What is Koha?

EUGENE JOSE T. ESPINOZA LEGISLATIVE STAFF OFFICER II LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ejtespinoza@congress.gov.ph

Koha
Koha is the first free and open source

software library automation package (ILS). created by the Katipo Communications for the Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand. The first installation went live in January of 2000.

 It is in use worldwide, its development is steered by a

growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha's impressive feature set continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base. The word Koha is a maori word meaning gift or donation (a New Zealand Mori custom)
http://koha-community.org, not http://koha.org

What is Open Source?

The term open source refers to software that is free

and that includes the original source code used to create it so that users can modify it to make it work better for them. Open source software may be free, but a developer or distributor may charge for services, including special programming, installation, training, maintenance and technical support.

History
Koha was created in 1999 by Katipo Communications for

the Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand. The first installation went live in January of 2000.

History
In 2001, Paul Poulain (of Marseille, France) began adding

new features to Koha, most significantly support for multiple languages. Koha has been translated from its original English into French, Chinese, Arabic and several other languages. It supports the international records and cataloguing standards MARC and Z39.50 which was added by Paul Poulain in 2002. Sponsorship for MARC and Z39.50 support was taken up by the Nelsonville Public Library.

History
In 2005, an Ohio-based company, Liblime, was established

to support Koha and they have been adding new features, including integrating support for Zebra, a high speed contextual database that has dramatically increased the speed of searches within Koha as well as improved the scalability of the system (can now support tens of millions of bibliographic records). The addition of Zebra integration was sponsored by the Crawford County Federated Library System.

History
In 2007 a group of libraries in Vermont began

testing the use of Koha for Vermont libraries. At first a separate implementation was created for each library. Then the Vermont Organization of Koha Automated Libraries (VOKAL) was organized to create one database to be used by libraries. This database was rolled out in 2011. Thirty-seven libraries have chosen to adopt Koha and moved to the shared production environment hosted and supported by ByWater Solutions. Previously Vermont used software from Follett.

History
Current version is 3.10.5 (current stable version) and

3.8.12 (old stable version) Development version 3.11

Features
1. Koha is a full-featured integrated library system. Its comprehensive functionalities consists basic and advanced options for various modules. The system administrator can easily set permissions to implement control for include: a. Super-librarian provides access to all functions. b. Circulation carry out circulation tasks. c. Catalogue search the catalogue. d. Parameters administer the system parameters.

e.Borrowers manage the public users (addition, modification, restriction, etc.). f. Permissions administer staff access to functions. g. Reserves for others place reserves on items for any borrower. h. Reserves for oneself place reserves for oneself i. Loan loan items to borrowers. j. Cataloguing manage the catalogue. k. Charges manage the fines and fees levied against members.

Features
2. Koha uses a dual database design that utilizes the strengths of the two major industry-standard database types (textbased and relational database management systems). The design ensures that Koha can handle the transactions, regardless of volume, of any library. 3. Contains all core modules (OPAC, cataloguing, circulation, acquisitions, serials and reporting)

Features
4. Koha is built using library standards and protocols that ensure interoperability between Koha and other systems and technologies, while supporting existing workflows and tools. 5. Koha's OPAC, circulation, management and selfcheckout interfaces are all based on standardscompliant World Wide Web technologies--XHTML, CSS and JavaScript--making Koha a truly platformindependent solution.

Features
6. Koha is distributed under the open-source General Public License. Hence, it requires absolutely no cost to acquire the software itself. Through free distribution, software collaboration and resource sharing was established among libraries worldwide. Libraries benefit from the contributions of other library systems. A perfect example for these benefits is the long-term support as the availability of Kohas source code allows support and future development of the system. Furthermore, this gives libraries freedom to customize and decide what features would best suit their needs. Free/Open source Koha has all the feature of commercial software.

Features
7. It is an important part of the open-source promise that there is no vendor lock-in: libraries are free to install and use Koha by themselves, if they have the in-house expertise or to purchase support or development services from the best available source. 8. Koha is tried and tested and has demonstrated both stability and scalability, used in thousands of libraries worldwide.

Features
9. With proprietary software, source code is 'closed' and support and future development of the product rely on the success and resources of a single vendor. If the vendor goes under, so does your product support. Open-source solutions rely on stable code bases developed and supported by many providers worldwide.

Some key features of Koha are:

Accessible from any web enabled computer Customizable web-based interfaces Full MARC support (MARC21 and UNIMARC) Includes Z39.50 server and client for data

interchange Powerful self-service tools for patrons Thesaurus and authorities Web 2.0 technologies (RSS feeds, tagging) Social networking technologies (Facebook likes, twitter, delicious)

Some key features of Koha are:

Union catalog facility Customizable MARC fields and subfields for

cataloguing Basic and advance search in OPAC Customizable search in OPAC Customizable images for item types Upload of local cover images of books Circulation, borrower and fees management Acquisitions, cataloguing, authority control, serials

Some key features of Koha are:

Koha 3.0 is OAI-PMH compatible True n-tier architecture Granular permissions in the administration module Branch flexibility and control Easily create records from scratch or download records from free sources Customize record types and locations to match your needs Web-based search engine integrates with your existing intranet Can easily integrate with existing members database Manage digital objects

Some key features of Koha are:

Reading-level, abstracts, thumbnail cover images Full utilization of record metadata Incorporate digital resources directly into the catalog

results Integrated federated searches for databases and other external resources Library standards compliance (MARC, Z39.50) A powerful full-featured search engine Scalability from a thousand to tens of millions of records Multiple record formats (MARC, XML, etc.)

Why use Koha?

Koha is feature-rich, fully customizable and at par

with, if not better than, other expensive commercial ILS. It is used worldwide by different types of libraries (public, school, academic and special libraries, from small libraries to medium up to bigger libraries with hundreds of thousands of collections. It is also used by libraries with tens and hundreds of branch libraries.

Why use Koha?

One of the features of Koha is its standard

compliance to library standards and web-based technologies. Kohas web based capability as compared to other turn-key systems will let library users search the Online Public Access Catalog remotely, and let them reserve or renew the books or materials they need.

Why use Koha?

The Koha community is growing and active, it is

currently maintained by a dedicated team of software providers and library technology staff from around the globe. There are currently 187 developers and contributors. The Koha community also has able bodied users and volunteers helping in reporting bugs, submitting ideas, contributing custom reports, translating Koha in different languages, and producing documentation. And with the rate of things, there is no stopping for Koha ILS to become the best ILS

Requirements
While it doesn't list specific hardware requirements such as

processor speed or amount of RAM, the Koha Library Software Community does recommend the following for Koha 3.8 (and 3.10): To install Koha for immediate use, it is recommended: A Linux server Debian is what most people use Apache MySQL Perl Root access to the server A reasonable level of comfort with the command line Database administration skills

Thank you! We can now proceed on our hands-on Workshop

Sources: ExLibris Software Solutions Koha Integrated Library System Services Proposal http://koha-community.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koha_(software) http://opensourceils.cci.utk.edu/content/installation-requirements