[Koha] Koha 16.11 Press Release for the General Public

[Nathan Curulla]

Hi Everyone,

I have created a press release for marketing purposes to be posted on the community site and distributed to media outlets. I wanted to share the release with everyone before publishing to see if there are any strong opinions regarding the content. Please keep in mind that this is for the general public, it is meant to be a tool for the community to educate those who are unfamiliar with Koha so many of the highly technical details have been left out. I am planning on releasing this first thing tomorrow. Thanks and I hope you all like it!

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11/23/2016
CONTACT:
Nathan Curulla, KC Media Coordinator 
ncurulla at gmail.com

The Koha Community is proud to announce the release of Koha 16.11

Koha, the world's first fully web based and open source integrated library system has now been released as version 16.11. This release will include over 240 enhancements as well as 360 bug fixes. Koha 16.11 builds on the system's already robust functionality and adds many architecture improvements to make the impressive speed of this fully web based system even faster. Some key highlights of the 16.11 release include:

Added ability to place article requests and document delivery in Koha
Addition of a patron quick add form for on the fly patron additions 
A new Housebound Readers Module, adding the ability to link deliverers, item choosers and homebound patrons on one account
Additional improvements to Koha's EDI ordering and invoicing functionality 
Additional improvements to Syndetics and Novelist Select embedded content
Improved ability to use Elastic as preferred search engine in Koha, adding speed and scalability to Koha’s searching capabilities
Enhancements to REST API infrastructure, paving the way for Koha to be the most accessible and integrated ILS in the world 
Added ability to place multiple holds per patron per record, allowing for multiple item level holds
The many other features contained in the 16.11 release can be viewed in the full release notes: (link forthcoming) 

Kyle Hall, Release Manager for Koha 16.11 commented on the newest release of Koha:

"Koha 16.11 contains many important architecture and plumbing improvements to the system which pave the way for the next few releases and the exciting enhancements lined up to be included. Because architecture improvements are typically behind the scenes they are more difficult to find funding for, so taking care of these improvements will result many long term gains for Koha."

The Koha Community would like to thank the following libraries and companies who are known to have sponsored new features in Koha 16.11:

BULAC - http://www.bulac.fr/ <http://www.bulac.fr/>
ByWater Solutions
California College of the Arts
Carnegie Stout Library
Catalyst IT
DoverNet
FIT
Hochschule für Gesundheit (hsg), Germany
NEKLS
South-East Kansas Library System
SWITCH Library Consortium
Tulong Aklatan
Universidad de El Salvador
Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21
University of the Arts London
VOKAL
We would also like to thank the 72 individuals and 36 libraries, companies, and institutions who contributed patches to this release, as well as the 102 individuals involved in testing Koha 16.11. 

About Koha:
Koha is the first free software library automation package. In use worldwide, its development is steered by a growing community of users collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha’s feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base.

Full-featured ILS. In use worldwide in libraries of all sizes, Koha is a true enterprise-class ILS with comprehensive functionality including basic and advanced options. Koha includes modules for acquisitions, circulation, cataloging, serials management, authorities, flexible reporting, label printing, multi-format notices, offline circulation for when Internet access is not available, and much more. Koha will work for consortia of all sizes, multi-branch, and single-branch libraries.

Multilingual and translatable. Koha has a large number of available languages <http://translate.koha-community.org/>, with more languages every year.

Full text searching Powerful searching, and an enhanced catalogue display that can use content from Amazon, Google, LibraryThing, Open Library, and Syndetics, among others.

Library Standards Compliant. Koha is built using library standards and protocols such as MARC 21, UNIMARC, z39.50, SRU/SW, SIP2, SIP/NCIP, ensuring interoperability between Koha and other systems and technologies, while supporting existing workflows and tools.

Web-based Interfaces. Koha’s OPAC, circ, management and self-checkout interfaces are all based on standards-compliant World Wide Web technologies–XHTML, CSS and Javascript–making Koha a truly platform-independent solution.

Free Software / Open Source  Koha is distributed under the Free Software General Public License (GPL) version 3 or later <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

No Vendor Lock-in. It is an important part of the free software promise that there is no vendor lock-in: libraries are free to install and use Koha themselves if the have the in-house expertise or to purchase support or development services from the best available sources. Libraries should be free to change support company and export their data at any time, make sure your support company allows this. For more information please visit: https://koha-community.org <https://koha-community.org/> 

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> Nathan A. Curulla
> Owner, CRO
> ByWater Solutions
> Support and Consulting for Open Source Software
> Headquarters: Portland, OR.
> East Coast Office: Redding, CT.
> Phone/Fax # (888) 900-8944 xt 2
> Cell # (203) 685-7207

> http://bywatersolutions.com <http://bywatersolutions.com/>
> nate at bywatersolutions.com <mailto:nate at bywatersolutions.com>