Koha Community Newsletter: May 2015

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April 2015

Volume 6, Issue 5
ISSN 2153-8328
Edited by Chad Roseburg, Koha Community Newsletter Editor

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Table of Contents

Development

Koha 3.20.0 Released

by Tomas Cohen Arazi
It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of Koha 3.20, the latest major release of the Koha open source integrated library system.

Koha is the first free and open source software library automation package (ILS). Development is sponsored by libraries of varying types and sizes, volunteers, and support companies from around the world.

The Koha 3.20 tarball and install instructions can be found on the download page.

More install instructions and useful information can be found on the wiki and in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball

Koha 3.20 is a major release, that comes with many new features.

It includes 5 new features, 114 enhancements and 407 bugfixes.

Please check out http://koha-community.org/koha-3-20-0-released/ for the complete release notes.

Koha 3.18.7 Released

by Chris Cormack
Koha is the first free and open source software library automation package (ILS). Development is sponsored by libraries of varying types and sizes, volunteers, and support companies from around the world.

The website for the Koha project is http://koha-community.org and Koha 3.18.7 can be installed via packages, or downloaded from: http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.18.07.tar.gz.

Installation instructions can be found at http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Installation_Documentation or in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball.

Koha 3.18.7 is a bugfix/maintenance release.

You can read the full release notes at http://koha-community.org/koha-3-14-14-released/.

Koha 3.16.11 Released

by Mason James
The Koha release team are proud to announce the release of Koha 3.16.11.

This is a bugfix/maintenance release

As always, the best option is to upgrade using the debian packages, at
debian.koha-community.org.

Otherwise you can download the tarball at download.koha-community.org.

Installation instructions can be found at http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Installation_Documentation or in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball.

It includes 1 enhancements and 12 bugfixes.

Full release notes are here

http://koha-community.org/koha-3-16-11-released/

Elastic Search Update

by Sebastian Hierl, Ph.D.
ElasticSearch integration in Koha is making progress. Since the announcement of the EBSCO grant to the Koha Gruppo Italiano this past February, the community, through an effort coordinated by ByWater Solutions, completed considerable work on the browse feature and enhanced patron functionality API access. Progress can be tracked through bugs #12478 and #13799 on the community Bugzilla site.

Bugs and Patches

Bugs needing attention.

Noisy Unit Tests

From Mark Tompsett
A recent conversation between Tomás Cohen Arazi and myself about tests on IRC the other week covered tests with floody warnings. To which he challenged me: “How is it that you haven’t already cleaned all the warnings from the unit tests?”

Well, never fear! I started. Bugs 14110-14118, and 14120-14121 basically cover all of t’s noise, and start into t/db_dependent. Many have been signed off by Bernardo Gonzalez Kriegel (Thank you!), but some have yet to be signed off.

If you hate floody tests, take a look.

Links to the bugs:

Community

New Koha Libraries

Community Gossip

Barton Chittenden writes about the importance of precise language when submitting support tickets and including a koha URL where possible.

Chris Cormack writes about the wonderful community we’re all a part of in Koha Kindness.

Mirko Tietgen announced meinkoha, “a platform offering free personal Koha
instances to librarians and students of library and information science in the German-speaking world”.

How To

Vimal Kumar shows you how to clean the fine amounts in Koha’s accountlines table.

Christopher Brannon walks you through styling patron expiration dates with JQuery in Koha.

Carmen Hernandez shows you the basics of patron management in Koha 3.18.

Amy Kearns gives you a workaround for missing due dates on your Koha slips.

Let Vimal Kumar walk you through Installing Koha on Ubuntu 14.04.

DP Tripathi created a script for installing Koha 3.20 with a single command on Ubuntu 14-04 LTS.

Pierre Vandekerckhove shows you how to add chat to your OPAC.


Support Provider News

Fourteen ByWater Partner Libraries Bring Features to Koha 3.18

Upcoming Events

June General IRC meeting

The June general IRC meeting will be held on the 10th at 20:00 UTC.

The agenda and other information is here.

June General IRC meeting

The June Development IRC meeting will be held on the 3rd at 15:00 and 22:00 UTC.

The agenda and other information is here.

KohaCon 2015

Registration is now open!

They are also accepting presentation proposals – so Submit your talk!

Location:International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) lbadan, Nigeria
Dates: October 19 – 21

For more information, please see http://kohacon15.projektlinkkonsult.com/ .

Koha North American User Group Conference 2015: Registration Info and Schedule

The schedule has been finalized, see it here: Koha North American User Group Conference 2015 Schedule

Dates: August 5-8, 2015
Location: Bayfront Convention Center in Erie, Pennsylvania
Website: http://www.mercyhurst.edu/academics/library/2015-koha-north-american-users-group-conference

Registration is NOW open!!! Deadline for registration is July 20th. Register here. Credit cards not accepted — mail a check to:

NEKLS
4317 W. 6th Street
Lawrence, KS 66049

Make it out to Northeast Kansas Library System

Now accepting presentation proposals. From the announcement:

The Koha North American User Group Conference planning committee is seeking session proposals for the 2015 meeting on August 4-7, in Erie, PA. The committee invites proposals that: attract Koha end users such as librarians, technical services and support staff in libraries; offer work arounds for known system issues and bugs; highlight technological advances impacting Koha development; deliver work-flow best practices and innovative approaches to using Koha; utilize other open-source software within Koha; provide tips and tools for cataloging, serials management, accounts clean-up, patron uploads, record maintenance, and other system functions.

Submit session topics here.

Past Events

Pakistan: Library Management and Digital Resources

by Sher Afzal Khan
A five day workshop on “Library Management and Digital Resources were recently organized by the National Centre for Rural Development on April 13-17, 2015. More than 48 IT and Library Professional from across the country i.e Karachi, Baluchistan, Punjab, KP and Gilgat Baltistan attended the workshop. Mr Sher Afzal Chief Librarian Bahria University Islamabad was the key resource person. He delivered comprehensive sessions and hands on practice with Dspace institutional repository Software. The LIS professionals were trained about the Free and open source institutional repository software Dspace.

pak-group

May General IRC Meeting

The May general IRC meeting was held on the 6th at 20:00 UTC.

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

May Development IRC Meeting

The May development IRC meeting was held on the 19th at 21:00 UTC.

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

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Editor, Koha Community Newsletter