[Koha] Official Koha Newsletter: Volume 2, Issue 3: March 2011

[Nicole Engard]

Please read the newsletter online for live links:
http://koha-community.org/koha-newsletter-volume-2issue-3-march-2011/

Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328)
Volume 2, Issue 3: March 2011

Table of Contents

    Koha Developments
        Koha 3.2.6 Available
        Date Format Tips
    Koha Community
        Unsung Heroes : Olwen Williams
        National Library brings ‘Koha’ to Pangasinan
    Koha Events
        Koha Hacking in France
        KohaCon 2011 Announcements
        KudosCon Announcements


Koha Developments

Koha 3.2.6 Available
by Chris Nighswonger

The package can be retrieved from:

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.02.06.tar.gz

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

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.02.06.tar.gz.MD5
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.02.06.tar.gz.MD5.asc
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.02.06.tar.gz.sig

Release notes for 3.2.6 are below the fold.

Learn more on the official site.

Date Format Tips
by Fridolyn SOMERS

The date format in Koha is set by system preference “dateformat” :

iso : year-month-day
metric : day/month/year
us : month/day/year

This syspref is passed to all templates by Auth.pm via two variables
(ie “us” date format) :
dateformat = “us”
dateformat_us = 1

To display the wanted date format to user in a page, use the include
“date-format.inc”.
It uses the above variables to render :

iso : (YYYY-MM-DD)
metric : (DD/MM/YYYY)
us : (MM/DD/YYYY)

Note that this include is translated.
ie in French : (JJ/MM/AAAA).

You may use the C4::Dates module :
ie get today date :

my $today C4::Dates->new();

To get date formatted in ISO :
my $message = ‘We are the ‘.$today->output(‘iso’);

To get date formatted according to current date format :
my $message = ‘We are the ‘.$today->output();

Remember that dates are stored in ISO in database.
So query results will contain ISO formatted dates.

Use “C4::Dates::format_date” to convert from ISO to current date format.
Use “C4::Dates::format_date_in_iso” to convert from current date format to ISO.

An interesting trick :
The ISO format – because of the order of year, month and day –
authorizes a string-comparison of two dates :
ie :
“2011-03-10″ gt “2011-03-09″ (day comparison)
“2011-04-02″ gt “2011-03-09″ (day and month comparison)
“2012-01-01″ gt “2011-03-09″ (day,month and year comparison)


Koha Community

Unsung Heroes : Olwen Williams
by Chris Cormack

When I was working on the Koha history doc leading up to the
presentation at Kohacon I noticed that there were some contributions
that I would like to make special mention of. This of course is not to
try and rank anyones contribution over anyone else’s or to detract
from the already well recognised contributors. But there are some
people who made significant contributions to Koha and I would like to
recognise that.

Olwen Williams is a huge reason why Koha exists, without her and her
knowledge of pick based systems we might still be struggling to get
the data out of the old library system :) She enabled Horowhenua
Library Trust to feel confident, by getting the data out of their old
system and getting it into the new relational database. Not content to
stop there, she also wrote a significant amount of the code that was
to become Koha 1.0. She was the second person ever to commit code to
Koha and occasionally still answers a question on the mailing list.

Olwen if you read this, hats off to you and thank you very much for
all the hard work you put in.

National Library brings ‘Koha’ to Pangasinan
by Eva Visperas

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan, Philippines – Thirty-four public libraries in
this province each received a complete unit of the Integrated Library
System from the National Library of the Philippines.

Edgardo Quiros, chief of the Information Technology Division of the
National Library, told The STAR that Pangasinan is the sixth
province-recipient of this project after Cavite, Nueva Ecija,
Pampanga, La Union and Benguet. Next would be Bohol, Negros Oriental
and Negros Occidental.

The project, named Koha, from the Maori (New Zealand) word meaning to
give, is an open source integrated library system developed by New
Zealand that was successful and eventually shared to the world.

The project was first implemented by the National Library in 1996 and
2000, and the present distribution has incorporated changes in the
system brought by changes in technology, according to Quiros.

Read more.


Koha Events

Koha Hacking in France
by Paul Poulain

At the beginning of April, more than 20 Koha developers will have a
week of hard work on Koha in France, Marseille (at BibLibre office).
They come from many countries from Europe: Spain (4), Germany (1),
Norway (1), UK (2), and of course France (all BibLibre, that’s 9
developers + 3 librarians, but not only: 3 frenchies not from BibLibre
are also coming)

During this week, we will work on testing/patching new features and
bugfixes that are still waiting for 3.4, but also work on
documentation and translation.

I also hope that will be a good opportunity for us to share our
experiences, speak of our future projects,… If anyone want to join us,
it’s still possible, the first limit we will reach is the bandwidth
one probably, drop a mail to paul.poulain at biblibre.com.

KohaCon 2011 in India
by Nicole C. Engard

Registration and the Call for Papers for KohaCon 2011 are open at the
new official conference site. You can also subscribe to the conference
mailing list through that site.

KudosCon Announcements
by David Schuster

The registration form for the KUDOScon2011 conference is available.
This will be a no registration fee conference, held in Madison, WI on
May 2 and 3, 2011. We are asking that people register for the
conference as we are limited in attendance. Please do not register if
you do not plan on attending.

The Conference Planning Committee is finalizing the program. In
addition to the regular program, there will be some fun ways for
everyone to get involved with the conference. We will also have an
evening sponsor reception at a local venue. Watch for more information
on these soon.

For more details on Madison, the conference center and the program,
see the KUDOScon2011 site. We have one block of hotel rooms available
at a nearby hotel and we are working on getting more. If you would
like to book now, here is the link. If you are a government employee,
we have some great rates.


Newsletter edited by Nicole C. Engard, Koha Documentation Manager.
Please send future story ideas to me.