(Georg Greve, the author of Brave GNU World, is interested in writing about Koha. He's asked that we fill out an information page. I've started working on it, but would appreciate feedback from any/all of you on my answers.) * What is it? Koha is a system for managing libraries (the kind with books in them). It provides a card catalog like interface (OPAC), with many forms of searching. It also provides managment tools for librarians, handling issues like: acquisitions, circulation, and patron information. * Who would use it? Koha is an appropriate solution for small to mid-sized libraries now (including home or office libraries should people so desire), and work is being done to allow it to scale up to large libraries in the very near future (state or national libraries). * Why would they use it instead of similar projects? * (Programming) language used in this project? Koha is written in Perl. * Special features/strengths? ***Someone up to writing a blurb here?*** * Special problems? Koha is in an active development cycle, pending changes may require DB modifications. Koha currently lacks a novice friendly installation tool. The documentation is also lacking right now. All of these issues are known, and work is being done to mitigate them. * Who is working on it? Koha is being actively developed by an interantional team. Pat Eyler is the current project leader, Chris Cormack is the release manager for 1.2, and Paul Poulain is the release manager for 1.4. * History of the project? ***Katipans, can you help out here*** * Plans for the close and distant future? We're planning on releasing 1.2.0 this week, with additional 1.2 series releases occuring over the next couple of months. In the fall we're going to release 1.4.0, which will include our internal use of MARC as well as additional improvements. For more details, please feel free to look at <pate.eylerfamily.org/geek/Koha.html>. * Do you need help? If so: of what kind? We're looking for Perl programmers, web designers, and documentation writers. Particular skills we need are: i18n/l10n, HTML::Template, MySQL/PostgreSQL, and a working knowledge of common library procedures and technologies (MARC, Z39.50, and the like). * Interesting/fun stories that might juice up the story? ***Anyone have stories that could go here?*** * Website/FTP addresses? http://www.koha.org * License?! GPL * Standard documents to read in this context? Please take a look at the koha website (esp. the FAQ) for information about Koha. <www.oss4lib.org> is a good place to learn more about Free Software in libraries. * Anything you would like to see mentioned? ***Thoughts, ideas, ???*** * Answer to a question I forgot? ***What's the favorite snack of koha developers? Or, is there something else that would be more worthwhile to put here? ;) NOTE: Everything you want me to read should be sent to me by mail because very often I will take my mail with me and read it where I don't have access to the net.
Regards, Georg