Koha Community Newsletter: July 2020

Koha Community Newsletter
July 2020

Volume 11, Issue 7
ISSN 2153-8328
Edited by Chad Roseburg, Koha Community Newsletter Editor

Please submit news items to Submit

Development
Community
Upcoming Events
Past Events

Development

Koha 20.05.02 Released

by Lucas Gass
The Koha community is proud to announce the release of 20.05.02.

Koha 20.05.02 is a bugfix/maintenance release, including 17 enhancements
and 25 bugfixes.

The full release notes can be viewed here:

20.05.02 Release

Debian packages should be available in a couple days!

Koha 19.11.08 Released

by Aleisha Amohia
The Koha community is proud to announce the release of Koha 19.11.08.

Thank you very much to everyone involved in this release.

Koha 19.11.08 is a bugfix/maintenance release that includes 8
enhancements and 18 bugfixes.

Full release notes can be found here:

Koha 19.11.08 released

Koha 19.05.13 Released

by Victor Grousset
The Koha Community is happy to announce the release of Koha 19.05.13.

Koha 19.05.13 is a bugfix/maintenance release.

It includes 16 bugfixes.

The full release notes can be found at:

Koha 19.05.13 released

Debian packages will be available shortly.

Thanks to everyone involved 🙂

Notes and Projects

Developer, Aleisha Amohia, writes about the amazing work being done in Koha 20.05.

HealthNet Nepal has released a Live DVD version of Koha for testing and educational purposes.

Community

New Koha Libraries

John Bulow Campbell Library at Columbia Theological Seminary to Koha via Equinox
Equinox Open Source Grant Recipient Spark Central Goes Live with Koha
Commerce Commission Library (NZ) via Catalyst IT
The Pennsylvania Koha Consortium Goes Live on Koha with ByWater Support via ByWater Solutions
Carl S. Swisher Library at Jacksonville University Goes Live on Koha with ByWater Support via ByWater Solutions
School of Psychology, Counseling, and Family Therapy at Wheaton College Goes Live on Koha with ByWater Support via ByWater Solutions
The British Museum via PTFS Europe
Society of Antiquaries of London via PTFS Europe
Leeds College of Music via PTFS Europe

Equinox Open Source Grant Recipient Biblioteca Nacional de Puerto Rico Goes Live with Koha

Duluth, Ga., July 29, 2020: Equinox Open Library Initiative is honored to
announce the successful migration of the Biblioteca Nacional de Puerto Rico, a
division of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña in San Juan, Puerto Rico to the
Koha Integrated Library System. They were one of two 2019 Equinox Open Source
Grant recipients.

The Biblioteca Nacional de Puerto Rico was created in 1967, a division of the
Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. In 2003 it became the National Library to
preserve and provide access to resources related to Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans.
The ir migration encompassed 56001 bibliographic records. Equinox services
included: project management, system configuration, extraction and migration of
bibliographic data, and staff training. Equinox also provided Koha support, hosting,
and auxiliary services.

“We are extremely happy and thankful for this extraordinary work,” said Carlos Ruiz
Cortés, Executive Director of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. “The
catalogue is modern and very comfortable for research. It is also a great
opportunity as we are implementing new services for our users, while promoting
access to our valuable cultural resources.”

The Equinox Open Source Grant was offered for the first time in 2019 providing
Koha migration, support and training to two successful grantees. The grant was
inspired by the vibrant open source community and the belief that every community
deserves to benefit from an accessible and thriving library.

“Staff from the National Library and the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, led by
Hilda Teresa Ayala-González, worked diligently for many months migrating data,
making configuration decisions, testing, and training to prepare for the new
system,” said Jennifer Weston, Implementation Project Manager at Equinox. “The
new Koha database inspired additional projects as the staff took advantage of the
library’s recent closing to launch a new website, and plan for a digitization project
to be linked with Koha to coincide with the 65th anniversary celebration of the
Cultural Institute. It has been both a pleasure and an honor to work with the
Biblioteca Nacional de Puerto Rico to provide these new opportunities for their
community.”

Koha Tips and Tricks

Take a look at these new tutorials from PTFS Europe:

What’s on our Mind: Adding music incipits to Koha from v19.11 and using Plaine and Easie code to play them.
What’s on our Mind: An introduction to integrating Koha with SMS service providers including gov.uk.

The team at ByWater Solutions has some great new tutorials for you:

Monday Minutes: Statistical Patron and Local Use by Jessie Zairo Jul 27, 2020
Self Paced Learning in Koha: Acquisitions by Kelly McElligott Jul 22, 2020
Customize Your Acquisition Process by Kelly McElligott Jul 22, 2020
Monday Minutes: koha-US Special Interest Groups by Jessie Zairo Jul 20, 2020
Add a Chat Box to your Opac for Reference Services at a Distance by Margaret Hade Jul 17, 2020
Monday Minutes: Customizing Your Issue Slip by Kelly McElligott Jul 13, 2020
Monday Minutes: Displaying Series Information in Koha by Kelly McElligott Jul 6, 2020

Support Provider News

From PTFS Europe
Developing Accessibility:

A current project that really encapsulates the strengths of the Koha community is work PTFS Europe developers are doing on enhancing Koha accessibility. This project is being funded by a Koha library at the UK Houses of Parliament, fixes for identified bugs are being developed by PTFS Europe and signed-off and quality assured at pace by a wide group of members of the Koha community. Bugs fixed include making headings semantically correct, adding ‘skip to main content’ links, adding aria labels to search results and making aria labels translatable. Full details of progress on this tree of bugs can be found here.

From Equinox

#ChatOpenS: August 19, 2020, 12-1pm EDT. Networking Twitter Chat bringing those interested in open source in libraries together.

Upcoming Events

KohaCon 2020 Update!

Tēnā koutou,

It’s 84 days to Kohacon! The programme has changed since we first launched it in February of this year and we would encourage you to take another look https://2020.kohacon.org/posts/programme/

Kohacon2020 will be a mix of in-person and online presentations. Speakers will deliver talks at the Tiakiwai Conference Centre venue and streamed online.

Our guest speakers hail from Finland, Pakistan, the USA, France, Bangladesh, Canada, Turkey, Australia, England, and New Zealand. Please register your intention to attend online or in-person at: https://2020.kohacon.org/posts/registration/

There is professional development goodness for everyone – documentation, accessibility, linked data, creative problem solving, cataloguing plugins, integration, and marketing tips to name just a few talks/workshops. You can register to receive programme updates, follow @nzkoha on twitter, and keep an eye on the website: https://2020.kohacon.org/posts/programme/

Details

Website: https://2020.kohacon.org/
Dates: Monday 19th – Sunday 25th October
Conference ticket price: $0

If you have any questions, please contact us at kohacon2020@catalyst.net.nz

Nā mātou noa, nā,
Koha team at Catalyst NZ

Sent with thanks to our Kohacon sponsors: https://2020.kohacon.org/posts/sponsors/

Koha-US Cataloging SIG: MARC Frameworks in Koha

by Heather Hernandez
The next Koha-US Cataloging SIG (Special Interest Group) round table will look at MARC frameworks (we’ll edit one live!) followed by our usual open discussion of cataloging issues–this month, submitted questions already include: Why use cutters instead of author’s last names? And, what’s the difference between “form, subfield v” and “topic subfield x” in a subject heading–what makes something a “form” or a “topic?”. Please bring your questions, tips, tricks, ideas, and comments and let’s chat and learn from each other! You don’t have to be a member of Koha-US to participate, nor do you have to be a cataloger! We often work in real, live, in production Koha catalogs, and are happy to try things out live–it’s loads of fun! So please join us on Thursday, August 6, 2020 @ 8am – 9am PT (9 MT/10 CT/11 ET in the United States). Can’t make it? No problem–it will be recorded and available on the Koha US YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV58VVGJH5V1wNHZqYpAfX7y1dU9eWTXq

More information on the Koha-US SIGs is here: http://koha-us.org/special-interest-groups/ You can join via the “Join” button on this page, or email info@koha-us.org for assistance with joining any of the SIGs.

Upcoming topics of the Cataloging SIG meetings include Related formats (e.g. print/online) (September), Languages and record displays (October), Reports (November), Workarounds and documentation (December).

Please also feel free to address questions, tips, tricks, ideas for topics, etc. to the group or to me, heather_hernandez@nps.gov, via email at anytime. And guest presenters & hosts are most welcome if you have something you’d like to share! Full details on our SIG meetings (with the link to join), as well as those of the other SIGS, are on the Koha US calendar, http://koha-us.org/calendar/