[Koha] Official Koha Newsletter: Volume 2, Issue 11: November 2011

Wed Nov 30 11:23:15 NZDT 2011

[Below is the text of the newsletter. For active links and a more
readable format, please visit
http://koha-community.org/koha-newsletter-volume-2issue-11-november-2011]

Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328)
Volume 2, Issue 11: November 2011

Edited by Daniel Grobani, Koha Community Newsletter Editor.

Please submit news items to danielg.koha at gmail.com.

Table of Contents

    Koha Development
        Koha 3.4.6 Released
        Koha 3.4.x String Freeze
        Koha 3.6.1 Released
        Request for Koha Data for Development
    Koha Community
        New Koha Libraries
        Community Gossip
        PTFS/LibLime Granted Provisional NZ Koha Trademark
    Past Koha Events
        KohaCon11 Reports
        November General IRC Meeting
        Global Bug Squashing Day
    Upcoming Koha Events
        December General IRC Meeting
        KohaCon12

Koha Development

Koha 3.4.6 Released
by Chris Nighswonger

It is with pleasure that I announce the release of Koha 3.4.6.

The package can be retrieved from:

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.04.06.tar.gz

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

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.04.06.tar.gz.MD5
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.04.06.tar.gz.MD5.asc
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.04.06.tar.gz.sig

Release notes for 3.4.6 are at http://koha-community.org/koha-3-4-6.

Koha 3.4.x String Freeze
by Chris Nighswonger

The 3.4.x branch will enter a string freeze on 30 November. Koha 3.4.7
will release on 7 December.

Koha 3.6.1 Released
by Chris Nighswonger

It is with pleasure that I announce the release of Koha 3.6.1.

The package can be retrieved from:

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.06.01.tar.gz

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

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.06.01.tar.gz.MD5
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.06.01.tar.gz.MD5.asc
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.06.01.tar.gz.sig

Release notes for 3.6.1 are at http://koha-community.org/koha-3-6-1.

Request for Koha Data for Development
by Chris Nighswonger

A common problem among those of us who do development work on Koha is
the lack of complete datasets for the development and testing of
features. This is probably more of a problem for those of us who do
not support a large variety of organizations running Koha.

I would like to see some good, sanitized datasets available for
development and testing. Several of us have pleaded for this for
years. Just now, the lack of a good dataset including a sizable number
of serials is preventing me from doing some testing and development on
DataTables integration work, which has been started by Biblibre.

So, this is a request to all of you libraries out there with small,
medium, or large datasets who would be willing to contribute sanitized
data for development purposes, to do so. It would be a great way to
give back to the community that has provided such a wonderful product
with all of its attendant benefits.

Kind Regards,
Chris Nighswonger
Koha 3.4/3.6 Release Maintainer
cnighswonger at foundations.edu

Koha Community

New Koha Libraries

    Hernando County Public Library (via ByWater Solutions)
    Reserve Bank of New Zealand (via Catalyst)
    Shasta Historical Society (via ByWater Solutions)

Community Gossip

Albert Oller has joined ByWater Solutions as Development Support Specialist.

ByWater Solutions has posted a Koha Testing Plan at
http://bywatersolutions.com/koha-testing-plan/.

Chris Cormack has posted a visualisation of when work is done on Koha
at http://blog.bigballofwax.co.nz/2011/11/04/nice-visualisation-of-when-work-is-done-on-koha/.

Chris Hall is back working on Koha at Catalyst for the New Zealand summer.

Ed Veal has joined ByWater Solutions as Development Support Specialist.

Ian Walls writes about integrating Solr into Koha at
http://bywatersolutions.com/2011/11/02/kohacon-11-solr-and-koha/.

Laurence Lefaucheur is now posting a French translation of the Koha
community newsletter at
http://www.koha-fr.org/category/tags/newsletter.

Paul Poulain, Koha 3.8 Release Manager, will be publishing a monthly
newsletter summarizing 3.8 developments of the previous month. His
first issue can be read at
http://lists.koha-community.org/pipermail/koha-devel/2011-November/036525.html.

Paul Poulain has also posted a first draft of a document outlining how
the release manager pushes a patch at
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/How_the_RM_push.

PTFS/LibLime Granted Provisional NZ Koha Trademark

PTFS/LibLime has been granted provisional use of a trademark for the
use of the term Koha as it applies to Integrated Library Software
(ILS) in New Zealand. PTFS’s press release is at
http://www.liblime.com/ptfsliblime-granted-provisional-use-of-koha-trademark-in-new-zealand?a=1&c=1254.

Joann Ransom’s plea to assist Horowhenua Library Trust in disputing
the decision is at
http://library-matters.blogspot.com/2011/11/plea-for-help-from-horowhenua-library.html;
her update is at
http://library-matters.blogspot.com/2011/11/update-on-nz-koha-trademark.html.

Nicole Engard is maintaining a bibliography of the dispute. Her
initial post is at http://www.web2learning.net/archives/4910; updates
are at http://www.web2learning.net/archives/4915 and
http://www.web2learning.net/archives/4921. The entire bibliography can
be viewed at https://www.zotero.org/groups/koha/items/collectionKey/RR77I3HT/order/dateModified.

Past Koha Events

KohaCon11 Reports

KohaCon11 was held 31 October to 6 November 2011 in Thane, India.

Bob Birchall reports:

One of the exciting aspects of the Hackfest was that a Koha training
course was conducted for about 36 local librarians and students. Run
over two days, the course covered all major features of Koha. Trainers
were Jo Ransom (New Zealand), Marijana Glavica (Croatia), Irma and Bob
Birchall (Australia) and Savitra Sirohi (India); Brooke Johnson (US)
helped out and ByWater Solutions provided the training Koha instance –
a real international effort! It was a pleasure to teach these
librarians who were so hungry for knowledge of Koha. Also during the
Hackfest the translation of Koha into Hindi was progressed and
translation into Marathi started. Congratulations to the staff and
students of VPM Thane for this outstanding contribution to Koha.

Robin Sheat reports:

A few of us got together to work on improving Koha’s Open Library
integration. On the OL side there was Noufal Ibrahim and Anand
Chitipothu. From the Koha side, Dobrica Pavlinušić, Ian Walls, Savitra
Sirohi, and I spent time discussing how to make things work. I then
spent much of the hackfest adding features to Koha that would allow
Open Library to become something of a central cover repository with
streamlined uploading to it. At the same time, Anand was working on
the APIs on the OL side that Koha would talk to to make this easy.
This project is still a work in progress, but the current state can be
seen at http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=7152.
For more stuff about the Open Library + Koha integration that went on,
have a look at Noufal’s blog post at
http://blog.openlibrary.org/?p=954.

JoAnn Ransom blogged about some of her KohaCon11 experiences at
http://library-matters.blogspot.com/2011/10/notes-from-day-1-of-kohacon11-in-thane.html.
The slides from her keynote address are at
http://www.slideshare.net/jransom/it-takes-a-village-9955138.

Paul Poulain blogged about BibLibre’s presentations at
http://drupal.biblibre.com/en/blog/entry/kohacon11-our-presentations.

Mumbai-based newspaper DNA reported on KohaCon11 at
http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?edorsup=Sup&queryed=37&querypage=7&boxid=30762914&parentid=153604&eddate=11/05/2011.

November General IRC Meeting

The November general IRC meeting was held on 16 November 2011. For
more info, including the agenda and links to the minutes, see
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/General_IRC_Meeting,_16_November_2011.

Global Bug Squashing Day
by Magnus Enger

A Global bug sqashing day was held on 4 November 2011, and there was
much rejoicing.

For the numbers, see
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/2011-11-04_Global_bug_squashing_day.

Upcoming Koha Events

December General IRC Meeting

The December general IRC meeting will be held on 7 December 2011. For
more info, see http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/General_IRC_Meeting,_7_December_2011.

KohaCon12

MJ Ray reports that KohaCon12 will probably be held 5-7 June 2012 for
the conference and 9-11 June for the hackfest.