Koha Community Newsletter: June 2013
Koha Community Newsletter 
June 2013
Volume 4, Issue 6
ISSN 2153-8328
Edited by Daniel Grobani, Koha Community Newsletter Editor.
Please submit news items to 
Table of Contents
- Development
- Community
- Upcoming Events
- Past Events
Development
Koha 3.12.1 Released
by Tomas Cohen Arazi
The Koha community is proud to announce the release of Koha 3.12.1. This is a stable release and includes 9 enhancements and 32 bugfixes.
You can download this release as .deb packages or a tarball. Installation documentation is here and in the INSTALL files in the tarball.
Release notes are here.
This is my first release as 3.12.x release maintainer. Thanks to the community for their support and especially for their hard work.
Koha 3.10.7 Released
by Bernardo Gonzalez Kriegel
The Koha community is proud to announce the release of Koha 3.10.7. This is a stable release and includes 5 enhancements and 33 bugfixes.
You can download this release as .deb packages or a tarball. Installation documentation is here and in the INSTALL files in the tarball.
Release notes are here.
This is my first release as 3.10.x release maintainer and also my first as translation manager. I hope all translations on the other releases behave well. Thanks to all developers and testers who contributed to this release.
Koha 3.8.14 Released
by Chris Hall
The Koha community is proud to announce the release of 3.8.14. This is a maintenance release and includes 3 enhancements and 27 bugfixes.
You can download this release as a tarball. Installation documentation is here and in the INSTALL files in the tarball.
Release notes are here.
This release does NOT contain updated translations due to an issue with the patching process. We hope to have this fixed by 3.8.15.
This is my first release as the 3.8.x release maintainer. Thank you very much to everyone involved in this release.
New Koha Packages Published
by Robin Sheat
On 3 June I published new versions of both the 3.10 and 3.12 packages. Normally I wouldn’t bother announcing this, nor doing it out of cycle like this; however, there are two reasons sysadmins managing systems using these should be aware:
- The packages should now work on Debian Wheezy (7.0) that was released a month ago, with no messing around. They also will work on Debian Squeeze (6.0) and Ubuntu LTS (12.04) as before.
- As a result of changes that adding this support required, when you next update Koha from the packages, it won’t happen as part of normal system updates. Instead, you’ll have to force the upgrade by doing ‘apt-get dist-upgrade’. This is because there will be a new dependency installed.
Koha Statistics
Chris Cormack, Koha Community statistics wizard, has posted statistics for May 2013.
Community
Community Gossip
Chris Cormack has posted the 27th installment of his “Unsung Heros of Koha,” celebrating libraries with inhouse developers.
David Noe has posted an introduction to open source electronic resource management systems.
Vimal Kumar V. reports that the Kerala State Library Council is soliciting RFPs for the design, development, testing, implementation, and training of an online integrated library management solution using Koha.
Support Provider News
Danielle Elder of ByWater Solutions has posted her reflections on “Koha from a Newbie Perspective.”
ByWater Solutions is now offering support for the Libki open source kiosk management system. Brendan, Nate, Kyle, and Nicole of ByWater will be demoing Koha and Libki at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, 28 June – 1 July.
Upcoming Events
July General IRC Meeting
The July general IRC meeting will be held on 10 July 2013 at 10:00 UTC.
The agenda and other information is here.
KohaCon13 Sponsorships
by Nancy Keener
Have you considered becoming a sponsor of KohaCon13? We are looking for organizations prepared to show their support for Koha by making a financial contribution towards the cost of the conference to insure KohaCon13 is accessible, meaning there is no registration fee for delegates. Corporate sponsorships make that possible. KohaCon13 is an excellent opportunity to bring your organization to the attention of over 100 Koha developers and librarians who will attend, and many more members of the Koha community who will access the live conference updates online. Needs are for food, program printing, transportation, equipment rental, and sponsoring an attendee.
How will the Koha community benefit? KohaCon gives members of the Koha community the chance to meet and exchange ideas to ensure the continuing success and ongoing development of Koha. It is held in a different part of the world each year to enable as many members as possible to attend a conference at some time. All the organization is undertaken by volunteers and most importantly of all there is no registration fee for delegates, so sponsorship really is key to funding KohaCon.
Details on sponsorship levels and becoming a sponsor can be found here.
KohaCon 2014 Proposals
by Mirko
It is time to start thinking about the location of Kohacon 2014. If you are interested in hosting the conference, make sure to check the general Wiki page on Koha conference bidding and proposals for KohaCon 2011 and KohaCon 2013 to get an impression of what people would like to know about location and dates.
Please keep in mind our rule to change continents every year; with Kohacon 2013 taking place in Reno, applications from North America should be postponed to 2015. So far we had/will have conferences in:
- 2006: Paris, France
- 2009: Plano, Texas, USA
- 2010: Wellington, NZ
- 2011: Thane, India
- 2012: Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
- 2013: Reno, Nevada, USA
- 2014: Your place, World
If you are interested in hosting the conference, please tell us about it on the Koha mailing list and add a summary here.
It does not have to be complete from the beginning; you can add information later. The most important things clearly are location and proposed time. So far we had conferences in April, May, June, and 3 times in October, as it will be this year. It looks like having 3 days of conference, 1 day off, and 3 days of hackfest is the preferred conference schedule.
One last note: the conference has always been free of charge and it is supposed to stay that way.
Looking forward to your proposals.
Past Events
June General IRC Meeting
The June general IRC meeting was held on 5 June 2013.
The agenda, links to the minutes, and other information is here.
Koha at AMICAL
by Franziska Wallner
During the AMICAL Conference 2013 (AMICAL is an international consortium of American-model, liberal arts institutions of higher learning located outside the United States), Stefano Bargioni gave an overview of Koha to approximately 50 AMICAL members. During this conference, a colleague from Kosovo University informed us that five universities in the AMICAL system are already using Koha. This sparked an idea to create a online discussion group on the Amicalnet.org network. The members interested in the discussion group are from The American University of Rome, The American University of Kosovo, The American University of Thessaloniki, The American University of Iraq, and The American University of Afghanistan. Conference pictures can be viewed on the Koha Gruppo Italiano Facebook page.