[Koha] From the Kaitiaki

[Pat Eyler]

                                                       Sep 13, 2002

To the Koha community

Welcome,

Koha seems to be showing up in a lot more places these days.  I've
heard from people in the US, Ireland, Germany, India, and Panama about
their desire to start using it.  We've recently shown up on the South
African Government's Open Source Software website.  I've even seen a
Koha installation in Japan.  This is really cool!  What's even better
is that we're poised to do even more.

If you've got a question, comment, or a success story, please feel
free to drop me a line.

1.2
 More work has gone into 1.2.3, and RC13 has just been released.
 We're seeing a lot of testing help from the community, and this will
 be key to making 1.2.3 work extremely well for everybody.

1.4
 We're getting closer to a 1.3.0 release.  Paul Poulain, the 1.4
 release manager expects it in the next 2 weeks.

 What makes this 1.3/1.4 release so special?  Well, on the surface,
 nothing seems to change... Koha should work exactly as in the 1.2
 versions, but the underlying database API has been completely
 rewritten.  Data is stored in the old, custom format and in MARC
 format too (MARC21 English by default, but other flavours of MARC
 will be supported as well.

 The 1.3.0 release has to be heavily tested to ensure that everything
 works as it did under 1.2.X.  The next steps in the 1.3 series include MARC
 tools for librarians, MARC export and import, and many other nice features.

 REMEMBER : the 1.3.0 IS alpha-software Use it only for TESTING PURPOSES.
 You've been warned !

Documentation
 If you've converted from a proprietary ILS to Koha, please contact
 <nsr_koha at hotmail.com>.  He's working on a migration guide to add to
 our existing manual.

Translations
 Work is currently being done on some of our documentation translation
 tools.  We're hoping to have tools and documentation ready for
 translators soon.

Community
 Philanthropy Australia is this weeks news maker, see
 <http://www.linuxpr.com/releases/5107.html >.  We've also made it
 onto a few more radar screens, systems from Follet.com and
 Epixtech.com have both been spotted checking out Koha.

 In breaking news, Steve Tonnesen has worked a bit more Koha magic.
 This week he's released a demo CD for Koha.  This CD will allow a
 user to run a sample Koha installation on any Win32 systems that
 will boot from a CD.  What a great way to spread the word.  An ISO
 image (suitable for burning CDs) is available at:
 <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=16466>.

 Koha has been invited to participate in the Think-Linux show in
 Columbus, Ohio (in the US).  We're not sure yet whether this is
 logisticly possible for us.  If you're interested in making our
 appearance at this show a reality, or in seeing Koha at a local
 conference, User Group meeting, or similar event, please let me
 know.

While the pace of Koha acceptance and development seem to be picking
up, we're still a very friendly place for newcomers.  If you're new to
Koha, please stop by the mailing list and introduce yourself.

happy hacking,

Pat Eyler
Kaitiaki/manager
the Koha project