Koha Community Newsletter: November 2012

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November 2012

Volume 3, Issue 11
ISSN 2153-8328
Edited by Daniel Grobani, Koha Community Newsletter Editor.
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Table of Contents

Koha Development

Koha 3.10.0 Released
by Paul Poulain

The Koha team is proud to announce the release of Koha 3.10.0.

This is a major release that comes with many new features. It includes 160 enhancements and 455 bugfixes.

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.

Koha 3.10.0 can be downloaded here.

Installation instructions are here or in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball.

Release notes are here.

Koha 3.8.7 Released
by Chris Cormack

The Koha team is proud to announce the release of Koha 3.8.7.

This is a bugfix/maintenance release.

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.

Koha 3.8.7 can be downloaded here.

Installation instructions are here or in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball.

Release notes are here.

Koha Statistics

Chris Cormack, Koha Community statistics wizard, has posted statistics for
Koha 3.10.0, October 2012, and bug resolution statistics for January-October 2012.

Release Manager’s Newsletter

Paul Poulain, Koha 3.10 Release Manager, publishes a monthly newsletter dedicated to Koha development. It can be found on the Koha Community website in the Koha News category.

The latest issue is here.

Koha 3.8.6 Live CD Lite released

Vimal Kumar Vazhappally, Koha Community Live CD/DVD Manager, has released a live CD based on Koha 3.8.6. More info is here.

Koha Community

New Koha Libraries

  • Banning Library District (USA) (via ByWater Solutions)
  • INM Library at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials (Germany) (via BSZ)
  • Samuel Merritt University (USA) (via ByWater Solutions)
  • Santa Fe Indian School (USA) (via ByWater Solutions)

Community Gossip

Terry Reese, the developer of MarcEdit, has been working to integrate MarcEdit with Koha via Koha’s API. See his recent blog posts for more info.

Marshall Breeding is encouraging libraries to participate in the Perceptions 2012 International Library Automation Survey.

Chris Cormack reports: “I have started to make a wall of library cards of libraries using Koha. I only have 5 so far, but I would absolutely love it if people would send me a card from their library. I think it would make a fantastic display and I promise to take lots of photos of it (under a CC-BY-SA license). If you want to send one, please send it to Chris Cormack, Catalyst IT, PO Box 11053, Manners Street, Wellington 6142, New Zealand.”

Joanne Dillon is the new Digital Services Lead at Te Takere, the Horowhenua Culture & Community Centre in Levin, New Zealand. Joanne says, “I am a qualified librarian with 20+ years of experience working in mainly public libraries but also academic, corporate and special libraries. In my spare time I develop websites using the open source WordPress CMS and hope to teach myself app development. I have experience with Dynix, Horizon and most recently, Symphony in a library consortium. I’m looking forward to learning more about Koha and meeting fellow community members.”

Judy Russell is the new director of the Converse Free Library in Lyme, New Hampshire, which went live with Koha via Bywater Solutions in June 2012. Judy was previously Director of the Fairlee Public Library in Fairlee, Vermont, and an active member of VOKAL. She is, in fact, still a member of the Board of the Green Mountain Library Consortium, the organization that oversees VOKAL, the Bywater-supported ILS in Vermont. Judy’s a huge Koha fan and is looking forward to connecting with Koha users in New Hampshire. She’s working on creating a users’ listserv to share ideas, tips, and troubleshooting advice; if you’re a New Hampshire Koha user and would like to be a member of this listserv, please email her.

Paul Poulain has published the results of his testing of Plack in the 3.10 interface.

Support Provider News

BibLibre and Elidoc have announced a partnership to provide Greek libraries with support for Koha and other open source software.

“You Must Help Me Now!”
by Chris Cormack

This is perhaps going to sound a little whiny and maybe it is, but I’ll feel better for having written it. Working in a community of volunteers you soon discover a right way to ask for help and a wrong way. Normally I try to apply the one free pass rule, and of course in an international project like Koha there are bound to be issues with language differences. But lately there has been a disturbing trend in demanding help.

With a Free Software project, there are of course always areas to improve on, and no project should be offended at people pointing that out, or asking the same questions again and again. Where the problem occurs is in tone. People who work on Koha are either being paid to, in which case they are usually being paid to satisfy a client’s needs, or working as a volunteer, or most often as a combination of the two. So for them to spend time answering your question means time away from who is paying them, or from their family, or from some other part of their life. A lot of us do this willingly, but there are only 24(ish) hours in a day, so if you want your question to jump to the front, here are some handy tips:

  • Ask specific questions, and provide as much information as you can. “I’m running Koha 3.8.3, installed from debian packages, on a 64-bit OS. The hard drive died yesterday, and after reboot, I can no longer search in Koha” is a a good question. “KOHA is broke, fix it” is not.
  • Ask with a willingness to listen to the answers.
  • Remember not everyone who answers is an expert, but they are giving up their time to try and help. Graciousness never ever hurts.

Here endeth the whine.

Upcoming Koha Events

December General IRC Meeting

The December general IRC meeting will be held on 5 December 2012 at 18:00 UTC.

The agenda and other information is here.

Past Koha Events

November General IRC Meeting

The November general IRC meeting was held on 7 November 2012.

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

Global Bug Squashing Weekend
by Magnus Enger

Global bug squashing days are days designated to a concerted effort to get bugs and patches moving along in the right direction.

A Global bug squashing weekend was held Friday through Monday, 9-12 November 2012, and there was much rejoicing.

More info is here.

Melbourne Koha Users Group Meeting

The second Melbourne Koha Users Group meeting was held on 15 November. Emily Mcleay has posted a summary of the meeting.

Oslo Get to Know Koha Day
by Magnus Enger

The very first Norwegian “Get to know Koha” day was held in Oslo on 7 November. 19 people from 11 different libraries attended, representing public, county, and academic libraries. Magnus Enger and Katrin Fischer made presentations covering an introduction to free software, the Koha project, and usage of Koha internationally. The second half of the day was dedicated to trying out Koha in practice. Many questions were asked and answered, and it is the impression of the organizer that in general the system was viewed favourably. It looks like at least two of the libraries present at the workshop will be migrating to Koha, and perhaps there will be more when they have all considered their options a little longer.

 

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