[Koha] Are You A Koha Newbie?

[Joshua Ferraro]

Hi there,

If you're just getting started learning about Koha or have been on
this list for a while but haven't really gotten involved too deeply
in Koha, this e-mail is for you.
 
Regardless of whether you have programming abilities, you can get
involved in the Koha development process. Do you have ideas for neat
features to be included? Would you like to learn to program Perl?
Do you have some financial resources that you could contribute
(even a few hundred dollars goes a long way)? Can you translate
Koha into your native language? Here are some ways you can get
involved.

1. Join the Developer's Mailing List:
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/koha-devel

2. Want to Learn to Program with Perl?
Here's the book many of us learned on:
http://learn.perl.org/redirect?url=book;bookstore=amazon;bookisbn=0596001320

You can also check out http://learn.perl.org which has lots of free
Perl resources.

3. How to Contribute Financially
First off, understand that although Koha is free, many of us
developers make a living _supporting_ Koha. The more money we
can make with Koha, the less we need to find other jobs to make
ends meet. So if you've got any monetary resources that you can
devote to Koha, please consider it. Even a small sum can go a
long way.

How to get the ball rolling? You could write a private message to
one of the developers, naming the project you would like to
'sponsor' and the amount of funds you can devote to it. You
could develop an RFP (Request for Proposal) if your idea is large
(NCIP for example), and then notify the koha-devel list.
Check the support page for a list of folks who can support
Koha: http://koha.org/installation/support.html

4. Translating Koha into Your Language
If you're willing to devote time translating Koha into your
language please do! We're going to need help translating the
website as well as the Koha interfaces and documentation into
as many languages as possible. Join the koha-devel list and
introduce yourself as a translator.

5. Give Us Feedback
If you're able, install Koha, play around with it, and give us
feedback. If you can't install it yourself, you can try out
the Koha demos. There are a couple of full demos available:

LibLime's 2.2 Demos:
OPAC: http://opac.liblime.com
	login with card numbers 1-10 and password 'liblime'
Intranet: http://koha.liblime.com
	login with username 'circ' and password 'liblime'

HLT/Katipo 2.0 Demos:
OPAC: http://opac.library.org.nz
Intranet: http://hlt.katipo.co.nz
	login with username 'hdl' and password 'testing'

Go ahead and use these demos to the full, add borrowers, check
out books to them, add items, do your worst! :-) and then let
us know what you'd like improved.

So ... the bottom line is, get involved! :-)

-- 
Joshua Ferraro               VENDOR SERVICES FOR OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE
President, Technology       migration, training, maintenance, support
LibLime                  Koha ILS, Mambo Intranet, DiscrimiNet Filter
jmf at liblime.com |  Full Demos at http://liblime.com  |  1(888)KohaILS
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