Introduction

Koha basics

Koha is the first free and open source integrated library system (ILS). Development is sponsored by libraries of varying types and sizes, volunteers, and support companies from around the world.

Learn more about Koha by visiting the official Koha website: http://koha-community.org

Koha recommendations

Full system recommendations can be found on the official Koha wiki along with the developer documentation: http://wiki.koha-community.org

When working in the Koha staff interface it is strongly recommended that you use an up-to-date version of either Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. The Koha community doesn’t support Internet Explorer for the staff interface. If your organization only allows Microsoft products, use Edge instead of Internet Explorer.

Using this manual

This manual is always changing and suggestions for edits can be sent to the Koha documentation team as a merge request via gitlab or via the koha-docs mailing list.

If you see an error or something missing, please file a bug report on bugzilla using the module ‘Documentation’. You can also send an email to the koha-docs mailing list.

The manual is organized by Koha module. At the start of most sections (and throughout) you will find ‘Get there’ tips. These lines tell you how to get to the section in Koha.

For example: Get there: More > Administration > Global system preferences

The instruction tells you where to find the necessary menu option at the top of the Koha staff client.

Links will be found throughout the manual to other sections in the manual and images will depict what should be seen on the screen.

Contributing to the manual

This manual is an ever-changing document and edits to the manual are welcome at any time.

The Koha manual is managed by the documentation team, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all participate in making the best manual possible.

The manual is stored in git at: https://gitlab.com/koha-community/koha-manual (see a summary here)

The instructions for contributing to the manual are on the Koha wiki https://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Editing_the_Koha_Manual

Contributing to Koha

As an open source project, contributions are of course not limited to the documentation, but are also welcomed and encouraged for all aspects of the project.

If you’re interesting in contributing new features, bugfixes or even just bug reports to koha it’s worth familiarizing yourself with our release and development procedures as outlined at the following places: