[Koha] Koha 2.2.0 is born !

Thu Jan 6 04:15:43 NZDT 2005

Hello all,

Today it's an important day for 2 reasons : our preferred ILS has 5 
years (project registered on sourceforge on 2000-12-12 22:46, but the 
1st working version was in 2000-01-03)

Today the version 2.2.0 of Koha is released. Here is the new features list.
You can find the complete release notes on sourceforge, and, of course, 
download the software.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=16466&package_id=136105&release_id=294626

RELEASE NOTES
=============

Koha is the 1st Open-Source Integrated Library System.
Released at first in New zealand, in 2000 januaray, it is maintained by 
a team of volunteers from around the globe, the Koha system is a full 
catalogue, opac, circulation and acquisitions system.

Koha 2.2 is more than 247 000 lines of code, developped by more than 30 
differents developpers (excluding translators).

With the 2.2 version, Koha is now a mature product, with a lot of nice 
features. It's used in more than 50 libraries, from all kinds (public, 
schools, search, religious...), of all size (from 1 to 8 branches, from 
1000 to 300 000 items).

========
WARNINGS
========
* the librarian interface is tested only with mozilla/firefox. Should 
work (partially) with IE. OPAC should work fine with any navigator.
* Any 2.1.x install must be uninstalled before installing 2.2.0 No 
update is provided for 2.1.0.

=============
NEW FEATURES
=============
Koha 2.2 has, of course, all the previous features from Koha 
(acquisition, cataloguing, circulation, members modules, OPAC, complete 
MARC support...) plus the following new ones :

General :
*********
* (almost) complete rewrite of librarian GUI : now Koha uses CSS, and is 
easier to use. However, users of Koha 2.0.0 won't be lost, as the 
general organisation of the product has not changed.
* Online Help : an online help is available everywhere in the librarian 
interface. It's complete in the parameters section of Koha and for new 
features. It will be completed for the rest of the product.
* Better LDAP suport : Koha 2.2 can be "connected" to a LDAP server and 
get all borrower informations from there (including borrower category 
where applicable). However, to avoid problems for libraries without LDAP 
server, the LDAP features have been stored in 
modules/C4/Auth_with_ldap.pm file. The standard Auth.pm don't use it. If 
you want LDAP, just perldoc Auth_with_ldap.pm and manually tune your 
Auth package !
* Auto installer : if you install koha with ./install -i 
/path/to/auto_install_file, then Koha will be installed almost without 
question. A very usefull feature for developpers that want to 
install/uninstall Koha quite often. A sample of auto_install_file is 
provided in misc/auto_install_file.
* Uninstaller : run misc/uninstall.pl, provide the mysql root password. 
that's all. Koha is completely deleted and can be reinstalled. With the 
previous feature, it's a very nice solution for test platform.
* mod_perl : Koha should now work under mod_perl, that gives a big 
performance boost (Release Manager don't use mod_perl. fixes comes from 
A. Tarallo, Argentina, that ensure Koha works fine with mod_perl with 
the patches applied)
* Nelsonville have shared their templates. They are available as NPL theme.
* Language : in this version, only english and french versions are fully 
functionnal. Spanish and chinese are provided, but not fully 
functionnal. Polish, German, Arabic, Hebrew, and many other languages 
have volunteers and should be here in a future 2.2.x

BE CAREFUL with uninstaller :
1- This script does not ask for confirmation after mysql root password.
2- This script uses /etc/koha.conf. If you have more than 1 koha on your 
server, use /etc/koha.conf for a "deletable-test" one.

Acquisition :
*************
* suggestion : borrowers can suggest items to buy in OPAC. Then, the 
librarian can manage (accept or refuse) and order them.
* possibility to close a basket, he can't be modified then
* order a basket by publisher or by bookfund/publisher
* search order history

Cataloguing :
*************
* Cataloguing frameworks : you can define as many frameworks as you 
want. A framework describes how a material is catalogued (which fields, 
subfields, which constraints on them...)
* MARC authorities : Koha now supports authorities in MARC. You can 
define the MARC structure for authorities like for biblios.
* New contraints can be set for subfields :
   - subfield is hidden : appears in MARC editor, but not in OPAC.
   - subfield is an URL : the field can be cliqued
   - related fields : a search made on a subfield also uses other 
subfields automatically. Using this feature, a search on "title" can 
search title, but also subtitle, uniform title,...
* Item location can now be done on 3 levels : the branch, the location 
(room), the callnumber.
* The callnumber can now be calculated from the LC, the dewey, or be 
freely (and manually) entered.
* Duplicate finder : this powerful feature help your cataloguers 
avoiding duplicate biblios.
* ISBD view : in librarian interface as well as in OPAC biblios can be 
shown in standard (default) presentation, in MARC (human readable) or 
ISBD. The ISBD view can be tuned by the librarian team. There is also a 
systempref to define default view in OPAC (either normal, MARC or ISBD). 
Created automatically during install or update. Check that you have a 
Koha >> parameters >> systempreferences >> BiblioDefaultView, Variable 
type : Choice, Variable options : normal|marc|isbd
* UNIMARC plugin for every 1xx fields : ESNMP have developped all the 
plugins for UNIMARC fields 1xx. Those fields are coded fields.

Serial cataloguing :
********************
Koha 2.2 manage serial subscriptions and issuing of those subscriptions. 
(Only a few words to describe a very important & complete module !)

Catalogue search :
******************
* Search in OPAC and librarian interface has been improved. They now are 
exactly the same.
* Spelling suggestion : before sending a request, the user can ask for 
spelling suggestion. This shows other forms of words entered that would 
give results. Give poor results for instance, the Koha team is thinking 
to a true spellchecking.
* The user can select the order of the results and the number of results 
shown.

Members :
*********
* The borrowernote field is shown on issue and transfer.
* The textmessaging field appears in OPAC when the user logs in.

Circulation :
*************
* New issuing rules : Issuing can be set for branch / borrower type / 
item category, by number of days and number of items available.
* "joker" issuing rules : the library can set issuing rules for "any 
branch" or "any borrower type", or "any item category".
Both issuing rules are cumulative : a library can set issuing rules to 
10 books, 5 CD, but 12 total (books or CD).

OPAC :
******
In Koha 2.2, koha has :
* baskets. A basket can be printed or sent by mail to the borrower
* virtual shelves : a virtual shelf can be created and filled by any 
logged borrower. A given virtual shelf can be private or public. Or even 
free-for-all.
* language chooser : the borrower can change the language on the fly. 
The default language being still choosen by the library
* complete CSS definition. With a new systempref parameter : 
opacstylesheet. If this parameter is set to a stylesheet URL, this 
stylesheet will be used instead of the opactheme one. With this 
parameter, you can have your own stylesheet for OPAC, that will be used 
and kept when you update your version of Koha. The systempref must be a 
complete URL (http://www.koha.org/stylesheet/somestylesheet.css for example)

Barcode printing :
******************
A new module has been added to the parameters section : barcode 
printing. It requires the PDF::Api2 Perl package.

============
Koha Future
============
The future of Koha is being discussed on mailing lists and on koha wiki 
: http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/koha_wiki/index.php?page=KohaRoadmap2.2.x

-- 
Paul POULAIN
Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres
responsable francophone de koha (SIGB libre http://www.koha-fr.org)