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RE: [oss4lib-discuss] ALA/June 16th: Automate Your Library for Un der $1000
by Pat Eyler 07 Jun '02

07 Jun '02

On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Dave Bretthauer wrote: > Hi Pat, > > > For what it's worth, the core koha development effort right now is > > centered in four locations, New Zealand, the Pacific > > Northwest (Oregon, > > Washington, and British Columbia), the Eastern Seaboard > > (Washington, DC), > > and France. Maybe one (or more) of us will be close enough > > to make it to > > the next ALA/LITA. > > This is news to me. And good news, too. > > But let me get this straight: this wasn't the case last summer (when we > planned this year's program), was it? In any event, I hadn't heard about it; > hope you know there was no slight intended. 8^) No offense taken. And no, the wider spread and formalization of Koha development is a fairly recent development. > > If you know of anyone involved in Koha development who'll be at ALA in > Atlanta, please ask them to try to make it to our OSSIG business meeting, > Saturday June 15 2-4pm at the Hilton in the Roosevelt room. The IG > leadership will be changing and I don't want to speak for them, but I > suspect the new leaders of the group will be looking for programming ideas > for Toronto (next ALA) and Houston (next LITA). These typcially have to be > done a year in advance because of ALA's and LITA's plnning cycles. Also, I > don't think anyone connected with Koha has ever been to one of our meetings. > I'll bring it up on our development list -- in fact, I'll just Cc: them on this email. I don't think anyone will be available for this trip, I'm more hopeful for Toronto and Houston. Being a group of volunteers (mostly not attached to US libraries) makes this a bit difficult, but we shall see. -pate > Thanks, > > Dave > > +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ > Dave Bretthauer > Network Services Librarian > University of Connecticut Libraries > 369 Fairfield Rd, U1005SY > Storrs, CT 06269-1005 > Voice: (860) 486-6494 > Fax: (860) 486-2184 > http://www.lib.uconn.edu/~dbretthauer >

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Re: [oss4lib-discuss] Koha dev [ was ALA/June 16th: Automate Your Library for Un der $1000]
by Pat Eyler 07 Jun '02

07 Jun '02

Bon dia Miguel, On Fri, 7 Jun 2002, Miguel Dias wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Pat Eyler" <pate(a)eylerfamily.org> > Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 10:05 PM > Subject: RE: [oss4lib-discuss] ALA/June 16th: Automate Your Library for Un der $1000 > > > > Along side these development efforts, we're also trying to position Koha > > for greater acceptance in two user facing efforts, translation and > > support. > > > > With the templating code in the 1.2 series, we're going to be able to more > > readily provide non-english versions of koha. A French translation is > > under way, and we're looking for people to begin working on a Spanish > > version as well. Polish, German, Chinese, Russian, and Japanese are all > > languages we'd like to work on as well. > > [...] > > Just to toss in a lurker's 2 cents, Portuguese is the official language > of 7 countries and many communities in 5 continents (Brazil is only the > biggest country; Spain's Galicia province might be a good example of a > large portuguese speaking community -- but there may be many who > disagree on this one) so it might make a better bet for translation > than some of the languages referred, if you're thinking wider (although > somewhat poorer) market. > Yes, Portuguese ought to be on the list. Right now, we don't have any developers with Portuguese language skills, which doesn't position us well to make this effort. Now, if someone wanted to volunteer ... :) The languages picked reflect a mix of things; existing translations, users/developers who are actively working on things, people who have shown interest, and (for Spanish) a number of Governments currently pushing to move into OSS. If we can scoop up some additional languages along the way, I certainly won't complain. > On the down side, there are important differences between the standards > of speech of this communities, but I am sure some pratical consensus is > easily achievable. > > IMHO, some though may be timely on this issue... Thoughts, comments, and help are always timely gifts. Fortunately, we're moving toward an architecture where adding translations is going to get easier. obrigado, -pate > > Thanks, > > Miguel Dias > Librarian (and obviously Portuguese) > > "It is only by asking the right questions, > that one stands a chance of getting the right answers" > Confucious thought this one; I just wrote it. > >

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From the Kaitiaki
by Pat Eyler 06 Jun '02

06 Jun '02

7 June, 2002 To the Koha community; Kia Ora, I'd like to thank everyone for their hard work this last week. I'd also like to thank three individuals have have agreed to help manage the Koha project: Chris Cormack is our 1.2 release manager Paul Poulain is our 1.4 release manager Nicholas Rosasco is our advocacy/recruiting manager I received some good feedback from my letter last week, thanks. I look forward to hearing from more of you as the project continues to grow, please don't hesitate to write to me at <pate(a)gnu.org>. I'll try to get back to you quickly. Among the other feedback that we got was a notice on the <http://www.oss4lib.com> website. There are a lot of other projects there, I'd encourage you all to take a look at what people are working on. I think that there is a lot of ground for cooperation (for example, the MARC::Record Perl module which we'll be using for our 1.4 release). We've accomplished a lot recently, and it looks like the pace is just going to pick up. I'd like to talk briefly about what's happened and what on the horizon. 1.2 Many more clean ups and improvements have been made. Alan Millar, Mike Mylonas, Finlay Thompson, and Chris Cormack have been particularily active. There are some additional bits of work that should see their way into the 1.2 series as well. The 1.2.0 release is just around the corner, in fact a 1.2.0-rc2 tarball has been cut and is available at: <http://developer.koha.org/koha-1.2.0-rc2.tar.gz>. This release will be coordinated with a number of announcements in fairly high profile areas. This should result in a flurry of testing, use, and improvement that will carry us through a solid series of 1.2.X releases. One of the most exciting enhancements in the 1.2 series will be templates. This will not only allow libraries to easily change the look of Koha at their own site, but will allow us to make translations much easier. 1.4 Paul Poulain, Steve Tonnesen, and Sergey Yanovitsky have been hard at work laying out a database schema for MARC. Now that they're down to dotting I's and crossing T's, they're going to be starting on a clean API for developers. These two pieces will provide the foundation for a stronger, faster, better Koha. Translations In addition to our hopes for Spanish and Polish, Paul Poulain has started a French translation. If you'd like to show your cultural pride, please consider helping translate Koha. Documentation Nicholas Rosasco has started writing our documentation. We already have some volunteers, but could certainly use more. Even if you can only contribute a little time to read it and give us your feedback, or to write a short article, your help will be appreciated. I hope you've enjoyed this note. My plan is to send out a 'State of the Project' note like this on a weekly basis to keep everyone up to date. I'll continue posting them to our wiki[1] as well. Haere ra, -pate Pat Eyler Kaitiaki of the Koha Project [1] <http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=KohaProject>

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Re: Possible feature on Koha
by Rosalie Blake 04 Jun '02

04 Jun '02

Hi Marcel, Nice to get your email, and thank you kindly for the encouraging words. I'm a non-techie librarian, but I'm forwarding your letter to our chief programmer, and the koha developers list, both of whom will have wise words on the problems you raise. Thanks again. Cheers, Rosalie On 4 Jun 2002, at 12:12, Marcel (Free Thinker at Large) Gagné wrote: > > Hello from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada! > > Quick intro for starters. I write a number of Linux articles for > various publications including Linux Journal, InformIT, SysAdmin, Unix > Review, and others. I'm also the author of the book, "Linux System > Administration, A User's Guide". Anyhow, I'm always on the lookout > for new and cool things to write about and I've been looking at a > couple of library automation systems that might be fun to cover. > Incidentally, I used to work for Dynix, a (at one time anyway) rather > large library automation software company. But I digress . . . > > I've been taking Koha out for a spin and it looks like an excellent > library automation system. I would like to write about it and give it > some press, but there are a few problems that I wonder if you could > address for me. For starters, I'm curious as to how close you are to > the next release as this might answer some of my other concerns. > There are only really two big issues for me. The first has to do with > installation which seems rather complex and demands multiple servers > (or virtual servers). I was able to get around that myself but it's a > bit much to ask others who might be a tad less technically oriented > (even if I do a good job of explaining <insert appropriate smiley > here>). > > Second (and this is a big one), is there a means to modify that fields > on screen. The BIG REASON for this question has to do with the > "Ethnicity" question on your borrower page. As this sort of question > is strictly forbidden in North America, I can't possibly recommend > Koha to my readers if this cannot be changed. It's an instant > show-stopper. > > Whether or not I can go ahead with the article at this time, I will > say that I am impressed with the work you've done so far. I wish you > the best. > > -- > > Marcel (Writer and Free Thinker at Large) Gagné > Note: This massagee wos nat speel or gramer-checkered. > Mandatory home page reference - http://www.marcelgagne.com/ > Author : Linux System Administration, A User's Guide > (ISBN 0-201-71934-7. Available NOW from Addison-Wesley) > Join the WFTL-LUG : http://www.salmar.com/marcel/wftllugform.html

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[Fwd: (Fwd) Re: request about koha]
by Chris Cormack 03 Jun '02

03 Jun '02

-----Forwarded Message----- > From: Rosalie Blake <rosalie(a)library.org.nz> > To: chris Cormack <chris(a)katipo.co.nz> > Subject: (Fwd) Re: request about koha > Date: 31 May 2002 10:03:58 +1200 > > Hi Chris, > This is getting way beyond my power to help! > Rosalie > ------- Forwarded message follows ------- > Date sent: Wed, 29 May 2002 07:09:14 +0100 (BST) > From: "prasad sanka" <sekprasad(a)yahoo.co.uk> > Subject: Re: request about koha > To: Rosalie Blake <rosalie(a)library.org.nz> > > > HI Rosalie > Thanks for giving reply for yesterdays mail. > How I can create books data base in this.. > and which fashion i have to enter. > can u suggest me and send some example.. > Regards > Prasad SEK > Rosalie Blake <rosalie(a)library.org.nz> wrote: Hello Prasad, > The card numbers for the test version of Koha must comply with an > algorithm that generates a check digit. Our numbers start with an > alpha prefix, then a seven digit number, than a check digit. This is > the algorithm: > > The alpha is ignored. > Multipliers by position + checkdigit (ABCDEFGH - H check digit) : A x > 8 B x 4 C x 6 D x 3 E x 5 F x 2 G x 1 > > Add them up and H is the remainder when divided by 11, if it's 10 use > X I have attached an excel spreadsheet which will calculate numbers > for you. Rosalie > > On 28 May 2002, at 8:07, prasad sanka wrote: > > > > > HI Rosalie > > I saw your site.When i am entering fields its not accepting > > the card number. > > I tried all the possible ways but its not accepting. > > can you give your valuable suggestion for this.. > > If you any documentation about this can you send me. > > Please consider my request.. > > Regards > > prasad > > > > Rosalie Blake wrote: Hello Prasad, > > Koha is a complete library system, with catalogue and member > > databases. It is able to handle library circulation (issues and > > returns). it also has a well-developed acquisitions module where you > > can set budgets for book purchases, and track expenditure through > > the year. > > > > There is a working test database at > > http://hlt.katipo.co.nz/ > > Go and have a play. You can change data, issue and return on this > > test site. If you are then interested in fiding out more, join the > > koha mailing list on http://www.koha.org/mailing_list.html Good Luck > > Rosalie Blake Horowhenua Library Trust > > > > On 27 May 2002, at 10:43, prasad sanka wrote: > > > > > > > > HI Rosalie > > > > > > I am prasd.I am from India.I saw ur koha library system on the > > > web. > > > > > > Regarding this I want some information. > > > > > > What are the features is there in this and in real time huv it can > > > be useful. > > > > > > Please send some brief information regarding this.. > > > > > > prasad > > > > > > > > > > > > Regards > > > > > > Prasad S.E.K. > > > > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > > > Sign up to watch the FIFA World Cup video highlights from your > > > desk! > > > > > > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en > > > > > > > > > > Regards > > > > Prasad S.E.K. > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > > Sign up to watch the FIFA World Cup video highlights from your desk! > > > > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en > > > The following section of this message contains a file attachment > prepared for transmission using the Internet MIME message format. If > you are using Pegasus Mail, or any another MIME-compliant system, you > should be able to save it or view it from within your mailer. If you > cannot, please ask your system administrator for assistance. > > ---- File information ----------- > File: barcode number algorithm.xls > Date: 29 May 2002, 13:56 > Size: 22528 bytes. > Type: Excel-sheet > > ATTACHMENT part 3 application/octet-stream name=barcode number > > algorithm.xls; type=Excel-sheet > > > Regards > > Prasad S.E.K. > > > > --------------------------------- > Sign up to watch the FIFA World Cup video highlights from your desk! > > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en > ------- End of forwarded message ------- -- Chris Cormack chris(a)katipo.co.nz Programmer 025 500 579 Katipo Communications www.katipo.co.nz

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[Fwd: (Fwd) Re: request about koha]
by Chris Cormack 03 Jun '02

03 Jun '02

-----Forwarded Message----- > From: Rosalie Blake <rosalie(a)library.org.nz> > To: chris Cormack <chris(a)katipo.co.nz> > Subject: (Fwd) Re: request about koha > Date: 31 May 2002 10:03:58 +1200 > > Hi Chris, > This is getting way beyond my power to help! > Rosalie > ------- Forwarded message follows ------- > Date sent: Wed, 29 May 2002 07:09:14 +0100 (BST) > From: "prasad sanka" <sekprasad(a)yahoo.co.uk> > Subject: Re: request about koha > To: Rosalie Blake <rosalie(a)library.org.nz> > > > HI Rosalie > Thanks for giving reply for yesterdays mail. > How I can create books data base in this.. > and which fashion i have to enter. > can u suggest me and send some example.. > Regards > Prasad SEK > Rosalie Blake <rosalie(a)library.org.nz> wrote: Hello Prasad, > The card numbers for the test version of Koha must comply with an > algorithm that generates a check digit. Our numbers start with an > alpha prefix, then a seven digit number, than a check digit. This is > the algorithm: > > The alpha is ignored. > Multipliers by position + checkdigit (ABCDEFGH - H check digit) : A x > 8 B x 4 C x 6 D x 3 E x 5 F x 2 G x 1 > > Add them up and H is the remainder when divided by 11, if it's 10 use > X I have attached an excel spreadsheet which will calculate numbers > for you. Rosalie > > On 28 May 2002, at 8:07, prasad sanka wrote: > > > > > HI Rosalie > > I saw your site.When i am entering fields its not accepting > > the card number. > > I tried all the possible ways but its not accepting. > > can you give your valuable suggestion for this.. > > If you any documentation about this can you send me. > > Please consider my request.. > > Regards > > prasad > > > > Rosalie Blake wrote: Hello Prasad, > > Koha is a complete library system, with catalogue and member > > databases. It is able to handle library circulation (issues and > > returns). it also has a well-developed acquisitions module where you > > can set budgets for book purchases, and track expenditure through > > the year. > > > > There is a working test database at > > http://hlt.katipo.co.nz/ > > Go and have a play. You can change data, issue and return on this > > test site. If you are then interested in fiding out more, join the > > koha mailing list on http://www.koha.org/mailing_list.html Good Luck > > Rosalie Blake Horowhenua Library Trust > > > > On 27 May 2002, at 10:43, prasad sanka wrote: > > > > > > > > HI Rosalie > > > > > > I am prasd.I am from India.I saw ur koha library system on the > > > web. > > > > > > Regarding this I want some information. > > > > > > What are the features is there in this and in real time huv it can > > > be useful. > > > > > > Please send some brief information regarding this.. > > > > > > prasad > > > > > > > > > > > > Regards > > > > > > Prasad S.E.K. > > > > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > > > Sign up to watch the FIFA World Cup video highlights from your > > > desk! > > > > > > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en > > > > > > > > > > Regards > > > > Prasad S.E.K. > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > > Sign up to watch the FIFA World Cup video highlights from your desk! > > > > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en > > > The following section of this message contains a file attachment > prepared for transmission using the Internet MIME message format. If > you are using Pegasus Mail, or any another MIME-compliant system, you > should be able to save it or view it from within your mailer. If you > cannot, please ask your system administrator for assistance. > > ---- File information ----------- > File: barcode number algorithm.xls > Date: 29 May 2002, 13:56 > Size: 22528 bytes. > Type: Excel-sheet > > ATTACHMENT part 3 application/octet-stream name=barcode number > > algorithm.xls; type=Excel-sheet > > > Regards > > Prasad S.E.K. > > > > --------------------------------- > Sign up to watch the FIFA World Cup video highlights from your desk! > > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/fc/en > ------- End of forwarded message ------- -- Chris Cormack chris(a)katipo.co.nz Programmer 025 500 579 Katipo Communications www.katipo.co.nz

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Heads Up
by Nicholas Rosasco 02 Jun '02

02 Jun '02

MARC-y type people, http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/marctools.html Note the stuff marked FREE, esp. the tool that converts between national MARC type formats, There are also nice links to MARC.pm and subsidiary stuff, as well as some XML/SGML tools we may want to look at.

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Acceptance Letter
by Pat Eyler 31 May '02

31 May '02

31 May, 2002 To the Koha community; I'd like to take a moment to accept the role of Kaitiaki[1] of Koha, to thank those who have done so much work already, and to give an overview of where I think we need to be going as a community. Let me start with a bit of background: for the last month or so, there has been an ongoing discussion between the developers about the desirability of an official management/leadership function for the Koha project. The good folks at Katipo have been doing an admirable job in this area, and are voluntarily opening this process up to the larger community. The result of these discussions was a decision to elect a person to oversee the project. This person's role is to work with the other developers and the users of Koha to guide its development into a library system that can serve the needs of any library; large or small, english speaking or not. The Kaitiaki will help craft a strategy for growth and development, encourage organizations to use Koha, improve support for Koha, and recruit additional developers for the project. In our last meeting, 30 May 2002, the developers present decided to name me, Pat Eyler, as the Kaitiaki. I'm honored and humbled by this decision. I'd like to pledge to all of you, users and developers, that I'll do my best to make Koha as successful, as complete, as user-friendly, and as capable as it can possibly be. Koha would not exist if not for the efforts of the Horowhenua Library Trust (HLT) and Katipo. I'll mention only three people by name, not because they are the only ones to have worked on it, but because I'm afraid I'd leave people out if I tried to mention everyone. Rosalie Blake (Head of Libraries for HLT), Rachel Hamilton-Williams (General Manager at Katipo), and Chris Cormack (Programmer at Katipo) should be well recognized for their courage and efforts. I hope that we'll be working together for a long time to come. Since Koha's initial release to the world outside Katipo and HLT, many others have contributed to the project. I'd like to thank all of them for their efforts, and encourage them to keep up their good work. I'll close with a quick overview of my hopes for Koha in the coming year or so. In the near term, we'll be releasing Koha 1.2.0 featuring a number of bug fixes and improvements. We'll likely release a few more 1.2 series releases as well featuring yet more improvements and bug fixes. Sometime in the late summer or early fall, we'll begin releasing the 1.4 series. This release series will feature MARC capabilities as well as continuing improvements. In parallel to these efforts, we'll be trying to internationalize Koha. Our first targets will be Polish (updating an earlier translation) and Spanish (a brand new translation). The experience we gain from these two efforts should help us make additional translations much easier. We're also going to work hard to raise community awareness of Koha in both the Open Source/Free Software and the professional library communities. This work will involve announcements, appearances at conferences, and more work on documentation. If you'd like to participate in any of these efforts, or if you would like to suggest additional projects for us to take on, please feel free to email me at <pate(a)gnu.org>. thanks, -pate Pat Eyler Kaitiaki of the Koha Project [1] Kaitiaki, pronounced kah-ee-tee-ah-kee (unless my Maori pronunciation is badly off), means guardian.

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May 30th irc meeting
by Pat Eyler 31 May '02

31 May '02

Just a quick note to let everyone know that meeting notes from the May 30th meeting are posted at: http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=IrcMeetingNotes a full log is at: http://www.haz.cmsd.bc.ca/cgi-bin/kohalog.pl?date=30May02&refresh=&firstlin… Thanks, -pate

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proposed marc schema
by Tonnesen Steve 30 May '02

30 May '02

I ran some benchmarks on Sergey's proposed marc schema, because I was a little concerned about the performance problems of having to do a join to retrieve a biblio. To recap, here are the schemas that I used. The first table is my "all-in-one" schema, the second two are Sergey's: CREATE TABLE marc_subfield_table ( subfieldid bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, tagid bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0', tag char(3) NOT NULL default '', bibid bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0', subfieldorder tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0', subfieldcode char(1) NOT NULL default '', subfieldvalue varchar(255) default NULL, valuebloblink bigint(20) default NULL, PRIMARY KEY (subfieldid), KEY (bibid,tagid,tag,subfieldcode), KEY (bibid,tag,subfieldcode,subfieldvalue) ) TYPE=MyISAM; CREATE TABLE marc_field_table_sergey ( fieldid bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, bibid bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0', tagid bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0', tag char(3) NOT NULL default '', PRIMARY KEY (fieldid), KEY (bibid), KEY (tagid), KEY (tag) ); CREATE TABLE marc_subfield_table_sergey ( subfieldid bigint(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, fieldid bigint(20), subfieldorder tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0', subfieldcode char(1) NOT NULL default '', subfieldvalue varchar(255) default NULL, valuebloblink bigint(20) default NULL, PRIMARY KEY (subfieldid), KEY (fieldid) ); Here are the results of my benchmark: getdata-steve: 0:08.29 0:08.36 0:08.24 0:08.25 0:08.28 getdata-sergey: 0:07.96 0:07.86 0:07.88 0:07.87 0:07.98 Times shown are for retrieving 2000 random records from a database of 5000 entries. It's close, but Sergey's schema is marginally faster, and unarguably better SQL, so let's go with splitting tag and subfield tables. Note that I didn't use 80,000 records in my benchmark this time, mainly because I didn't want to wait to generate a database that large. With only 5000 entries in the database, mysqld was able to cache the entire database in ram on my test machine. There was basically no hard drive access during the benchmark (after I ran it a couple of times to make sure all the data was cached). Before the data was all cached, the lookups were taking more like 12-15 seconds for 2000 records. Steve.

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