Koha Newsletter: Volume 2/Issue 10: October 2011

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Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328) Subscribe
Volume 2, Issue 10: October 2011

 

Edited by Daniel Grobani, Koha Community Newsletter Editor.
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Table of Contents

Koha Developments

Koha 3.4.5 Released
by Chris Nighswonger

It is with pleasure that I announce the release of Koha 3.4.5.

The package can be retrieved from:

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.04.05.tar.gz

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

http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.04.05.tar.gz.MD5
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.04.05.tar.gz.MD5.asc
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.04.05.tar.gz.sig

Release notes for 3.4.5 are below the fold.

Come and get it!

Continue reading “Koha 3.4.5 Available” »

Koha 3.6.0 Released
by Chris Cormack

It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of Koha 3.6.0.

This is major feature release, containing 85 enhancements and 356 bugfixes. A total of 728 patches have been included from 60 developers in this release. A big thanks goes out to all of them, plus all the other people involved in this release.

You can download this release at http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.06.00.000.tar.gz or you can wait a couple of days for the packages to appear at http://debian.koha-community.org.

Release notes are available below the fold.

Continue reading “Koha 3.6.0 Released” »

Enhanced Koha 3.6.x Release Notes
by Nicole Engard

Just like with the release of 3.4, I have edited the release notes for Koha 3.6 to include links to related manual pages and tutorial videos. I hope this helps you find the new features in your Koha installation.

For more info, see http://bywatersolutions.com/2011/10/28/koha-3-6-x-release-notes

Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, Which Witch?
by Chris Cormack

This guy!

With the release of Koha 3.6.0 my tenure as Release Manager is over. I’d like to thank everyone who has helped my the last 2 releases happen.

I am of course not leaving the community, but I am now freed up to do more coding again. Also, as I am no longer RM I can speak a little more freely about things which is nice also.

I am sure Koha 3.8.0 will be a great release, and I hope to get a bunch of my code into it also.

The RM is dead! Long live the RM!

Koha 3.8.0 Release Team Elected
by Chris Cormack

During the October General IRC meeting, amongst a lot of other discussion and agenda items, the positions for the 3.8 release of Koha were filled. Congratulations to all those appointed:

  • Release Manager: Paul Poulain, BibLibre, France
  • Release Maintainer: Chris Nighswonger, FBC, USA (Unless someone volunteers before the 3.6.0 release)
  • QA Manager: Ian Walls, ByWater Solutions, USA
  • Assistant QA Managers: Marcel de Rooy, Rijksmuseum, Netherlands; Jonathan Druart, BibLibre, France
  • Translation Manager: Frédéric Demians, Tamil, France
  • Assistant Translation Manager: Katrin Fischer, BSZ, Germany
  • Documentation Manager: Nicole Engard, ByWater Solutions, USA
  • Bug Wranglers: Katrin Fischer, BSZ, Germany; Magnus Enger, Libriotech, Norway; Owen Leonard, ACPL, USA
  • Packaging Manager: Robin Sheat, Catalyst IT, New Zealand
  • Assistant Packaging Manager: Mason James, KohaAloha, New Zealand
  • Bus Driver (AKA meeting chair): Brooke Johnson, USA

We are still looking for people to be Module Champions, what this role entails is advocating for a module of Koha. Do you think circulation is important? You could be the Circulation Champion, how about serials? You know you have secretly always wanted to take ownership of a section of Koha you care about, now is your chance!

A Message from the Koha 3.8.0 Release Manager
by Paul Poulain

Koha 3.6.0 has been released, so it’s time to start working on Koha 3.8.0. I’ve been chosen as Release Manager, which is a big responsibility. I’ll continue the good work Chris has done and promote some new ideas or ways of doing things.

In the next weeks, I plan to submit a global roadmap that will include short-term as well as long-term goals for Koha, on both functional and technical areas. Stay tuned on the koha-devel mailing list if you’re interested. And don’t hesitate to join us and participate!

Koha Community

New Koha Libraries

  • Cornish College of the Arts (via ByWater Solutions)
  • Corpus Christi Public Libraries (via ByWater Solutions)
  • Fox Chase Cancer Centers’s Talbot Research Library (via ByWater Solutions)
  • Green Mountain College’s Griswold Library (via ByWater Solutions)
  • Kenya Human Rights Commission Resource Center (via Busara Core Solutions)
  • Service Commun de la Documentation de l’Université de Limoges (via BibLibre)

Community Gossip

Chris Nighswonger has been working on getting the master branch of Koha running on Windows XP. He’s posted his progress to the wiki at http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_3.4.

Adrien Saurat has joined BibLibre as Support/Maintenance Manager.

Gaetan Boisson has joined BibLibre as Project Lead.

Nicole Engard has made her fast add framework even faster. Details are at http://bywatersolutions.com/2011/10/17/faster-fast-add-framework-redux.

Kathryn Tyree has joined Catalyst as Koha project manager.

Robin Sheat of Catalyst will be giving a talk titled “Koha: Bringing libraries into the present day” at the OSDC conference in Canberra, Australia, on 16 November. For more info, see http://osdc.com.au/schedule/#kohabringinglibra.

And lots of people are doing lots of fun things at KohaCon11!

Koha in a Norwegian Library School
by Magnus Enger

The library program at the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences (http://www.hioa.no/eng/) is now offering personal Koha installations to all first and second year students – a total of about 225 students. Installations will be used during the whole of the education, including for mandatory assignments in cataloging. The installations utilize the Debian packages, and the university college is handling all hosting and installation in-house.

Koha OPAC Web App
by Stefano Bargioni

I’ve created a Koha OPAC for smartphones and tablets. It is located at http://catalogo.pusc.it/mobile/ and can be accessed not only from smartphones but also from desktop PCs using any modern browser. It is a very simple OPAC interface, up to now.

Based on jQuery Mobile, it accesses Koha using its SRU server. So it is not an app, nor a set of CSS that adapt Koha web pages to little screens. It is a web app, if I may say so.

For more info, contact bargioni@pusc.it.

Past Koha Events

Koha 3.6.0 Released During Access2011 Conference
by Chris Cormack

Last Thursday 20th October I gave a talk at Access2011: The Library is Open in Vancouver titled Tātou tātou: Caring and sharing in a Free and Open source Project. The talk focused on lessons learned by the Koha community that would be of interest to other emerging open source software communities. Here is a link to the talk.

It was particularly appropriate to the international nature of the Koha community that a kiwi guy could write the release notes, push patches and release Koha 3.6.0 while away in Vancouver.

As many of you know Koha 3.6.0 was a major and very satisfying release to be part of. With 85 enhancements and 356 bugfixes Koha 3.6.0 included 728 patches from 60 developers. You can find out who those developers were and what they contributed here. The release notes are published here.

One last huge thanks to everyone that contributed to to 3.6.0 and all the best to the release team for 3.8.0!

October General IRC Meeting

The October general IRC meeting was held on 5 October 2011. For more info, including the agenda and links to the minutes, see http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/General_IRC_Meeting,_5_October_2011.

Upcoming Koha Events

KohaCon11

KohaCon11 is being held 31 October 2011 to 6 November 2011 in Thane, India.

The program for KohaCon11 is at http://kohacon11.vpmthane.org/ocs/index.php/k/k11/schedConf/program.

For more info, see http://kohacon11.vpmthane.org/ocs/index.php/k/k11.

Global Bug Squashing Day Proposed
by Magnus Enger

Dear Community!

After colluding with my fellow bug wrangler Katrin I’d like to propose 04 November as the date of the next GBSD: http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/2011-11-04_Global_bug_squashing_day.

This coincides with the first day of the hackfest at KohaCon11. Maybe we could get a bit of a Google Hangout going, or something? We’ll see…

Anyway: Be there or be [_]!

November General IRC Meeting

The November general IRC meeting will be held on 16 November 2011. For more info, see http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/General_IRC_Meeting,_16_November_2011.

KohaCon12: Welcome to Edinburgh!
by MJ Ray

I’d like to send thanks from software.coop to everyone who voted for Edinburgh in the recent vote. I look forward to welcoming you next summer and we’ll release more details as soon as they are confirmed, as well as asking for feedback on a couple of social event ideas.

2012 is software.coop’s tenth anniversary and also the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives, so it’s a great time for a celebration and collaboration. On that note, I’d also like to thank the people who have sent expressions of interest in helping out with running the event. We’ll ask other co-ops to assist too, but we may well take up some of these offers.

Finally, all the best to the KohaCon11 team for the conference that’s about to start. I’m sorry I’m not there, but we’ve already started work on KohaCon12. Have a great time for us and I look forward to hearing much news from India!

 

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