June 2012 - Koha-devel - lists.koha-community.org

Signing-off a patch for a customer
by Paul Poulain 06 Jul '12

06 Jul '12

Hello koha-devel, I just pushed a follow-up for bug 6858. If you look at the patch, you'll see that the author is from BibLibre, as well as the sign-offer. But if you look more carefully on the patch comments, you may understand that Stephane Delaye has signed-off "in the name of the library". We're facing here a case where the library don't want/can't sign-off their patch (they don't know how to do it and don't want to bother with doing it. They just said this patch worked for them) At BibLibre, we have 3 project managers: Stéphane Delaye / Gaetan Boisson / François Charbonnier. They are librarians and are doing the glue between the library our customer and our developers. they know how to sign-off a patch. I want, in this mail, request that those 3 ppl from BibLibre (and only them) can be sign-offers for patches written by another BibLibre developer, once the library has confirmed it works. I propose that we define a standard message, something like Signed-off-by: Delaye Stephane <stephane.delaye(a)biblibre.com> patch validated by <LIBRARY NAME>, signed-off in their name Can I have your agreement with this idea ? (of course, in case another support provider has the same kind of situation, this would also be applicable. It's not something I want for BibLibre only) -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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About IRC meeting & voting
by Paul Poulain 04 Jul '12

04 Jul '12

Hello world, Sorry for missing yesterday IRC meeting, but after 10 days away from home, my family needed me (and it was 8PM here !) During the meeting, Owen said, as a joke: oleonard> 24-hour meeting, votes ever hour, day-end averages win. but i'm not sure it should be a joke: there is always someone sleeping or (wanting to) during the IRC meeting. So shouldn't we vote not during IRC meeting, but just confirm the vote, that is made during a period before the IRC meeting, on an other tool, like wiki, gdoc, yell +1 / 0 / -1 on the mailing list, a tool like http://www.ballotbin.com/ (untested, just found it in google) or whatever you want. I think that would also help more people being involved: attending an IRC meeting is, for some, a too high barrier (in France, there's a barrier with the language, for example). More vote, more involvement,... sounds a good deal isn't it ? -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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[DISCUSSION] Database schema & coding guidelines
by Paul Poulain 04 Jul '12

04 Jul '12

In the wiki page http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/DB_schema_bugs, an insconsistency has been noticed: primary keys column name can be: id (in authorised_values table), xxxid (cityid), xxx_id (label_id), xxxId (limitId), xxxcode (branchcode), xxxnumber (borrowernumber) => choose how to name PK and update schema accordingly The bug 7065 add a foreign key to the reserves table, so I think it's time to clearly choose how we name primary keys. The possible options are below, my opinion: 1- id alone => will result in complexity & mistakes, this option must be discarded 2- xxxxid => short option, may result in hard readability. 3- xxxxId => we haven't decided if we want UC in field names. I won't discard this option, but does not favour it. 4- xxx_id => _ still undecided in field names, I'm not sure it's much better than the xxxid one 5- xxxxnumber => number is quite long, and may result in very long field names, which is not good. I does not like this option. Let's start the discussion -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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A C4::Logger module would be useful ?
by Jonathan Druart 04 Jul '12

04 Jul '12

HI all, I have developped a logging module (based on LogLite). I think it could be useful for Koha. A new system preference controls the log level (eg. level warning for production and debug for development). It can be used by a simple script or into Koha. How it works: See Bug 8190 ( http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=8190) Please have a look at that, and tell me what do you think about it. Technically, is it satisfying for you? I think it could help us to increase the code quality. Any others ideas are welcome ! ++ Jonathan

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http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_Namespace_RFC, moving ahead
by Paul Poulain 29 Jun '12

29 Jun '12

Hello koha-devel, After our discussions during the hackfest, a wiki page has been written. Now, it's time for the first patches, to see how it could look like. I made some work on bug 8309. That's not a request for signoff, but to look at the code, comment, discuss, ... Note: if you want to play with those patches, look in admin/categories.pl and testrelations.pl. You'll have to install Moose and DBIx::Class, (available on probably all linux distros) -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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Bug 6557 pushed, please check localised frameworks
by Paul Poulain 29 Jun '12

29 Jun '12

Hello devel & translate, I just pushed the patch for bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=6557 . It fixes a nasty long-lasting problem, BUT will work only if your frameworks are OK. The popularity is based on biblioitems.totalissues field, that *must* be linked to 942$0 field. It's the default for MARC21 in english, I've fixed UNIMARC in french, *please* check your language/marc flavour. If the biblioitems.totalissues is not linked to 942$0, you'll get a nasty (and unclear, i've asked for a follow-up to have something more understandable): Tag "0" is not a valid tag. at /home/paul/koha.dev/koha-community//C4/Biblio.pm line 3870 *nengard* = this one will need a large/complete documentation ! -- Paul POULAIN http://www.biblibre.com Expert en Logiciels Libres pour l'info-doc Tel : (33) 4 91 81 35 08

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Modern Perl blog article
by Fridolyn SOMERS 27 Jun '12

27 Jun '12

Here is an interesting short article on "modern Perl" : http://www.josetteorama.com/perl/what-is-modern-perl/ It may give some ideas. -- Fridolyn SOMERS fridolyn.somers(a)gmail.com Marsillargues - France <fridolyn.somers(a)gmail.com>

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Official Koha Newsletter: Volume 3, Issue 6: June 2012
by Daniel Grobani 27 Jun '12

27 Jun '12

Official Koha Newsletter: Volume 3, Issue 6: June 2012 [Below is the text of the newsletter. For active links and a more readable format, please visit http://koha-community.org/koha-newsletter-volume-3-issue-6-june-2012] Official Koha Newsletter (ISSN 2153-8328) Volume 3, Issue 6: June 2012 Edited by Daniel Grobani, Koha Community Newsletter Editor. Please submit news items to danielg.koha(a)gmail.com. Table of Contents Koha Development Koha 3.8.2 Released Koha 3.6.5 Released Koha 3.6.6 Released Koha Statistics Release Manager’s Newsletter MARC Records in PostgreSQL Adding VIAF Autosuggest for New NAME Authorities Koha Community New Koha Libraries Community Gossip Koha-Kobli News Past Koha Events June General IRC Meeting KohaCon12 Upcoming Koha Events July General IRC Meeting KohaCon13 Koha Development Koha 3.8.2 Released by Chris Cormack The Koha community is proud to release Koha version 3.8.2. This is a bugfix release, and contains a large number of fixes. You can obtain Koha 3.8.2 here. Release notes are here. Koha 3.6.5 Released by Jared Camins-Esakov The Koha release team is happy to announce the release of Koha 3.6.5. This is a stable release and contains bugfixes as well as updated translations. You can download Koha 3.6.5 here. Release notes are here. Koha 3.6.6 Released by Jared Camins-Esakov The Koha release team is happy to announce the release of Koha 3.6.6. This is a stable release and contains bugfixes as well as updated translations. You can download Koha 3.6.6 here. Release notes are here. Koha Statistics Chris Cormack, unofficial Koha Community Statistics Wizard, has posted statistics for Koha 3.6.5, May bugs & enhancements, Koha 3.8.2, and Koha 3.6.6. Release Manager Newsletter Paul Poulain, Koha 3.8 Release Manager, is publishing a monthly newsletter dedicated to Koha 3.8 development. It can be found on the Koha Community website in the Koha News category. The latest issue is here. Experimental Support for MARC Records as a Proper Datatype in the PostgreSQL Database by Marc Balmer Sitting in one of the nice pubs in Edinburgh during KohaCon, I had this idea to add MARC records as a proper datatype to the PostgreSQL database server. After a discussion with Marc Véron and Dobrica Pavlinusic about what that could mean, I decided to just try it and I have now a basic implementation (or, more a proof of concept). Here is some information on this: If MARC records are a proper datatype, that means they are stored right in the database, are backed-up, can be restored, replicated, etc., just with the standard database tools. If a function is provided to access individual fields of a MARC record, then this can be used in SQL expressions, e.g. for selects or to create views, etc. As PostgreSQL supports functional indexes, you can create indexes on individual MARC fields, giving you super fast access to your data. How does it look? There is a datatype called ‘marc’ for now: CREATE TABLE books ( id serial, sig varchar(16), marc_record marc ); MARC records are loaded into the database as raw, binary records, encoded in hexadecimal: INSERT INTO books (sig, marc_record) VALUES (‘a01b’, ’3030383830…..’); To access individual MARC fields, the function ‘marc_field()’ was created; it returns VARCHAR: SELECT id, marc_field(marc_record, ’020') AS isbn FROM books WHERE sig = ‘a01b’; Of course MARC fields can be used to search data: SELECT id, marc_field(marc_record, ’020') AS isbn FROM books WHERE marc_field(marc_record, ’245') like ‘whatever%’; An index on a specific field can easily be created: CREATE INDEX books_isbn_idx ON books (marc_field(marc_record, ’020')); As syntactic sugar, the expression marc_record@’020' is equal to marc_field(marc_record, ’020'). Marijana Glavica kindly let me use a MARC database of ~250,000 records to make some tests, here are some real world examples: books=# \d test_marc Table “public.test_marc” Column | Type | Modifiers ——–+———+——————————————————– id | integer | not null default nextval(‘test_marc_id_seq’::regclass) marc21 | marc | books=# select count(id) from test_marc; count ——– 246727 (1 row) How many Croatian books do they have? books=# select count(id) from test_marc where substring(marc_field(marc21, ’008'), 37, 3) = ‘hrv’; count ——- 52582 (1 row) Of course much more complex queries are possible with this, and using the right indexes it is really, really fast. One query I tested went from 8.4 seconds to 0.21 ms with the right index. That’s a speedup of 40,000 times. Thanks to Marijana, Dobrica, and Marc for feedback, interesting discussions and ideas! Feedback and suggestions are of course more than welcome at marc(a)msys.ch. Adding VIAF Autosuggest for New NAME Authorities by Stefano Bargioni The Pontificia Università della Santa Croce has written a script to enhance authority cataloguing using VIAF. While adding new authorities of type *NAME, the VIAF catalog can be browsed using its autosuggest API. The script adds a field on top of the /cgi-bin/koha/authorities/authorities.pl page. Typing three or more letters, a popup will be populated with the first ten names. Upon selecting a name, information about the sources of the authority name will be displayed, as well as the full authority record from VIAF, or LC if available. This is an initial version. The next version will try to copy the VIAF authority record into Koha. Comments and help to bargioni(a)pusc.it will be appreciated. Koha Community New Koha Libraries Bethlehem Public Library (via ByWater Solutions) Cooperative Information Network (via ByWater Solutions) Fresnes-en-Woëvre (via BibLibre) New Zealand Education Institute Te Riu Roa Library (via Catalyst) New Zealand Ministry of Education Library (via Catalyst) Pierrefitte-sur-Aire (via BibLibre) San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park (via ByWater Solutions) Spincourt (via BibLibre) Université Rennes 2 (via BibLibre) Valley Automated Library Network (via ByWater Solutions) Vigneulles-les-Hattonchatel (via BibLibre) Community Gossip Silvia Giannitrapani, a student of Library and Information Studies at London’s UCL, is researching open source library management systems for her dissertation “Can Koha and other open source library management systems compete with proprietary systems?” To support her research she is inviting Koha community members to share their views and overall satisfaction with Koha in a brief survey. For more information, email silviag(a)bu.edu. Four French libraries are now using Koha with Solr. Nicole Engard has created a version of Koha 3.8 release notes addressed to users and librarians. A discussion on the Koha-devel list addressed alternatives to having to participate in an IRC meeting in order to vote on a question before the community. D Ruth Bavousett posted her thoughts on diversity in open-source communities. Mirko Tietgen has Koha running on a Raspberry Pi, “An ARM GNU/Linux box for $25?. More information is here. Heather Hernandez, Technical Services Librarian at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, blogged about her experience with setting up Koha. An RFC on the Koha namespace has been posted to the wiki. Gaetan Boisson reports that Biblibre recently submitted to the Drupal community an opac module that allows Drupal to connect to Koha (or other ILS’s). More information is here. Koha-Kobli News by Domingo Arroyo The Koha-Kobli release team is happy to announce the second stable release of Koha-Kobli 1.8, based on Koha 3.8. Kobli is a customized version of Koha ILS developed by the Working Group of BAGEs (Spanish General State Authority Libraries). Kobli 1.8 is released in two versions: one for normal installation, and one as a VMware virtual appliance. Koha-Kobli’s 1.8 download is here. More information is here. Recent implementations of Koha-Kobli include the Spanish Ministry of the Presidency Library and the Library of the Center for Analysis and Forescasting of the Spanish Civil Guard. More information is here and here. Past Koha Events June General IRC Meeting The June general IRC meeting was held on 13 June 2012. More information, including the agenda and links to the minutes, is here. KohaCon12 KohaCon12 has come and gone! David Nind (with others) has done an excellent job of updating the conference’s schedule page with lots of links to blog posts, photos, slides, and more. The Hackfest page has also been updated with links to some slides, posts, and tools. Upcoming Koha Events July General IRC Meeting Details on the July general IRC meeting are not yet available as we go to press. KohaCon13 The deadline for posting bids to host KohaCon2013 is almost here. See the conference’s wiki page for the current bids or to add yours.

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Koha on Ubuntu server
by Uy 26 Jun '12

26 Jun '12

> > I am trying install Koha on ubuntu server. I did install koha 3.8.1 in ubuntu server and desktop. It all works. I can add record with a Marc framework. I added patrons... I can check out, check in... All functions work like magic, but only the " Search the catalog" doesn't work :(. Is there anyone are using Koha on Ubuntu server with all work out ok? I follow all steps on http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Koha_on_Ubuntu especially these steps settup zebra index and zebra server. I saw all works well, but nothing i can search! Anyone help? I'm newbie! > > Kindest Regards! > Nguyen Quoc Uy

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Re: [Koha-devel] Social library
by Quoc Uy 25 Jun '12

25 Jun '12

Thanks. It's very hard to find some volunteer to help, but i think i can call someone working with me working together. I just try to tell everyone what i really want and hope. Maybe i need time to make it come true, but i think, who love Koha must answer a question: What should we do with Koha, to make our patrons stay longer and longer in our website (it means that our website is not only the place for search some books, which is easier with google, but also the place for them to talk more and more about their favorite books, share them with friends). Of course they can do with sharing on facebook, on twitter, but it's really perfect if it shares automatically with Koha. When i was young, i stayed in a library, looked at a nice girl, wondered what kind of book she was reading. Now with Koha, if i know her, it's perfect when i can see what kind of books my friends are reading, how do they think about it?... right? I know, maybe some people thought about this before but it's quite difficult. Hope that if anyone want to make it, i can help about expanding some ideas, collect some experiences. Thanks all! ________________________________ From: BWS Johnson <abesottedphoenix(a)yahoo.com> To: Quocuy <nguyenquocuy_1102(a)yahoo.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 1:15 AM Subject: Re: Social library Salve! > Ok! I will wait for u. If u have time, we gonna talk about it more and more > then. I'm back now. I think the overarching thing that I have to say is that it sounds like part of what you want is already done, and the parts that aren't yet done sound like logical extensions. Stephen Johnson talks about the notion of the adjacent possible in innovation, and what you seem to be talking about all seems to fall in that realm. To me, it would boil down to a few different options if you discover that precisely what you want doesn't exist yet. You could pay for support so that a developer that does know Koha can just code what you want. You could find a volunteer somewhere that knows how to code, but doesn't necessarily know Koha. The last option is to learn everything yourself and then just do it. Whatever happens, if you ensure that you upstream what you change, it would be great. I will say that your attitude helps a whole lot. You sound very positive to me. As long as you're very patient, people might get around to implementing different ideas, but the free route tends to take a very long time. There's an olde sign here that reads Fast Cheap Good You can have any 2. It's very true for Koha. :) Half the battle is trying to chunk things out to allow for easy consumption and describing precisely what you want the best that you can so that a developer can get a bead on what exactly you need. If you do a good job with the division of tasks, then it's easy for people to pick up a little scrap as in quilting and stitch things together. Cheers, Brooke

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