Koha goes strength to strength

This page has been viewed 155 times.

May 2012 | Previous | Next

Koha, the open source library management system originally developed in New Zealand and now in use in libraries around the world recently passed another milestone. Version 3.8.0 (http://tinyurl.com/d57pckk) of the software was released on April 23, 2012.

This new version included over 100 enhancements comprised of more than 1000 patches supplied by over 70 developers from around the globe.

Despite the distraction of being embroiled in a trademark suit with an American company that claims to have trademarked the word koha, a Māori word meaning gift or donation, the Koha developers have continued to develop the system and add new functionality for the thousands of libraries around the world using this tool.

This year's annual Koha conference, Kohacon12 - http://koha-community.org/kohacon12/ , will be held in Edinburgh in June. As a sponsor of the conference, and supporter of Koha, Catalyst IT is sending two of its senior Koha developers to speak at the event.

“We are pleased to be able to send two of the most experienced Koha developers to Kohacon12. Chris Cormack, who was on the original development team in 1999, will be attending the conference.

“Robin Sheat, another senior developer, will also be attending and then staying on in Europe until September. He will be available to advise interested libraries and organizations on their data migration, development and training for librarians and system developers.

“Catalyst is proud to have made the second greatest contribution of all companies worldwide to Koha 3.8.0 patches and sign-offs. This was made possible by the numerous Catalyst clients who sponsored new features and bug-fixes which have once again made Koha even better.

“We are especially pleased to announce that 15 patches were contributed by the Catalyst Open Source Academy (http://catalyst.net.nz/academy), an initiative designed to provide training and work experience for young New Zealand technologists.

“Supporting Koha is important to us. We want to see libraries and the communities they support not be burdened by expensive or restrictive licensing; this way they can focus on providing the best possible services to their communities,” says Don Christie, Director, Catalyst IT.