Koha Newsletter: Volume 1/Issue 10: October 2010

Posted on Posted in Koha Newsletter

Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328)
Volume 1, Issue 10: October 2010

Table of Contents

 

Koha in Libraries

The Infothèque at Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci live on Koha
by Guylène Parent

We are pleased to present our new Koha catalog available at http://koha.devinci.fr. The Infothèque is a large library and a great information center for the students and teachers from Business Schools and Engineering Schools located in Pôle Universitaire Léonard de Vinci at Paris La Défense. In addition to those from the university we have visitors from the general public, job researchers and entrepreneurs coming to the library.

Enjoy our new website and new catalog !

Koha for Private Libraries
by Jared Camins-Esakov

Although Koha may not be the first software package that comes to mind for cataloging a private collection, for large collections Koha’s OPAC offers an attractive and functional alternative to consumer software. C & P Bibliography Services, LLC was founded on this premise (among others), and offers a complete bibliography solution for private book collections based around the open source Koha. A recent blog post outlines our pledge to the Koha community. We look forward to working with you all to make Koha even better.

Hauraki District Libraries Chooses Koha
by Paul Nielsen

Hauraki District Libraries are proud to be New Zealand’s newest Koha library, having gone live on September 27th. The migration process from our existing custom-built LMS to Koha has been handled seamlessly by Wellington’s Catalyst IT Ltd, led by Chris Cormack. Chris’ in-depth knowledge really helped us to optimize the initial configuration process. We have already seen a number of benefits to our workflows through using Koha and look forward to really getting to grips with novel concepts (to us anyway) like MARC, copy cataloguing etc. in the future! A big thank you too to Horowhenua Library Trust, from whom we borrowed liberally during the set-up phase.

This is the start of a great adventure for us and represents a real watershed for our Council in terms of both the library service provided to our community and for our IT people. IT support is provided in-house by our Council and they have really embraced Koha and the open-source approach into their microsoft-based network environment.

Check out our website, http://library.hauraki-dc.govt.nz/. We are very excited by the capability Koha provides to enable us to offer a much improved service to our community, via the greatly improved catalogue and website. The website is still in a quite basic form for now, but we look forward to improving the content over time.

Myself and two senior staff will be attending KohaCon so look forward to meeting those of you out there in Koha-land. Please feel free to contact me for further detail.

 

Learn Open Source

Story of an Open Source Library
by Cindy Murdock Ames

This webinar, hosted by TechSoup, will cover specific open source tools (some of which you may not have heard of before!) that work well for libraries and the benefits and challenges associated with their use. Meadville Public Library uses open source software on 90% of their public access computers.

Cindy Murdock Ames, IT Services Director and Kyle Hall, the library’s on-staff developer, will share recommendations for libraries considering open source software and how to get started successfully. Cindy has been using open source software for over 10 years, which has allowed the library to save licensing costs and have more control over its computing environment. The library uses open source tools for their websites, e-mail, Internet firewall, wireless router, proxying, filtering, and productivity software. They use thin clients for Internet access and Koha for the circulation and public catalogs.

When: 10/21/2010 11:00am – 12:00pm America/Los_Angeles — Register online

WisKE Meeting
by Vicki Teal Lovely

The Wisconsin Koha Enthusiasts (WisKE) will be meeting at the Wisconsin Library Association Conference on Friday, November 5th at 8:45am in the Aloeswood Room at the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells. All are welcome! More information can be found on the program page.

Practical Open Source Software for Libraries
by Nicole C. Engard

Koha community member (and documentation manager) Nicole C. Engard is proud to announce the publication of her second book on her favorite topic – open source software for libraries. More information about the book can be found on the official book site.

 

KUDOS

Looking for Members

KUDOS, the Koha users group for North America, is looking for members to help us decide what services we should provide, and what roll we should play in the Koha community. Board positions are available. Please fill out the registration form at to apply for a free one year membership (your institution must be located in North America and have an installation of Koha).

 

 

Newsletter edited by Nicole C. Engard, Koha Documentation Manager.

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