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Koha 3.8.x Release Notes for Librarians

by Nicole C. on Jun 25, 2012

The following release notes are edited from the original release notes for Koha 3.8, 3.8.1, and 3.8.2 specifically for Koha users and Librarians (server specific things have been removed to avoid confusion). If you’d administering a Koha installation please read the official (and complete) release notes on the official Koha site!

The Koha release team is happy to announce the release of Koha 3.8.0, the third major release since we shifted to time based releases. The release team would like to thank everyone involved in this release for making it possible.

Koha 3.8.0 contains over 130 enhancements with over 1000 changesets from 71 developers. Please read the release notes below the fold for more information.

Koha is the first free and open source software library automation package (ILS). Development is sponsored by libraries of varying types and sizes, volunteers, and support companies from around the world.

The website for the Koha project is http://koha-community.org/

Koha 3.8.0 is a major feature release, that comes with a lot of new features, and many tweaks to improve performance.

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NEW FEATURES
==========

There are 130+ enhancements in Koha 3.8. Some of them are minor, some are major. The list is given below. The number in () is the bugzilla number (http://bugs.koha-community.org) The “*NEW*” flag before an enhancement description means it’s a totally new feature, or a major improvement of an existing one, or a change that you should be warned, because you’ll spot it in your daily use of Koha

CATALOGUE and CATALOGUING

  • *NEW* Add ability to take book cover images from local img db (1633)
    This feature let you attach images to bibliographic records, that can be cover images or any kind of image
  • *NEW* Delete biblios if deleting all their items in batch deletion (6027)
    When you do batch deletion, you can check a checkbox to automatically delete biblios that have no more items attached. The previous behaviour is still there (do not delete the biblio), and the checkbox not checked by default
  • *NEW* Choose framework on Merge (6210)
    When you merge 2 bibliographic records, you can choose the framework of the merged record
  • Attach/move items – adding option “try again” after success or wrong barcode (6323)
  • Enhanced Workflow for adding analytical records (6831)
    In cataloguing after searching for the parent record the new tool bar option ‘add child’ takes you into the addbiblio screen but with the Host Item Tag already populated with data derived from the parent record
  • Adding invoice number and vendor name to the moredetail page (7235)
    When a biblio is created through an acquisition order, the vendor name and invoice number is displayed, and linked to the order
  • In the items table, make items.materials of type text, and show its contents at circulation (7278)
    The note in the item field mapped to items.materials (952$3) will show up in a message box when checking the item in or out.
  • New call number allocation plugin (7458)
    When you activate this new plugin (callnumber-KU), the callnumber has the following behaviour:
    FREN 0 (then click on …) – FREN 0000 is returned
    FREN 0 (then click on …) – FREN 0001 is returned (the first unused value beginning with this prefix)
    FREN 01 (then click on …) – FREN 0100 is returned
    FEAT AM (then click on …) – FEAT AM01 is returned
    FEAT AM (then click on …) – FEAT AM02 is returned
  • Create index for items.itemcallnumber (7509)
    This will speed up the shelf browse feature significantly
  • *NEW* OCLC Connexion Gateway, including extension svc/import_bib (7613)
    Requires server setup and cron jobs (speak to your sys admin for more info)
  • Add auto-completion on auth_finder (7400)
  • 5 icons have been added to bridge itemtype icon theme (7373)
  • A minor change in the “GetMarcAuthors‚Äù function of C4/Biblio.pm would allow differentiate the type of authors in the templates (4376)
  • *NEW* Authority matching improvements (7284)
    Implemented new C4::Linker functionality to make it possible to easily add
    custom authority linker algorithms. Currently available linker options are:

    • Default: retains the current behavior of only creating links when there is an exact match to one and only one authority record; if the ‘broader_headings’ option is enabled, it will try to link to headings to authority records for broader headings by removing subfields from the end of the heading (NOTE: test the results before enabling broader_headings in a production system because its usefulness is very much dependent on individual sites’ authority files)
    • First Match: based on Default, creates a link to the *first authority record that matches a given heading, even if there is more than one authority record that matches
    • Last Match: based on Default, creates a link to the *last authority record that matches a given heading, even if there is more than one record that matches

OPAC

  • *NEW* XSLT system preference should take a path to file rather than YesNo (4032)
    You can now display biblio detail and search results using a XSLT taken from a file. It means you can have a XSLT that is independent from the one provided by Koha. You can still choose to display using normal mode or the default XSLT provided
  • Add search links in detail pages (6483)
  • Add ID attribute to certain areas of OPAC so jquery can be used to hide them (4819)
  • *NEW* Star ratings in the opac (5668)
    You can now activate (through a system preference) local rating in the OPAC. Logged-in users can rate any biblio
  • *NEW* Display information about library on OPAC detail (7264)
    In libraries administration, there is a new field that, if filled, is displayed on the OPAC when the patron put his mouse over library name. This can be used to enter library opening hours, address,…
  • System preference to configure export options for OPAC detail page (7392)
    The new system preference allows to give a list of | separated values to define, which download options are offered in OPAC. You can choose between BIBTEX (bibtex), Dublin Core (dc), MARCXML (marcxml), MARC-8 encoded MARC (marc8), Unicode/UTF-8 encoded MARC (utf8), Unicode/UTF-8 encoded MARC without local use (9xx, x9x, xx9) fields and subfields (marcstd), MODS and RIS
  • Add ISSN to SearchForTitleIn (7576)
    The placeholder {ISSN} is now available in SearchForTitleIn systempreference (as title, author, isbn were previously)
  • Introduce sys pref to control ‘browse results’ in OPAC (7935)
    A system preference has been added to activate or desactivate the “browse result” feature (that let you move to the next/previous record when you’ve made a search)
  • “Add to Cart” changes to “Remove from Cart” when a record already in the cart is checked (3215)
  • Comments shouldn’t show patron’s full name (5503)
  • Babeltheque integration (7470)
    Babeltheque is a french provider for enhanced content (comments, reviews,…). The basic support available in previous versions has been improved a lot.
  • Social networks links (7470)
    You can activate a system preference that will display Facebook ‘I like’, google+ ‘+1’, linkedIn and some other social networks links. (Note that the system preference OPACBaseURL must be filled in order to have this feature working correctly)

ACQUISITION

PATRONS

SERIALS

CIRCULATION

SEARCHING

  • More options for AdvancedSearchTypes (7031)
    Adds the ability to perform advanced searches in both the OPAC and staff client on more than a single AdvancedSearchType at a time. Support included for Itemtype, Collection Code and Shelving Location.AdvancedSearchTypes syspref preference is repurposed; no longer a single value, it can now take multiple item code fields separated by “|”. The order of these fields will determine the order of the tabs in the OPAC and staff client advanced search screens. Values within the search type are OR’ed together, while each different search type is AND’ed together in the query limits. The current stored values are supported without any required modification.Each set of advanced search fields are displayed in tabs in both the OPAC and staff client. The first value in the AdvancedSearchTypes syspref is the selected tab; if no values are present, “itemtypes” is used. For non-itemtype values, the value in AdvancedSearchTypes must match the Authorised Value name, and must be indexed with ‘mc-‘ prefixing that name.
  • Add ICU option to Koha out of the box (7698)
    During installation, you now have an option to use ICU. ICU is a unicode library that improve a lot zebra search engine for non latin alphabet catalogue

TOOLS

LISTS

  • Deep work has been started to clean up the code and make it more flexible (7310)
    Most of this work is invisible for now, but new features will come soon. For now, the only visible improvement is the system preference OpacAllowPublicListCreation that let you enable or disable the creation of public lists by patrons

VARIOUS

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System Preferences
==========

The following system preferences have been added or changes (the number in () is the bugzilla number)

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Documentation
==========

The Koha manual is maintained in DocBook format. The home page for Koha documentation is

http://koha-community.org/documentation/

As of the date of these release notes, the Koha manual is available:

The Git repository for the Koha manual can be found at

http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=kohadocs.git;a=summary

==========
Translations
==========

Complete or near-complete translations are available in this release for the following languages:

  • French (100%)
  • Spanish (100%)
  • German (100%)
  • Chinese -Ta√Øwan- (97%, OPAC 100%)
  • Italian (86%, OPAC 100%)
  • Danish (81%)
  • Portuguese (79%)
  • French -canada- (76%)
  • English -nz- (76%)
  • Greek (74%)
  • Norwegian (73%)

Note that some strings in online help have been introduced after string freeze, so:

  • the previous number don’t count them
  • you’ll find some strings in english in online help

Partial (less than 50%) translations are available for various other languages.

The Koha team welcomes additional translations; please see

http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Translating_Koha

for information about translating Koha, and join the koha-translate list to volunteer:

http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-translate

The most up-to-date translations can be found at:

http://translate.koha-community.org/

==========
Release Team
==========

The release team for Koha 3.8 is

Release Manager: Paul Poulain Documentation Manager: Nicole C Engard
Translation Manager: Frédéric Demians
QA Manager: Ian Walls
QA team: Marcel de Rooy , Jonathan Druart
Bug Wranglers: Katrin Fischer, Magnus Enger
Release Maintainer (3.4.x): Chris Nighswonger
Release Maintainer (3.6.x): Chris Nighswonger
Release Maintainer (3.8.x): Chris Cormack

==========
Credits
==========

The following individuals contributed patches to Koha 3.8.0.:
Paul Poulain
Owen Leonard
Katrin Fischer
Chris Cormack
Colin Campbell
Marcel de Rooy
Dobrica Pavlinusic
Nicole C. Engard
Kyle M Hall
Ian Walls
Jonathan Druart
Jared Camins-Esakov
Adrien Saurat
Frédéric Demians
Julian Maurice
Srdjan Jankovic
Liz Rea
Robin Sheat
Magnus Enger
Duncan Tyler
Elliott Davis
Garry Collum
Chris Hall
Frédérick Capovilla
MJ Ray
Juan Romay Sieira
Chris Nighswonger
Alex Arnaud
Sam Sanders
Maxime Pelletier
Matthias Meusburger
Sophie Meynieux
Tomas Cohen Arazi
Mason James
Marc Balmer
Stéphane Delaune
Henri-Damien Laurent
D Ruth Bavousett
Connor Dewar
Christophe Croullebois
Zeno Tajoli
Gaetan Boisson
Aleksa Vujicic
Brendan Gallagher
Marc Veron
Galen Charlton
Serhij Dubyk {–°–µ—Ä–≥—ñ–π –î—É–±–∏–∫}
Janusz Kaczmarek
Salvador Zaragoza Rubio
Koustubha Kale
Kate Henderson
Jono Mingard
Albert Oller
Frère Sébastien Marie
Martin Renvoize
Peter Lorimer
Bart Jorgensen
Jorgia Kelsey
Lyon3 Team
James Mason
Jesse Maseto
Fridolyn Sommers
Jon Aker
Greg Barniskis
Joy Nelson
Nahuel Angelinetti

We regret any omissions. If a contributor has been inadvertently missed, please send a patch against these release notes to koha-patches@lists.koha-community.org.

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Bugs and feature requests
==========

Bug reports and feature requests can be filed at the Koha bug tracker at

http://bugs.koha-community.org/

Read more by Nicole C.

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