Koha (library software)

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Koha

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Basic data

developer Koha community
Publishing year January 2000
Current  version Koha 05/20/02
( July 22, 2020 )
operating system Linux
programming language Perl , JavaScript
category Library software
License GPL version 3 or newer
( free software )
German speaking Yes
koha-community.org

Koha is an integrated library system . It is used as open source software in public , school and other libraries worldwide . The name is derived from the Māori word "Koha". In the Māori culture , this is a gift that is expected to be given in return.

properties

Koha is a web-based integrated library system with a SQL database connection (preferably MariaDB or MySQL ). Catalog data is stored in the database according to MARC and offered via Z39.50 and SRU . The user interface is configurable, can be adapted to different requirements and has been translated into many languages, including German.

Koha has the usual features of built-in library systems such as circulation and loan management, inventory management, and support for periodicals such as magazines and newspapers. In addition, functionalities such as markings, comments and RSS feeds are offered. Koha has no limit on the number of branches, readers, media, and other data supported.

history

Koha was developed by Katipo Communications in 1999 for the Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand . The first installation went into operation in January 2000.

From 2000 the first service providers offered professional support for Koha. Today there are more than 60 such providers.

Since 2001 Paul Poulain (Marseille, France) has expanded Koha with new skills, especially multilingualism.

The MARC cataloging format and the Z39.50 network query protocol have been supported since 2002, later with support from the public libraries of Athens County , Ohio, USA . There are Koha translations from English (original) into numerous other languages. In 2005 the company Metavore, Inc. was founded in Ohio , which provided support for Koha and added new features under the name LibLime . In 2010 LibLime was acquired by Progressive Technology Federal Systems, Inc. (PTFS).

In the US state of Vermont , the use of Koha for all libraries in Vermont was clarified from 2007. Initially, a separate implementation was created for each library. As a result, the Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL) was founded to create a common database for the libraries. This database started operating in 2011. 26 libraries in Vermont have chosen to use Koha and have switched to the shared environment provided by ByWater Solutions .

On April 8, 2011, an employee of the Spanish Ministry of Culture announced that it was developing an adapted version of Koha under the name Kobli for use in the libraries of the Spanish government authorities.

In Germany, the Baden-Württemberg Library Service Center has been supporting libraries in using Koha since 2009.

Dispute with LibLime / PTFS

Since 2009 there has been a conflict between LibLime / PTFS and the Koha community. In particular, the development of LibLime Enterprise Koha (LLEK), a commercial version of Koha with improvements that did not find its way into open source code, sparked unrest in the community and strained relationships between LibLime and other companies operating in the Koha development and support are active. Several active members of the community left LibLime in connection with this. The development of LLEK was perceived as a fork . Since LibLime blocked access to the tools previously used on koha.org , the Koha developers had to reorganize on koha-community.org .

In 2011 LibLime / PTFS registered the word “Koha” as a trademark in New Zealand. In 2013, Te Horowhenua Trust, the original commissioner for the first version of Koha, won the lawsuit against it. In 2015, LibLime / PTFS announced a product called Bibliovation, which is apparently based on Koha. There are no references to Koha, Open Source or Free Software in the announcement, only an unspecified open development platform is mentioned.

Frequency of publication

Monthly maintenance / bug fix versions appear for all supported branches. A new feature release appears every six months. In the current release cycle (11/2019 - 05/2020) the branches 19.11 (stable), 19.05 (oldstable) and 18.11 (oldoldstable) are supported.

With the release in May 2016, there was a change to date-based version numbering in the format “year.month”. It did not appear Koha 3.24, but Koha 16.05. The version in November 2016 was then called 16.11.

The recommended installation method is to use Debian packages to current versions of Debian GNU / Linux , an alternative to the current Ubuntu - LTS versions. Debian packages are available for the last two branches released ( stable : 19.11, oldstable : 19.05).

Installation with Debian packages is not only the easiest, but also offers additional commands and tools that facilitate work at the system administration level.

development

The development is done publicly and can be viewed in the community's bug tracker . The source code is accessible via Git . Some support providers use their own Git instances for larger developments, which are often also publicly available.

For such a large Free Software project, Koha has a very low entry barrier. Code contributions from new developers, especially the collaboration of libraries, are expressly welcome and are actively supported. By April 2015, 277 people had contributed code.

translation

Koha is translated into many languages, but not all translations are complete. The localization is done with the help of Pootle and is also publicly available. There were 76 active translation projects for version 3.22, over 20 of which were complete or almost complete.

Community

The development happens all over the world, so most of the communication takes place online. Every year there is a large (offline) conference called “KohaCon”, which not only provides information from and for libraries but also serves as a meeting point for developers. The conference takes place on a different continent every year.

Conferences

  • KohaCon 2006, May 2nd-3rd, Paris , France
  • KohaCon 2009, April 15-17, Plano (Texas) , USA
  • KohaCon 2010, 25.10.-02.11., Wellington , New Zealand
  • KohaCon 2011, 31.10-06.11., Thane , India
  • KohaCon 2012, June 5th-11th, Edinburgh , Scotland, UK
  • KohaCon 2013, October 16-22, Reno (Nevada) , USA
  • KohaCon 2014, October 6-11, Córdoba , Argentina
  • KohaCon 2015, October 19-25, Ibadan , Nigeria
  • KohaCon 2016, 30.05-04.06, Thessaloniki , Greece
  • KohaCon 2017, June 19-23, Manila , Philippines
  • KohaCon 2018, September 10-16, Portland, Oregon , USA
  • KohaCon 2019, May 20-24, Dublin , Ireland
  • KohaCon 2020, October 19-25, Wellington , New Zealand

Hackfest

In addition, an annual hack festival (developer meeting) has been held in the offices of the support provider Biblibre in Marseille since 2011 . In 2015 there was a similar event in Argentina, in 2016 one in Berlin ( KohaCon16 Ko-ha-ppen ).

On the sidelines of the conference in Córdoba (Argentina) 2014, the short film “Koha, a community” was created, in which participants explain, among other things, the importance of offline meetings for collaboration and their experiences with the Koha community.

Prizes and awards

  • 2000 Not for Profit section of the Interactive New Zealand Awards
  • 2000 LIANZA / 3M Award for Innovation in Libraries
  • 2003 Section for Public Organizations, Les Trophées du Libre
  • 2004 Use of IT in a Not-for-Profit Organization Computerworld Excellence Awards

literature

  • Beate Rajski, Inken Feldsien-Sudhaus, Dora Horst, Erika Katzner, Heiko Weier, Tobias Zeumer: Koha evaluation by the university library of the TUHH (=  TUBdok ). Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, Hamburg May 2015, doi : 10.15480 / 882.1236 ( Online [PDF; 800 kB ; accessed on July 5, 2015]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ koha-community.org .
  2. ↑ Koha 3.10.3 released | Koha Library Software Community ( English ) Koha-community.org. February 23, 2013. Retrieved March 8, 2013.
  3. ↑ Pat Eyler: Koha: a Gift to Libraries from New Zealand ( English ) February 1, 2003. Retrieved March 8, 2013.
  4. ↑ Paid Support | Koha Library Software Community ( English ) Koha-community.org. Retrieved March 8, 2013.
  5. ^ Koha - The Open Source Library System. (No longer available online.) BibLibre, archived from the original on April 6, 2012 ; accessed on March 5, 2018 .
  6. ^ The Koha Project | Athens County Public Libraries ( English ) Myacpl.org. Archived from the original on August 10, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 8, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.myacpl.org
  7. ↑ VOCAL, The Vermont Koha Project ( English ) In: Green Mountain Library Consortium . Retrieved March 8, 2013.
  8. ↑ Koha - Discuss - KOBLI, a customized version of KOHA ( English ) Koha.1045719.n5.nabble.com. April 9, 2011. Retrieved March 8, 2013.
  9. ^ Koha library system ( German ) Library Service Center Baden-Württemberg. Retrieved March 9, 2013.
  10. ^ A b Marshall Breeding: LibLime Acquisition by PTFS Marks a New Era for Koha ( English ) In: Library Journal . January 13, 2010. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 8, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.libraryjournal.com
  11. ↑ Press Release: NZ Koha Trademark Case Win ( English ) Koha Community, Te Horowhenua Trust. Retrieved July 18, 2015.
  12. ↑ Bibliovation Marketing Brochure ( English ) PTFS / LibLime. Retrieved July 18, 2015.
  13. ↑ Koha on Debian ( English ) Koha Community Wiki. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  14. ↑ Commands provided by the Debian packages ( English ) Koha Community Wiki. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  15. ↑ Koha Community Bugzilla ( English ) Koha Community. Retrieved July 18, 2015.
  16. ↑ Version control repository for the Koha project ( English ) Koha Community. Retrieved July 18, 2015.
  17. ↑ koha.git / docs / history.txt ( English ) In: Koha Community Gitweb . Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 18, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / git.koha-community.org
  18. ↑ Koha Translation Project: Koha 3.22 ( English ) Koha Community. Archived from the original on February 2, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 2, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / translate.koha-community.org
  19. ↑ KohaCon 2009 . Retrieved October 25, 2012.
  20. ↑ KohaCon 2010: Wellington, New Zealand . Retrieved October 25, 2012.
  21. ↑ KohaCon 2012. (No longer available online.) Library Co-op, archived from the original on January 31, 2013 ; accessed on March 5, 2018 .
  22. ↑ KohaCon 2013 . Retrieved October 28, 2013.
  23. ↑ KohaCon 2014 . Retrieved November 20, 2014.
  24. ↑ KohaCon 2015 . Retrieved November 20, 2014.
  25. ↑ KohaCon 2016 . Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  26. ↑ KohaCon 2017 . Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  27. ↑ KohaCon 2018 . Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  28. ↑ KohaCon 2019 . Retrieved January 22, 2019.
  29. ↑ KohaCon 2020 . Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  30. ↑ http://www.biblibre.com/en/blog/entry/koha-hackfest-in-europe-in-2013 ( English ) Biblibre. Retrieved July 18, 2015.
  31. ↑ Koha Hackfest Latin America ( English ) Koha Community. Retrieved July 18, 2015.
  32. ↑ Mirko Tietgen: Koha Hackfest Berlin. In: Inetbib . May 23, 2016. Retrieved May 24, 2016 .
  33. ^ Koha, a community ( English ) Koha Community, Youtube. Retrieved July 18, 2015.
  34. ↑ Russell Brown: WebMedia, E-Loan collect awards ( English ) In: Computerworld New Zealand . October 24, 2000. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 8, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / computerworld.co.nz
  35. ↑ 'Library Idol' - It's the 3M Award for 'Innovation in Libraries' «LIANZA Conference 2009 Blog ( English ) Lianza2009.wordpress.com. October 7, 2009. Retrieved March 8, 2013.
  36. ↑ And the winners are… ( English ) In: Computerworld New Zealand . June 28, 2004. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 8, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / computerworld.co.nz