Koha Community Newsletter: January 2013

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January 2013

Volume 4, Issue 1
ISSN 2153-8328
Edited by Daniel Grobani, Koha Community Newsletter Editor.
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Table of Contents

Koha Development

Koha 3.10.2 Released
by Chris Cormack

The Koha release team is proud to announce the release of Koha 3.10.2.

This is the latest bugfix/maintenance release of the Koha 3.10.x series.

Koha 3.10.2 can be downloaded here.

Installation instructions are here or in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball.

Release notes are here.

Koha 3.8.9 Released
by Chris Cormack

The Koha release team is proud to announce the release of Koha 3.8.9.

This is the latest bugfix/maintenance release of the Koha 3.8.x series.

Koha 3.8.9 can be downloaded here.

Installation instructions are here or in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball.

Release notes are here.

Koha Live CD Lite Released
by Vimal Kumar

An improved version of Koha Live CD Lite has been released, based on Koha 3.10.x and Lubuntu 12.04.1.

Koha Live CD Lite is suitable to run on computers with low processor speeds and RAM. Running in live mode, it is suitable for learning. It is also suitable for installation. Here are its features:

  • Easy installation steps
  • Koha installation based on Ubuntu packages, so easy to upgrade to new versions
  • Koha customised for ready to use
  • Zebra server enabled
  • Customised MARC fields in cataloguing
  • Scheduled database backup
  • Build on Lubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
  • Detailed Read Me file
  • Sample reports

Koha Community

New Koha Libraries

Sonam Penjor, Manager of Educational Technology at the Royal University of Bhutan, reports that the University launched Koha in nine of its ten member colleges around Bhutan on 1 December 2012.

Koha Migration in Turkey
by Mustafa Arici

We are happy to announce to the Koha community the great Koha migration project going on in Turkey lately.

This project, initiated by the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Near East University, aims to migrate all the public libraries operating under the authority of the Ministry. This amounts to 1,112 branches, with more than 800,000 users total and approximately 8,000,000 bibliographic records currently. It is anticipated that this migration will attract the attention of other libraries around the country and also of some other organisations as well.

Near East University’s Innovation and IT Center is dealing with the technical aspects of the project. I would like to point out that Near East University Grand Library has used a modified version of Koha since 2005 and has made some software contributions to the Koha project from time to time.

Augustan Society Library on Koha
by Bruce A. Metcalf

The Augustan Society Library has been around for more than half a century, but we have not previously had a public catalog.

The reason is that our founding director had an eidetic memory, and a question to him might result in not just a book title, but it’s location, description, and usually a page number! Alas, with his passing, we have lost this valuable finding aid.

We are presently running Koha 3.6.2 under Debian Squeeze on a virtual server, and are in the slow process of cataloging our collection of about 20,000 volumes on the subjects of ancient and medieval history, heraldry, genealogy, chivalry, and royal biography.

With only a thousand volumes cataloged to date, the catalog is yet sparse, but with regular additions of perhaps 50 volumes per week. OPAC access is free and unrestricted, and ILL requests will be honored.

The catalog is online here. More information about our Society is here.

Community Gossip

Vimal Kumar V. and S. Jasimudeen have published an article entitled “Adoption and user perceptions of Koha library management system in India.”

Kyle Hall, Cindy Murdock Ames, and John Brice of the Crawford County Federated Library System have published an article entitled “Open Source Library Software Development in a Small Rural Library System.” (Kyle’s also on staff at ByWater Solutions).

Corey Fuimaono, a student at Aotea College participating in Catalyst IT’s Catalyst Academy, became the 200th developer to contribute to the Koha project. Corey’s been working on incorporating Bootstrap into Koha.

Marshall Breeding has posted the results of his Perceptions 2012: An International Survey of Library Automation, which includes responses from a number of Koha libraries.

Laurence Lefaucheur continues to post a French translation of each issue of the Koha community newsletter.

Nicole Engard, Koha Documentation Manager, has been nominated for the Opensource.com People’s Choice Award for her article “Should we require that open source is developed openly?”.

Support Provider News

OrisysIndia Consultancy Services of Trivandrum, India, has been added to the Koha community website’s list of paid support providers.

BibLibre has posted a two-part French-language presentation on Koha 3.10.

ByWater Solutions publishes an informative blog on Koha use and development. Recent posts include:

Upcoming Koha Events

February General IRC Meeting

The February general IRC meeting will be held on 7 February 2013 at 2:00 UTC.

The agenda and other information is here.

Marseille Hackfest
by Paul Poulain

BibLibre is organizing a hackfest in Marseille, 18-22 March 2013. There are already 30 people registered (18 BibLibre staff and 12 others).

It’s a great time to hack and have fun on Koha. There will be people from Norway, Germany, and USA. People from Italy, Spain, UK, Switzerland, Netherlands, Poland, Greece, and all other countries around the world, you’re welcome!

Just email me if you want more information or plan to come.

Past Koha Events

January General IRC Meeting

The January general IRC meeting was held on 9 January 2013.

The agenda, links to the minutes, and other information is here.