting emails
and excited phone calls from IT telling us how they had set up a
borrower, added a book (their cataloguing was abysmal!) and issued
items to themselves … all with no training or library knowledge
what-so-ever.

Cath and I soon had some MARC records imported, set up lending rules,
Google book covers, carousels and personalised the OPAC. What we found
tricky was the change in terminology between our current management
system and that used in Koha.

We are looking forward to going live with Koha after Taranaki
Anniversary weekend on 14 March.

Koha Article: OSS in Italy
by Zeno Tajoli

Abstract: Koha is an open-source Integrated Library System (ILS)
developed in New Zealand and deployed for the first time in January of
2000 for Horowhenua Library Trust. Koha is a full-fledged software
with basic and advanced features. Koha has also a strong and wide
community of librarians and developers. In particular, it is suitable
to all institutions who want to automate their libraries using a
system that allows a complete control over data and over software
itself. CILEA worked to adapt Koha to Italian libraries and now it is
a part of the community.

    * The official link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10650751111106555
    * The post-print link: http://eprints.rclis.org/handle/10760/15340

Koha in Mongolia
by J. Begzsuren

Central Public Library of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia has been working to
implement Koha in our library since August, 2010. As of now we have
successfully tested the conversion of our Softlink Alice “ansi”
database into a Koha “unicode” database. Our partners are KOICA,
volunteer He Shin Young, librarian and Mongolian Libraries Consortium
Gantulga, IT specialist.

This is the first library in Mongolia to implement Koha to a public
library and the first known ansi database conversion. We are still
working on conversion but our system will be live soon at
http://koha.pl.ub.gov.mn.

Koha in the Maldives
by Aminath Riyaz

Koha is making waves in the Maldives library sector. A few personnel
from the Maldives library and information sector have been exposed to
Koha briefly during the last few years, at the short term training
programs hosted by the SAARC Documentation Center, New Delhi, India.
Koha made a loud enough impact in the Maldives with the formation of
DLNetSA (Digital Library Network of South Asia) in July 2010. This was
followed by a “training of trainers” workshop on Koha held in Male’,
Maldives, organized by the Maldives Greenstone support Network and
facilitated by resource persons from HealthNet Nepal. A trial database
was hosted by HealthNet Nepal at http://115.187.27.13.

With online support of HealthNet Nepal, Maldives Library Association
(MLA) is introducing Koha to the libraries in the Maldives. As a first
step, the MLA will be setting up Koha in four libraries selected
strategically from different parts of the island nation. More
information about this pilot project is available at
http://infomalias.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/computerise-your-library.
The interest shown by the library sector is overwhelming. This is not
unexpected, as there are only a few libraries in the country with even
an online library catalogue. The only library known to be using an
integrated library system at present is the Maldives National
University Library.

The MLA is very enthusiastic about this endeavor and is very thankful
for the support from HealthNet Nepal, University of Waikato, and the
Maldives Greenstone support Network. This project is a huge step for
MLA given the small group of Library and Information Science
professionals in the country.


Koha Events

KohaCon 2011 in India
by Nicole C. Engard

The KohaCon 2011 Location Survey is closed. We had a total of 877
responses. If you voted for a location as your first choice it got 4
points, your second choice 3 points, and so on. Below is the break
down in points.

    * Thane, India [ End October - Beginning November ] 2640+150+62+33= 2885
    * Kathmandu, Nepal [ November / December 2011 ] 432+96+186+24= 738
    * Kolkata, India [ November / December 2011 ] 156+339+104+33= 632
    * Somerset or Bristol, UK [ September / October 2011 ] 160+141+72+108 = 481

A break down of results can be found here and raw results available
upon request.

Even if we ignore votes from those who didn’t fill in all the
information I’m pretty sure we have a winner.

In addition, I recommend that we soon move on to voting for the
location for 2012 so that we can get on top of things and conference
planners have more time to prepare.





Newsletter edited by Nicole C. Engard, Koha Documentation Manager.
Please send future story ideas to me.